Unbelievable

Belief and trust in an age of racing suspicion.

AI generation of an “Impressionistic painting of a crowd in judgement of the performers and themselves."

We moderns love a good athlete.

They’re the physical exemplars, idols who inspire us through gritty, brilliant, muscular, and acrobatic performance.

There’s something spiritual in our admiration. Children hang athletes’ posters on bedroom walls like Byzantine icons. Society showers the greatest with riches and acclaim, indulgences redeemed on the altar of entertainment.

Small surprise then that modern athleticism takes its cues from religious history. The ancient Olympiad, that classical template for all things athletic, was itself a Grecian religious festival. The quadrennial competitions, wherein oiled-up Greeks sprinted, lifted, and rolled around with each other, were featured alongside ritual sacrifices honoring Zeus.

When you think of the ancient Olympics, you might picture well-coiffed Greeks sitting in bleached-stone stadiums, watching stoic philosopher-warriors huff around an o…