The Intrigue of Marathon Races

The Intrigue of Marathon Races

I reckon most of us wouldn't remotely consider running a 26 mile marathon race. 

Yesterday 40,000+ people of all ages ran in the Chicago Marathon. Who the hell are these people?  I know or have known only a handful of people who run in these marathons. None of them are particularly skilled runners or excel athletically in any other sport. They don't really excel in marathon races. Except they do finish the race and that, in the last analysis, is the challenge for most of those who enter. 

Most years I get up a 5AM so I can catch a train to go into Chicago and watch the race. The half way point just happens to be on a street that runs by the train station. Of course I don't really watch the race in the sense anyone would watch any other race. I don't see the start, I don't see the finish. In fact, with all this terroristic stuff, no one is permitted alongside the last half mile of the race except race runners themselves. Thus, although there are hundreds of thousands of people who watch the race, the winner does not cross the line with these hundreds of thousands of 'watchers' cheering him/her on.  Nor do I see all the entrants run the race since for like 4 hours these runners stream by the street where I am perched high on a wall to watch the race. I guess if you have watched a vast herd of runners run by for five minutes, the scene doesn't exactly change over time nor are there any complicated runner strategies or rules etc like in other athletic contests. You run and keep running. Thus, it would take some unusual motivation to watch the scene for 4 hours. Maybe if 'grandma' was in the race I might wait that long to cheer her on, albeit it might be difficult to distinguish her run from a walk. 

So instead of being caught up in strategies and athletic performances I watch and ponder things about the race. Why do so many people line the streets the entire 26 miles to watch this race? Unlike most sport contests where fans are emotional, often rabid, sometimes vulgar, and very combative, the crowd watching is, almost without exception, a joyful, upbeat, friendly, good natured crowd who come by to watch for a while simply to imbibe the friendly environment. Many in the crowd have noise makers and many cheer and cheer and cheer seemingly without ever stopping. And those who least belong in the race get the biggest cheers from the crowd. Again, there is no strategy to speak of, just impressive determination fixated on the faces of the runners. Of course a lot of people go because they have a spouse, or parent, or relative or friend or co-worker in the race.  A lot of them have big signs. Sometimes it is apparent that a runner knows where his/her 'friends' will be and those are the runners who are suddenly passing people right and left, then comes from the crowd some screaming "Go Honschivel, go" and Honschnivel smiles and raises his hand in victory. I don't know, maybe Honschnivel slows to a crawl after the next couple of blocks. Maybe he stops for lunch. 

The city is really turned upside down for the race. Thousands of police are all over the place, not to mention hundreds of police sniffing dogs. Helicopters hover over the city high-tech videoing the entire parade route.  It would be hard to pick your nose in private. There are hundreds of thousands of cups of water available throughout the race and these cups are strewn all over the street. 

The best runners, the legitimate runners, all come streaming down the street at about the pace I used to run a mile when in college on the track team. Without exception, they are all black and from Africa or the Carribean. They all look like stick figures in shorts and a tee shirt. If you saw them on the street or in the gym you would not figure them to be an athlete. The image of most athletes is far different with muscle and ruggedness written all over them. These guys look like by the end of the race they will have evaporated into nothing. The neat thing, at an event like this, is that nobody cares---there are no chants of 'Go back to Africa' and in fact, they get the loudest cheering of all because they are in the lead.  The next amazing thing is that when they cross the finish line most runners have not yet gotten to the half-way point of the race. I mean wow. 

Next to me on the wall was some guy in the Navy who was there to cheer his Navy teammates on.  He had run a 100 mile race a week ago and was not up to another long race so soon. I was honest and blunt: "Is there something wrong with you? Why would you run a 100 mile race?" "Well", he beamed, "It was a challenge". But, I silently thought, "When you finish the race, a race which requires unimaginable training, who besides yourself gives a rat's ass?" Most of us think a 26 mile race is really something, not to mention a 100 mile race. In fact, there are IRON MAN races involving swimming, running, and bicycling ---one after the other with no rest. There are even more punishing contests but I don't recall their names or the specifics. While this can't be the whole reason such people do these things, there is no question that they are all on heroin/morphine highs. During such contests the body produces it's own endogenous opiates. It is well to remember that morphine/heroin both activate the same body receptors and both don't eliminate pain but the pain (physical or emotional) will not 'bother' them as much. These endogenous opiates are defense mechanisms so we don't suffer the pain so much. This is a topic unto itself, but not for here.  It also struck me as a bit strange that the Navy actually has teams of runners who train and travel around the country engaging in these events. I guess there are worse ways to spend taxpayer's money. 

