Where I’ve been
No excuses, just a reason. I have been keeping up my running, but I’ve been in a weird place. I have said before that every interaction you have in life builds up who you are. Some are good, some are bad, most have barely any effect at all. But there are some people, parents, maybe a teacher, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors who can have a profound impact on you.
I did not have a lot of friends as a kid. Of the few friends I did have there was one house where no matter what was going on I was always welcome. My friend’s mom was always greeting everyone with a smile, she’d even play video games with us, or just talk to us. She was an educator and a historian. Even though she had her work, and research, and societies which she belonged to, she made time for the kids, all of us. After a very sudden illness she died the other day and I’ve been dealing with all this. Trying to be there for my friend and his family the best I can, and trying to process my feelings from my end.
My parents gave me so much of my care and drive to help people, to raise everyone up, to make sure every human being is treated with dignity and respect regardless of where they were born, who their parents were, what god they pray to, who they love, where they work, if they work, whatever. Valerie taught me a different side of this though. She knew her story, she knew where she came from and she taught us. She showed us the shackles they brought her ancestors to the New World in. She discussed the racism, apartheid, she shared with us her personal stories about her experiences even in “liberal, enlightened Connecticut.” She was not shy, she was not ashamed. As I sat and listened, I could feel the hurt and the anger, but she never showed it. Even if I didn’t realize it then, she taught me how to listen to other people’s stories and not just take in the words, but to truly take in all of what was said. But it also taught me that no matter what I thought of where society was, or is, I need to listen to other people and accept their experiences, and that I am not the final judge or arbiter of where society stands.
What is amazing is, she didn’t just stop at her family and friends. She reached out to the community at large and taught people about all these things. Fully engaged in teaching New Haven about its own history. Through the Greater New Haven African American Historical Society and Ethnic Heritage Center. They did tours through New Haven of very important sites, even finding a secret room in a house in New Haven that most likely was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Her and her fellow historians brought these lessons out into the community and made New Haven a better place.
More than that, those talks also gave me an appreciation for education in general. She wasn’t the only person to tell me the virtues of good education. Not just in a school, just taking the time to learn for yourself, to pursue your own interests in subjects. I definitely would not be an English teacher today without her. I would not have had such in interest in archaeology and history by far. I definitely would not have the perspective on it all that I have today.
I’m glad I got the chance to hang out with the family during Christmas, I feel bad I didn’t stop right in when I got back here this Summer. Loss is hard to deal with. I’m always left wondering if I’ve done enough to live up to what people have given to me. I know so many people have said they just wish me to be happy and healthy, but I feel if people are giving me such wonderful lessons about life and giving me fun, happy, safe places to learn and grow then I really do feel like I owe it to them to do more. I know I can’t help disappointing people at some point, life is full of highs and lows, of successes and failures. I just hope I succeed more than I fail and that all the people who helped get me there are happy they helped me reach that point, and that they feel the time, care, knowledge they used on me was worth it.
That seems like a lot of pressure to put on oneself, put that’s always been the pressure I’ve felt. I am my worst critic by far. Always hoping I did enough, always looking to do better. It can be difficult sometimes, but I wouldn’t want to be any other way. I wouldn’t want to be complacent with myself. First, I’d be a jerk. Second, I think that would be horribly boring. I don’t want to be better so I can walk around talking about how great I am. If I want to raise everyone else up, I have to be strong enough to lift. I have to be kind and compassionate enough to extend that help to all who ask for it. I have to be humble enough to excuse myself when someone doesn’t want that help. Every day, as I say, work to be better than I was the day before. The only competition I’m interested in, against myself.
Not to get too sad, but I’d be remiss at this point if I didn’t mention I actually had two wakes at the same time happening. It was very difficult to miss one, but my cousin was there to pass along my condolences. I have limits and sometimes I don’t want to push them. Let’s go out and do the best we can every day. Also, let’s take the lessons we learn and pass them on, it’s the best way to honor the people who gave us those lessons, it’s the way to keep their memory going.
Have fun, keep running and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
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Looking up, kind of
Alright, it was the ‘Murica Day holiday on Tuesday, so I didn’t run. Made it to the club run last night which was fun. Got to talk to a new member (sort of) and have fun until I had to run off to get my dad’s car dropped off for some work it needed. The club run did not record on my Garmin for some reason. But today’s run did. My headphones broke this morning, so I had no music and then it was raining on me. So I kind of lost my focus toward the end. Oh well. However, upon returning to my house I had a message from my sister that a large retailer was hiring in my town, so I applied. I have an interview on Tuesday, so we’ll see what happens.
