Real wages are lower than they were a decade ago. The start-up rate has declined. Over the past generation, Australia has become more unequal and less socially connected.
Sport isn’t perfect, but it has lessons to teach us about building a fairer society and a stronger economy. Sport shows that we don’t have to choose between excellence and decency. Sport reminds us of the importance of social mobility. Sport defines the notion of a level playing field.
Fundamentally, sport reminds us that when it comes to exercise – and the economy – participation matters.
In Why We Swim, Bonnie Tsui describes how the“act of swimming can be one of healing, and health—a way to well-being. Swimming together can be a way to find community, through a team, a club, or a shared, beloved body of water”. She goes on to observe: “Swimming is about the mind, too. To find rhythm in the water is to discover a new way of being in the water, through flow.”
Over the two years he lived by Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau started each day with a swim, calling it “a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did”. For my own part, I love the simplicity of the activity—the meditative way in which an easy swim lets your mind wander, the intensity of a lung-busting sprint session, the crystalline beauty of an outdoor pool in the summer. And I enjoy the camaraderie of a swim squad—the encouragement of the coach, the cajoling of fellow swimmers, the banter in the showers afterwards.
Running is inextricably connected to our evolution: “You had to love running, or you wouldn’t live to love anything else”.
