I went and saw “High Fidelity” this weekend. It is a film about break-ups and seemed fitting therapy for Sydney in the Olympics aftermath. Since the world packed up and left, the city’s mood has been that of a lonesome ex-lover – insecure and suddenly empty.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought John Cusack’s struggle to pick up the pieces had bearing on post-Olympic blues. Ian Thorpe, the Australian swimmer and national superhero, also sought solace in the theater with me this past Friday. He sat in my row with his parents at the little theater in my suburb, Manly, licking at an ice cream cone.

If I’d had the gumption to go up and talk to him after the show, a good question to ask him might have been “Who are you now that the Olympics are over?”

For so long his life had been a romance with swimming. He put everything he had into it and surely in a large part defined himself in terms of the adoration that accompanied it.

But now, it’s all over. No longer is he the object of the world’s attention and affection. Now he’s just another guy at the movie-theater with his parents, an ice cream cone and an uncertain future.

The sad fact is that two weeks later, no one really cares about the Olympics, and no one will again for another four years. The experience for an Olympic city mirrors the experience of the Olympic athlete. There are years and years of preparation culminating in a brief climax of glory, followed by mere memories.

Make no mistake, the Olympics were marvelously successful. Everyone in Sydney had almost taken it for granted that there would be some large-scale disaster, but in the end, all the finger crossing seemed to pay off.

Everything went better than Australians dared to dream, and the world took notice. At the closing ceremonies, the president of the International Olympics Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, put the topper on a mountain of Sydney praise. He eulogized it as “the best Olympics ever.”

For Australia, though, the Olympics weren’t just about holding a rippin’ good sporting festival. It was looking for what it has been looking for ever since it elected to become a nation in 1901: a sense of identity.

Australians are partly bothered by the fact that people around the world think of them as little more than boomerang-toting marsupial-cowboys, if they bother to think of them at all.

An outstanding performance staging the 2000 Games was intended to give the international community some new imagery to digest. But Australians themselves are just a little bit insecure about what exactly it is that they’re all about, and a local Olympics provided a chance to rally national pride.

Much like pre-20th century America, Australians have precious little history from which to coalesce a sense of national identity and what it does have is sort of a mixed bag.

Their colonial beginnings leave a legacy of crime, their treatment of native Aborigines and immigrants leave a legacy of racism and their spectacular loss at Gallipoli in W.W. I left a legacy of martyrdom.

The Union Jack still hangs out in the upper left corner of the Aussie flag, keeping a motherly watch over the Southern Cross. Despite being essentially an independent nation, the English monarch still acts as the official Australian head of state. Elizabeth II can dissolve the Australian government at any time she feels the whim, and in the 1970s she did to resolve a conflict of leadership.

Just a few years ago, Australians voted on a referendum to dissolve all governmental ties to Britain and become a full-fledged republic. It was defeated quite soundly, but most Australians support full independence.

The problems with the referendum were in the details of the new system of government proposed, such as the selection of the prime minister by the cabinet, instead of by the people directly.

In the end though, regardless of the relative unity in attitude, the referendum left Australia feeling somewhat unsure of itself. But then, for 16 glorious days in September, all of that insecurity was washed away.

During the Olympics, being an Australian didn’t need an explanation. It had a meaning all its own. And now, all of that euphoric pride is fading as the Olympics are forgotten and Australia recedes from the world’s collective consciousness.

If the break-up analogy holds, then Australia finds itself facing the same difficult step in recovery and maturity that John Cusack faced in “High Fidelity.” It must now muster up the confidence from the inside that the ecstasy of the Olympics provided from the outside.

Luckily, Australia is a beautiful, intelligent, good-natured and wholly unique country. In the end, a more permanent sense of self-worth will come not from external sources, but from continued exploration of itself. I’m sure the same holds for you, Ian. Best of luck.