I. One particularly interesting feature of human reality that exemplifies our dynamism and creativity is the limits and boundaries to which people push their bodies or their craft. Spurred initially by watching the Olympics, I have begun reflecting on the kind of craft involved with being the best in the world at something. There is something enthralling and beautiful to me about watching someone at the very top of their game performing in ways no other human ever has or ever will, in the foreseeable future. This has led me to think about human excellence more generally.
II. Human excellence isn't merely about being good or talented at something, nor about winning some competition, or even about being the best in the world. Human excellence, as I will be using it, is something more than that. It is when craft becomes art. What do I mean by this? Ordinarily, we seem to make a distinction between craft and art, where craft is some skill or practice and art is a product, imbued with the aesthetic imprint of an artist. Thus, what I take to be human excellence is when some craft itself becomes art. Rather than being merely the process that produces something, acting out the craft becomes itself its own aesthetic product. Human excellence is the peculiar aesthetic quality some skill takes on when it is performed at such a high level, to the point that it seems effortless, and utterly one-of-a-kind.