If I can get enough hours and do the things I want to do this will work out well. I know sacrifices will have to be made unfortunately. I did run out and get new headphones too, so I’ll give those a go. I went back to JVC, but bluetooth, the product line has worked well for me in the past, and hopefully these will continue that tradition. Still haven’t been paid for the extra contract I took on at the end of the school year, pretty angry about that. But I will remain patient.
I found myself re-examining my philosophy on freedom, and where it comes from. Because one of the people I was talking with on the club run had an extensive military history, and we ended up talking a little bit about that stuff. I keep returning to the same conclusion though. No matter what the government is, no matter what the rules are, you are only as free as you allow yourself to be. Yes, there may be consequences for your freedom, but that’s just the way it is. I don’t require a government to “protect” my freedoms, I only require my own courage. No government, military, piece of paper, nothing gives any human being freedom save their own willingness to face any consequences. Not that things should always have negative consequences.
That is a different argument though, what should and shouldn’t be allowed to be done without consequence. Governments shouldn’t be in the business of deciding who lives or dies, that’s for certain. Yet still, it’s up to the people to demand justice. Any government not deriving its power from the consent of the people is illegitimate. But who is to say who should be removed by force. If the people refuse to capitulate to the illegitimate government’s demands they will be forced to stop. The problem is too many people are too obedient. Why there aren’t mass protests shutting shit down everywhere at this point amazes me.
Look at all the political arguments across the globe, they’re all the same. How is it possible all governments in the world aren’t doing a damned thing to stop the problems causing so many people to flee their homes and look for safe haven elsewhere, yet at the same time refuse to let in “too many” refugees? How is that possible? How is it possible the economy runs off of exploiting workers all over the world, and yet all governments are refusing to protect their workers from being exploited? Some are working hard to destroy the safeguards won by generations past, others are setting up rules to ensure those safeguards can never be put in place.
So many people are complicit in this system, if they just were to stop force everything to grind to a halt, force their voices to be heard it would all end. Yes, some governments would respond with violence, some people would die. It wouldn’t be all sunshine and lollipops, but it would work. It needs to work. If you look through history it does work. In fact, it is the only thing which ever has. We think of the “Founding Fathers” (for all their major flaws) as “Americans” but they weren’t. They were British. They were citizens of the crown, it was an internal conflict. History is filled with peasant revolts, general strikes, specific strikes, slow-downs, demonstrations, this is how the people have forced the oligarchs to allow them freedom of whatever those people were fighting for. But it’s always followed by the oligarchs finding a way to keep control, either by proxy or directly.
You want to fight for freedom? Go on strike, organize with your coworkers, your neighbors, demand more. There’s no outside force trying to take anything from you, it is all internal. I know what people think, “but what about this country doing this, or that one doing that?” No oligarch anywhere could have ever done anything without the obedience, the capitulation of their population. If you cow the people into not resisting you, then you can do these things. Worse, if you get people to believe that acting externally and punishing other peoples can enrich their lives, you can commit some of the worst crimes humanity is aware of. Refuse to participate, militarily, economically, socially. I don’t watch reality shows, I don’t follow trends, I don’t give a crap about the latest “Rah Rah the world is awesome” music. I decide to fight, in my own small way, every day. Stop participating, stop allowing this to happen.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
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We hold these truths
So yesterday was my running club’s annual 4th of July race, they decided to do it on the weekend, instead of the actual 4th as they traditionally did. We show up early and run the course as a club before, well some of us do. So I went and did that and had a great day catching up with as many friends as I could. Even met some new friends which was totally cool. Then I waited until the Sun was low in the sky before running today, and still struggled because the air quality was horrible. As tough as it is in Italy sometimes, it seems like my lungs burn much worse here.
So I’ve mentioned before I run by the Amistad Memorial when I run past City Hall in New Haven. People have been posting all their ‘Murica posts, and whatnot and as I passed by today it bothered me. I love that there was justice in New Haven on this particular case. But the whole thing should have never happened. I’ve talked about this in pieces before. The founders of this nation wrote a document we celebrate every July 4th and it claimed “all men are created equal”, and yet they owned slaves and claimed that those men weren’t equal. They didn’t treat women equal, and well generally if you weren’t rich and European and a man, you were screwed.
In one breath they’re talking about freedom and equality and on the other hand they codified slavery, the idea that those slaves weren’t people (3/5ths look it up). They weren’t interested in freedom or equality (ok, a very few of them did argue for abolition then but clearly not enough). They weren’t great minds, they weren’t “enlightened”, they were just shitty rich guys screwing over whomever they could. They didn’t want soldiers in their homes, fine. They wanted a say in legislation that effected them, whatever. They turned around and they kept other people as property. They made that part of the law, that you were allowed to keep other humans beings, buy, sell, trade, treat them as property.
