So, it was with the opening ceremony and so it will be as the days unfold; wonder and astonishment, surprise and disappointment.
How did the Paris push the boats out with an inseinely bold, if patchy, opening ceremony? How is it possible for so many athletes to do what they do?
On display is flawed and feckless humanity playing "games", while a warming climate smoulders and atrocities abound. Nations run by monsters share the stage. Cheats still abound.
There is magnificent talk of Olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship while corruption no doubt lingers, and privilege predominates.
The four-hour aquatic opening, timed to match the sunset, was drenched but not drowned by rain. Many were gaga over its innovation, daring and style, for "inspiring a dream". Others called it a "mess".
Overall, it was spectacular, varied and very French. It took risks and was risqué. Mostly it came off. More than 3000 musicians, dancers, singers and actors performed as the athletes’ boats chugged along and the flame was conveyed to the balloon caldron.
Towering and sparkling over parts of the ceremony was, of course, Gustave Eiffel’s masterpiece.
The emotion of Celine Dion’s first live performance in four years, as she confronts stiff-person syndrome, will linger. Edith Piaf would have been proud of Dion’s rendition of Piaf’s Hymne de l’Amour (Hymn To Love) on the Eiffel Tower itself.
New Zealand has started slowly, the male rugby sevens gone from medal contention well before the official speeches were delivered. Dunedin’s hope Erika Fairweather came so close to bronze in her premier race. The main hope of the other swimming prospect, Lewis Clareburt, unfortunately, dived.
As he bravely said after his final, if it doesn’t click on the day itself you perform well below your best. Years of striving for a single peak sink in anticlimax. For every winner, numerous who fall short.
It shows how tough the Olympics are and how difficult it will be to come even close to New Zealand’s extraordinary Tokyo medal tally three years ago.
The French, however, marchons to the gold medal playing of La Marseillaise, led by swimming sensation Leon Marchand. The host’s success always gives the Games a lift. Sport is steeped in both helpful and unhealthy nationalism. The Olympics present the grandest stage, for better and for worse.
Sport is also renowned for serving as a distraction from the cares of life. It engages and excites but does not matter compared to deep issues and personal tragedies. That is an element of the attraction.
The XXXIII Olympiad has already dazzled; witness United States gymnast Simone Biles.
And it has disheartened. Canadian women’s football officials, supporting the playing-through gold medalists, proved cheating champions.
Officially, "the three values of olympism are excellence, respect and friendship. They constitute the foundation on which the Olympic movement builds its activities to promote sport, culture and education with a view to building a better world.".
Unofficially, it is easy to scoff at such idealism.
The world, nevertheless, needs principles and goals even though they are corroded and corrupted by reality.
The Olympics are the greatest human show on earth. As such, they reflect humanity in its brilliance, its potential, its co-operation and its glory. As such, they are laced with division, deceit, selfishness and hypocrisy.
C’est la vie.