I think most runners are in the race to meet a challenge and get their '15 minutes of fame'  When someone proudly announces they are training for the marathon, it kind of stands out. It would be kind of like me announcing that I am preparing to be the running back for the Green Bay Packers this season. Of course the difference is all they have to do is sign up and pay the entrance fee to run. I can't imagine what it would take to get the Green Bay Packers to let me be their running back. Then again, if they did, and actually let me go on the field when the game started, I would probably get the biggest ovation of anyone. At least until after the first time I got the ball. Then the absurdity of it all would collapse on it's own weight and the cheers turn to ridicule and anger. 

In the last analysis it is hard to criticize anyone for participating in the Chicago Marathon. It gives a meaning to their life which is important to them. It gives them a goal, and is something which exhaustive training and exceptional determination can achieve this goal---finishing the race.  I continue to sometimes go to a marathon race because it is an event in which everyone gets to be part of a festive atmosphere and everyone goes home happy and more contented with life in general. Most other sporting events are not that way. There are losers and winners. Most sport contests are dead serious events to the die-hard fans. 

Judging Others and Life

It is hard to judge others from our own perspectives and experiences in life. Accuracy on the essence of others is often elusive. Biographies about others are often very biased.  For example, so many books have been written about Lincoln (more than any one else in history outside of Jesus) that it would be impossible to accurately depict the real Lincoln. Thus, we do with Lincoln what we do with Jesus---we pick and choose what to believe. For many years I shied away from autobiographies---after all, how biased are they? But now I realize, to understand why someone does or did what they do or did, we have to understand their own perceptions at the time. We like to tag way too much as evil vs good. In reality, evolutionary advancement is controlled by laws which involve diversity and chance. Evolution has advanced because better triumphs over inadequacy, and thus there is advancement. It is not good triumphing over evil or vice-versa. In a world in which there are billions of genetic changes occurring, most ever so slight, we cannot judge others by the only thing that matters---a genetic change for the better. In reality there are so many factors that enter into the picture as to what exactly better would be, that such a correct judgement would be unattainable. Precisely what we are not viewing is any kind of contest between good and evil. Diversity is the engine which drives God's evolutionary process, not a contest between some Devil and God. 

Right and wrong are terms associated with ethics, and ethics is an aspect of life found only in more advanced species, primarily in humans, and then a process not yet perfected. The changes in evolution are both physical and mental. We often pay too little attention to the mental aspects of evolution. For me, I define God as the Creator of the laws which govern the evolutionary process. 

We all have people we admire a lot in life---I reckon for different reasons, but these are the people we take the most time to understand. It took me a long time to see the difference between what I personally like and dislike vs right and wrong. There are some people who I do not like but there is nothing wrong or unethical about them. They are just not my cup of tea. More to the point, with age I have learned to appreciate diversity for the important role it plays in life. And, no matter how much I might wish otherwise, individuals are not the center of this evolutionary process. We each only live a minuscule period of time because individuals are not needed by the process for a longer time. What we all have is a chance to live, by chance, in an environment, by chance, with a genetic make-up, by chance. None of us earned the cards in our hands at birth. Some play their cards better than others.  Some get more luck than others.  And none of us will never get out of this world alive. If we understand the process of evolution there is no reason to be depressed. We got a chance, which is more than millions of other eggs and sperm ever got. We only have a beef if we think we are more important than the process, and create, or inherit, for ourselves, a 'God' who will save us from His own laws that govern the evolutionary process. To create, or inherit, such an illusion will generate frustrations and discontentment as we try to secure the blessings and protections of this invented 'God'. 

It takes a lot of effort and thought to really understand someone else. To me, to understand them is sufficient to bring some contentment---I don't have to be personally attuned to their behaviors or opinions.  In my case, the first efforts to really understand someone else came with pets, not humans. Pets can't talk so we are forced to observe and then figure out what makes them behave as they do. Pets have a wide diversity of personalities but we tend to like them despite the variety. Why?  Because it is hard to dislike anyone who likes us no matter what our personality or faults or limitations. It is hard to dislike anyone who genuinely likes us. Therein lies the best peace plan among diverse human populations and cultures. We could have appreciated the diversity of Vietnamese culture, but we instead demanded they must have a particular form of government and went to war.  What good ever comes from telling others you don't like them because of their religion, mode of dress, personality, politics, and the list goes on. The only genuine reason not to like others is because they treat selected others unfairly. 