All these years later, there’s never been a proper apology and there’s never been recompense to the descendants of those unjustly held. They were promised a payment, and it was never made. Then we have so many people running around saying that the descendants of slaves; who never had any inheritance, had their history, culture, and identities ripped from them, their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents had their husbands, wives, children ripped from them and sold off or worse, are somehow to blame for not having these things. After being “set free” they were still treated as less than. Driven away from the voting booths, denied education, basic services, jobs, any sense of equal treatment. Their lives were forfeit at the drop of a hat, just because of an accusation. Still to this day, when police and even citizens murder them in cold blood they merely have to say they “felt threatened” and they are let go.
At no point has this nation dealt with this. At no point, even after a war over slavery, have we ever rectified this situation. We continue on, and people that have benefited directly or indirectly from this system continue to profit and those who have been victimized continue to be victimized, and if you talk about it you’re “divisive”. No, I’m not. I’m trying to bring about real unity. Unity isn’t achieved through everyone ignoring the past and blaming the poor for being poor, and blaming the victims for being victims, and claiming “the past is the past”. Unity is found through accepting the damage that has been done and putting an end to injustice. Truly putting an end to it. That won’t happen until we literally destroy the system which created the past. If you keep the system, there will always be inequity, and the many will always force the few to suffer. They will justify it however they want, and that is true across the board.
So I’m not too much into celebrating, never really have been. It needs to end, it is evident with the idiot we have posing as a head of state right now. His video tweet this morning was another completely indecent display of jackassery. But it is a glimpse into the buffoonery which has weaved it way through the history of this country, and much of the world. This is what we have sewn. We should have thousands of statues and memorials around the country to all the slave revolts, all labor strikes, all the times the real people, the exploited, the hunted, the disenfranchised tried valiantly to fight back, to gain ground. We don’t, there are controversies over removing statues and monuments to the people who fought to oppress! We elect the people who want so badly to uphold the injustice to office, and cheer their speeches full of hate and bigotry.
So no, I’m not celebrating, sure I’ll go see my family and I’ll celebrate them. But this shit needs to change, and yesterday.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
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Half a year done
We’re midway through 2017. Let’s hope overall the second half is better than this joke of a first half with these idiots running things. Although we beat a fascist in France, and dealt a big blow to the near-fascist neo-cons in the UK. Meanwhile, on the running front, I’m just about at where I want to be for the year, I think 3 miles short overall. If I keep up my current distance I’ll go over 1600 miles (2575 km). My heel is getting better, my knee is still a little tweaked, but overall, halfway there, I feel pretty good. But my speed is not there right now, of course, injury right? I mean that’s the way it goes.
So I did run yesterday and Wednesday. Yesterday’s run was actually pretty good, but I am tired. I have done lots of miles over the last two weeks, so there’s so fatigue there. I’m also not doing well given that things are slow here. No one needs any help and the couple places that have, not interested in someone leaving at the end of September. That’s getting me down a little bit. It is tough here, I actually forgot how it all makes me feel. Unless I had a very compelling reason, I don’t think I could come back here full time. My friends and family are great and all, but it just isn’t the same.
The political situation doesn’t help matters for sure. The Traffic Cone Con said some really nasty things about a morning news show host yesterday, and it was unreal. I mean the baseless idiocy, the cruelty of these tweets was way beneath the dignity of the office he occupies (I feel illegally). I can be pretty mean to people sometimes, but this was so awful. He’s like a child who never got disciplined. He’s the most spoiled known human being in existence, no sense of propriety or decency. I’ve always known this, this is not a shock to me, it’s so disgusting to see people defend it or attempt to. It’s disgusting to see it being referred to as “leadership.” I have so many problems with modern “First World” nations and their policies in general. I don’t agree with any party, philosophically, ethically, I’m closest to the Greens. But the Greens (at least in the US) do nothing to actually build a movement and take over a system which needs to be changed. It seems like angry rich people just buying losing presidential bids. No attempt at local organization, you never see Green Party candidates for Board of Education or Town Council.
Well, the higher inequality goes the closer we get to violent revolution. That’s just what you see as you look through history. So I suppose there’s that. But I think that’s a fairly long way off at this point. So we will see and try to be patient.
All I know is I’ve been in the US for two weeks and I’m stressed out.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
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