With Just a Few Short Words at the Peak of His Career, Oscar Winner Ryan Coogler Just Taught a Brilliant Lesson in What Actually Matters

Glory that forgets it’s temporary has a way of becoming something you don’t want.

EXPERT OPINION BY BILL MURPHY JR., FOUNDER OF UNDERSTANDABLY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, INC. @BILLMURPHYJR

Ryan Coogler. Photo: Getty Images

The ancient Greeks understood something that we seem to have forgotten.

When they wanted to honor their greatest champions — the winners of the Olympic Games, the Pythian Games, the greatest athletes and artists of the ancient world — they them gave a wreath of leaves.

Wild olive at Olympia. Bay laurel at Delphi.

The crown was perishable on purpose — a reminder that the glory it represented was perishable, too.

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The Romans took this idea further. When a great general returned home from battle, Rome would grant him a “triumph” — a ceremonial procession through the streets that was essentially the ancient world’s version of a ticker-tape parade, except grander, louder, and more elaborate than anything we do today.

The victorious general would ride in a chariot drawn by four horses. The crowds would roar. The whole city would turn out.

Riding in that same chariot, standing just behind the general at the height of his glory, was a slave.

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