Sitting on the couch eating ice cream this week, watching a bunch of teenage snowboarders (one of whom earns $10 million a year) competing in Vancouver's XXI Winter Olympics, I turned to my husband and shrieked, "I've never felt like such an under-achiever!" And then things got worse. Channel Seven cut to an interview with 15-year-old Victorian snowboarder Scotty James, and my mouth was hanging on the floor because he was so incredibly mesmerising. "You're old enough to be his mother," chastised my husband, and I closed my mouth with a reality-checked  gulp.

Once again, the world comes together - united not by disaster, earthquake or catastrophe (for a nice change), but celebration and achievement - and opens our eyes to the extraordinary feats that human beings are capable of. And little Scotty is an angelic-looking reminder that large scale greatness is achievable at any age, if only we manifest powerfully and keep our cool (excuse the Winter Olympics pun).

And the backdrop of glittering snow and ice currently dominating our TV screens and newspapers? A subtle reminder of humans' delicate, neverending dance with the elements: we seemingly control them, carve them up and conquer them in one moment, then find ourselves completely our of control and plunged to our death in the next. An apt metaphor for our greater environment, and Mother Earth, n'est-ce pas?