What a Day!
Seriously, just wonderful weather, great classes this morning. I ended up going much faster than I intended, and in the end I’m in a little bit of discomfort because of it. But today was just fantastic, so clear I could see all the way to the Gargano Peninsula (The “Spur” of the boot)! But, between the coffee and the poor hydration this morning, the warm weather and speed, I’m just drinking tons of water right now because I feel like Alien is boring its way through my gut right now. But I also finally figured out how to change the playlist order on my mp3 player. Since I did not end up getting a proper Sony Walkman replacement yet, due to inventory issues. So the one that I have is cheap and pretty crappy. But for the first time in a month I heard different songs! Ah, that was nice.
So, I’ve been tracking my miles as usual on my Garmin, but I’ve also been using Charity Miles recently. But sometimes it gets messed up and doesn’t record for some reason, and you can’t add from a fitness watch or anything, because the whole way Charity Miles works is they put an advertisement on your phone and the company is paying Charity Miles for that ad you “see” and part of that money goes to the charity you select. But I don’t look at the damned ad anyway, I don’t care what company is sponsoring me, they have plenty of money to give, I do not. I will buy their products if I need them, not because they are paying for ad space, and some of that money goes to a worthy cause. So that’s 10 miles the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society won’t be getting today. I used to raise for the MS Society, and will again in the future surely. However, currently one of the members of my running club was diagnosed and subsequently fought and is now in remission of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. For support, a large portion of the running club has been running with the Charity Miles app. Any of you who follow my personal FB page have noticed I’ve been posting from the app with the tag #M4M, that’s where that comes from, Miles for Melissa is what we’re doing.
This brings me to today’s point. I don’t do any of this to get a pat on the back. I don’t do what I do so people think I’m a nice person. I do what I do, because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to try and stop unnecessary human impact on the environment. To stop human beings from dehumanizing other humans for their own purposes in the forms of racism, sexism, religious, or gender bigotry, ableism, or any of the other bullshit we do. It’s right to try and get people to look at animals as our evolutionary cousins, and that they should be treated with some dignity and respect, and we should learn to live with them, instead of trying to force them to live within our structures which they do not understand. To encourage humans to do what we are meant to do, the only purpose we have, to look in our ourselves, as an extension of the Universe, and explore it all, and figure it out, to discover, not to conquer. It is right to demand peace, to demand a death of fascism, to demand we move on from the old ways and the old philosophies, and the hatred, and start to realize a better world. Not for me, not so I am held as some hero, shit forget me. This is just about doing what’s right. Personal story-time:
This year one of my grandmother’s older sisters, in fact her last older sister, died. Aunt Helen (as we called her, her name was Elena) was 102 years-old. Aunt Helen’s husband, Uncle Tony, had died years earlier, somewhere in his mid-90s. Well, they never had children. Without sharing the gory details, while Uncle Tony was a generous man to family and friends, he was a womanizer, and that caught up with him early in life. Anyway, the nieces and nephews that were in the area would help out. Get Aunt Helen to the store, just come over and say “Hi”, take them places, it was like we were all their children and grandchildren in a way. I’m pretty sure almost all the men in the family ended up working with Uncle Tony in his carpentry business at some point in our lives.
But everyone pitched in to help out when we could. Usually I would cut the lawn, rake the leaves, clean up the outdoors, things like that. After my grandfather could no longer go and help them with plumbing issues, the job usually fell to me, unless it was something that I simply could not do. Then when I started working with Uncle Tony I would start fixing other things around the house Uncle Tony couldn’t do anymore, siding the garage, fixing window casing and things like that. They would always hand me, and everyone else money for doing these things. None of us (to my knowledge) did any of these things for the money, or so anyone else would talk about how good we were, we did these things because they were the right thing to do.
If you’re doing things because of the money, or because of the praise and accolades, because you want a pat on the back, then you’re doing them for the wrong reasons. Yes, even your damned job. Life is not supposed to be one long transaction, it’s just supposed to be action, and discovery. You should do the right thing in the hope that one day, if everyone is figuring out that doing the right thing is the way to go, this world won’t suck as much as it does. Lead by example. Yeah, when people are being really shit and need to change their ways, I call them the hell out. But still, it’s up to them to “come to Jesus,” to “bring the mountain to Mohammed.” They have to do the work, they have to make the decision to change their ways. I’ve changed over the years surely. I’m always looking to correct wrong ideas of my own, to improve myself, and the impact I make on this world. I can only be a voice of guidance (I hope) if I’m living up to the standards I’m setting. You see it all the time now in International relations, Country A admonishes Country B; Country B says “Right, but look at the horrible shit Country A does.” Usually Country A is the US now, good job on never changing foreign policy over decades regardless of administration idiots. But, my point is, if you’re a hypocrite there is almost zero chance anyone will listen to you. If you do your best, even if you slip up, make mistakes then it is ok. We are all going to make mistakes at times, and we have to take our lumps and move on. You can’t get all shitty and defensive about it, admit your mistake and move on.
But that’s that, if you’re doing what you’re doing for the wrong reasons, you will fail. If you are being a hypocrite you will get found out. Be true to yourself, fight for what’s right. Keep looking to improve and when you mess up and someone calls you on it, take a minute and take a step back and look at yourself, and see if you can make it better. If you can’t then so be it, if you can, then be willing to change, have some damned humility. Humility is the greatest lesson in this world. I think that’s why so very many of the runners I meet are such decent people (there are always exceptions though); because this endeavor is so humbling. Pushing your body as far as so many of us do really does have an amazing effect of keeping you grounded, because as great as so many of us feel at the end of our runs, there is so much during each one of our runs that are right on the edge of disaster. Sometimes, disaster does strike too. I’ve seen leaders of races collapses. I’ve passed Elite runners sitting on the side of the road, I’ve had to move to the side of the road to let ambulances past to get to fallen runners ahead. We’ve all read headlines of runners (and some of us knew runners) struck by cars and killed or maimed. I myself was struck by a car, with no ill-effects (amazing). Weather, wind, wild animals, so much can go wrong externally, and internally. We all love my gastric distress stories, I know!
Humility, that’s the key, be humble, and get involved. That’s what we need to do. If you’re having trouble with that humility, start running, you’ll learn it soon enough. Oh, other good practice I’ve been working on. If you comment online, or someone comments on something you said, say what you need to, but if it’s not an argument, just let your friend have the last word. Even if you have something clever, or fun or whatever to follow with, let them have the last word.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
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