{"id":1503,"date":"2017-10-12T09:53:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T14:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gilcanrun.com\/?p=1503"},"modified":"2017-10-12T09:53:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T14:53:57","slug":"searching-for-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gilcanrun.com\/?p=1503","title":{"rendered":"Searching for more"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I did not run yesterday because I ended up having to go in earlier than originally planned for work, and then it rained all morning! So when I went out today I was feeling kind of meh. But I managed a decent 5 miles<\/a> and even stretched out some pace at the end. I tried to hit 6:26\/mi (about 4:00\/km) I was a little slower than that. I think if I really worked I could do it. I really do think with enough discipline I can manage a sub-20 5k.
\nSo getting faster is in the cards, I’m also looking at expanding my mind. In my spare time I’m going to start researching grants and opportunities. I know it means I’ll need to subject myself to reams upon reams of paperwork, tests, creating plans and such. As I said the other day though, I need to start moving past this part of my life, I don’t want to get comfortable and stop here. I’ve hit some goals, I’ve done some of the things I set out to accomplish, but there’s more to do. There’s a real risk I run of complacency, of digging myself in again and getting too lazy and missing out on so many things I want to accomplish. Then there are new things I want to accomplish too, because as I experience more, I find more things where I say, “It’d be cool if I did that!” That’s what life is supposed to be.
\nWe should all be getting out and seeing what there is for us in the world and figuring out what we want to do, and then making it happen. I’ve said it a thousand times or more, we are explorers! It’s our job, to look at our world, our universe in wonder, and figure it out. It doesn’t matter in what direction your figuring it out takes, it matters that that’s what you do! We’re not made to make money, money isn’t real, discovery is real. It doesn’t matter if someone else has gotten to, seen, discovered a thing before you, what matters is how you experience it. Everyone is different, everyone has a slightly different perspective on things, so if 1,000 people see the same thing, that means there’s 1,000 takes on what that thing is. Even though most of them will probably be very similar, it’s doesn’t matter, they’re all unique.
\nThis hamster wheel we call modern “civilization” makes discovery a foreign, external thing to most people. You’re told you’re not smart enough, you don’t work hard enough, you don’t deserve to be able to do what you want. You need to be a cog in a machine. To what end? When do we end this lie of “work”. In America right now, people are working longer hours for less while the top brackets, the CEOs, financiers, they’re walking away with over 2000 times more than the average worker is making. Where is this trickle down prosperity we were all promised? It’s exactly where some of us has always said it would be. Yet people keep buying into this lie. Not just in the US, all over the world, they buy into this lie that if you give those with the most more, then they will magically share it with the rest of us, if we work hard enough. The harder we work though, the less we make, and then we’re told we don’t work hard enough. Forget that. Stop living in this lie, realize you do deserve more, you do deserve to live the life of a conscious part of the Universe, created for the sole purpose of discovering about itself.
\nNone of that is dependent on where you were born, who your parents are, what you learned in school, what tax bracket you’re in, or anything else. Yes, we need a common framework of behavior to go off of. I think starting at “Do no harm” is a good jumping off point. Beyond that, let’s have that discussion. Let’s talk about what people should have and what we should be doing. As in, how should we act toward each other? How should we act toward our evolutionary cousins? How should we act toward our only home, Earth? How should we act toward our Solar System, our Galaxy, our Universe? Based on a cursory glance of all the data we have, our current ideas about these things, our current value system is clearly deficient.
\nWe must have the small conversations, about the symptoms. I used the analogy the other day, Trump is like a broken leg in a patient with osteoporosis. Obviously the overall condition needs to be treated with the best medicines, exercise, vitamins, supplements, change in diet. But you don’t ignore the broken leg. At the same time, it is foolish to only treat the broken leg and not tackle the overall disease which caused it. Both issues must be addressed simultaneously. Otherwise you will either keep breaking bones at an unreasonable rate, or you will be permanently hobbled by a leg which did not heal properly. Neither is a desirable outcome. You can neither just be a micro-manager nor a big-picture guy. We must always be both, mindful of the great and the small.
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