34 and counting. HB Jon.

The Paris 2024 Olympics

Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images

REUTERS - Christian Hartmann

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Juliette Armanet and Sofiane Pamart performing 'Imagine' afloat a flaming piano (Image via Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

It was a Friday coming into the weekend, and what a week it was son. Ending into a new era of consciousness and blessings in my personal journey.

It was always a fresh new personal beginning for me and your day was marked by the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Finding online comments and reactions strangely negative, even hostile, I, on the other hand was totally enthralled by the 5-hour long opening ceremony that marked the coming of age of human creativity and ingenuity in the telling of the story of the Olympics in the modern era to people of all ages. 

The French did just that by bringing French culture- art, history, music, dance, fashion, theatre and digital storytelling to the streets, skies and rivers from the cities of Marseilles to Paris turning the entire opening ceremony into a long and extended indulgent foreplay with no end in sight. Until the opening speeches at the Trocadero, one would guess that the Olympic cauldron would be lit, at the base of the Eiffel Tower erupting at the top of the tower as the climax, but it wasn't to be. 

It was instead designated to another venue of significance when the torch emerged, from it's long journey, under the catwalk of the Trocadero to continue it's extended journey to the Tuileries Gardens. Located just outside the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris to a flying cauldron- A ring of fire 7 meters in diameter harnessed to a hot air balloon. 

The French Montgolfier brothers invented the hot air balloon in 1783 and launched it at the very same spot. Once lit it hovers 60 meters over the city at night turning itself into another breathtaking landmark or 'skymark' to compliment the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees during the games. You'd make an excellent conversationalist, commentator, pundit, writer, journalist, historian and fanatic when it comes to these things I guess.

Time has passed quickly since your sixteenth and two weeks after your sixteenth. Eighteen years have flown by in a heartbeat. In comparison, gfh now aka gfhX is on our 27th year and growing. 

One can only imagine how magnificent you look at 34. But then again, you have looked magnificent since the day you were born. Seeing you at thirteen, fifteen or sixteen is witnessing a phenomenon unfold like a flower from the bud. As you stride into proper adulthood you're probably just a more substantial, more matured, more thoughtful, kind and compassionate human being. Shouldering the weights and burdens of this world with a light-heartedness that only you know how. You'd have your fair share of heartaches, heartbreaks, joy and happiness, disappointments and unexpected blessings and you'd treat all these imposters just the same. With nonchalance. With a disenchanted wonder. Because you know that life is ephemeral and if I might add, that one should not attach oneself to people, places and things that are impermanent.  

"A flower is only a flower because it falls." ~ Lady Mariko in Shogun. 

Nothing delivers the message of impermanence more than a flower and no other race of people understand the certainty of death more than the Japanese. Perhaps that is why they kill, and are willing to die so readily. 

Despite their brutality, cruelty, and lust for power and conquest, the Japanese seem to have regaled in an extraordinary past and to a lesser extent in possession of a beautiful present as a wonderful legacy gifted by the ancients. 

The games ended last night, Sunday 11 August, 3 days after your departure on the 9th. 

What an eventful and enjoyable fortnight of 26 July to 11 August and what a brilliant & fitting coincidence to celebrate your 34th. 

My personal highlights (apart from the opening gambit) of the games were as follows;

• two bronze medals for Malaysia by the men's badminton singles and doubles team. Lee Zii Jia silenced his critics with silence. This makes Malaysia the most successful country in the Olympic Games winning 15 medals without winning a gold medal. 

• a tenacious, spunky and quick as lightning 22 year-old singles badminton player from India, Laksya Sen who lost to Zii Jia and the bronze medal in a thrilling three setter. 

• the surprise gold medalist in the mens 200M finals- Letsile Tobogo 21, won Botswana's first gold medal at the olympics. 

• another super feat was achieved by Julien Alfred 23, from St. Lucia who soundly beat 3 American sprinters to the tape in the premier event of the womens 100M finals to win her country's first Olympic medal- a Gold. Three days later she was edged out by an American by two tenth, and settled for the Silver in the womens 200M finals earning 2 medals for St. Lucia with a total delegation of four athletes. 

• China's men and women's dominance on the diving platforms were breathtaking to watch. 

• The most individual gold medals was won by 22 year-old new French swimming superstar Leon Marchand. He won 4 golds and 1 bronze. He was also the athlete given the honour to carry the Olympic flame contained in an antique lamp to be extinguished at the closing ceremony. 

Thus ends another instalment of the greatest show on earth in the form of the Paris 2024 Olympics. What fitting tribute it was to a sportsman like you for it to fall on your birthday. 

Happy 34th son. 

Au Revoir.