Except for my first hero (Duke Snider), my 'heroes' or 'special' people in life outside my own family and circle of friends and associates, have always been people whose unique life intrigued me, often because they were self-made and it is rare to find self made people. For most of us, people build people, and were it not for these other people, we would not have gone as far in life. It was always a challenge for me to understand what made self-made people tick---what in their background contributed to their uniqueness.  My favorite, as with a lot of people, is Abraham Lincoln.  I think he comes the closest to really understanding human nature. Of course he had little formal schooling. But he pondered everything he saw around him, relating, as best he could, cause and effect in human behavior.  With careful reading about a famous person, and a determined effort, we can begin to understand their lives and feel the motives which drove their actions. In the process we ourselves become a better educated, more tolerant, more contented person---precisely because we start living our lives aligned with the evolutionary process rather than having invented some sort of imaginary process in our own minds, often one in which we become a soldier of God's army in a battle against the Devil (the heathens). This battle hardly becomes the road to contentment. Some sort of Bible in one hand, a sword in the other, with visions of heathens here, there, and everywhere, is not exactly a portrait of contentment. 

My favorites, in no order outside of Lincoln are:

Harriet Tubman

Louvin Brothers

Jane Goodall

Sojourner Truth

Thomas Jefferson,

Terrell Owens 

Victoria Woodhull

Tecumseh

Gandhi

Buddha

Jesus

Andrew Carnegie

Teddy Roosevelt

Barry Goldwater

James Baldwin

Jane Adams

Barack Obama

Eleanor Roosevelt

Harry Truman

Mario Como

Martin Luther King

Dalai Lama

John Stuart Mill

Henry Longfellow

John Muir

Henry David Thoreau

Walt Whitman

William Wordsworth

Allen Iverson

As I look at the list, one in which I am sure I have left out some names, in most cases these people are fairly current and wrestled with broader questions of life and did not miss the forest for the sake of the trees. Studying them is certainly good theatre. The Louvin Brothers and Allen Iverson don't fit in here, but the rest have a common attribute: they took the Golden Rule seriously. They seemed to understand that contentment in life emanates from the ethical duty to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Of course this path to contentment in life is open to all, not just those listed above. What stands out with most of the above is the degree of importance they were to the culture in which they were raised. Ethics may have started from scratch in the evolutionary process but it doesn't start from scratch for us. Others have left insights about the path for ethical behavior, a map with which we can use to follow. Just as over time humans have become physically taller, faster, stronger, so have we, in general, become more ethical cultures. For the most part we are not burning people at the stake or disemboweling them, etc. Of course there are exceptions, just as not all humans are taller, stronger, faster than in the past. Diversity produces trends and trends reset the average while the least advantageous traits fade away. But it need be remembered that ethics involves a reward for doing right rather than wrong. Contentment in life is the reward. Of course the degree of contentment will vary, it is never an all or none proposition. 

People who live ethical exemplary lives directed at major cultural changes have a great impact on the lives of others, including those lives yet to come. Lincoln always seems to be the best example. There were many others who saw the injustice of slavery at the time and devoted their lives to ending it, often paying a high price for their unbending opposition to slavery. Lincoln stated long before he became President that "if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong".  The difference between Lincoln and other notable abolitionists was that Lincoln had this uncanny understanding of human nature, and used this understanding to take a society which was overwhelmingly willing to tolerate slavery and use circumstances to turn the tide in favor of abolition. Lincoln was by no means the only one ethical about slavery back in our country then, but Lincoln was like a steel cable, which bends this way and that way with the wind, but despite the wavering the steel cable eventually reaches the desired destination. A group of avid abolitionists met with Lincoln early in his Presidency and heavily criticized Lincoln for the many political indulgences he  afforded those who were not ready to abolish slavery. He told the gathering, "You just continue to do what you are doing to oppose slavery and I reckon, when the time comes, when the people are ready, that I will put my foot down firmly."  And when the time came, so he did.

In Part 2, to follow, I plan to use some of the people on my list above and examine what enabled them to reach success in life. Be cautioned, however, that I cannot be trusted to stick to script. 

An Insightful Sermon from a Refashioned Source

An Insightful Sermon from a Refashioned Source

I remember Al Sharpton from when I lived in the East Coast as a teenager. He was the defender of Tiana (sp) Brawley, a young blk girl who claimed she was raped by a white police officer. Back then Al Sharpton was as racist as any of us, overweight, a loud mouth---and even when it was proven the policeman did not rape the girl, Al Sharpton would not let it go. He seemed the caricature of all that was bad about humanity.  

It is really hard for me to forgive or like Al Sharpton. But over time, and given the changes in Al Sharpton and changes in myself, it seems fair to say that many of us back then were hardly ideal examples of humanity or fairness, or empathy.  My answer to him back then was simple; "If blacks don't like it here, leave." And he, no doubt, would reply: "Get used to it or create a level playing field."

I attended, out of curiosity, a lecture recently by Al Sharpton in an affluent suburb at a predominantly white College. He has changed in 50 years and so have many of us. He gave a sermon at a chapel which is hard to fault.  I could have written the sermon myself, but not so clearly, nor have presented it as eloquently. Both his mind and body have changed over 50 years.  He is thin, looks like some kind of bird walking to and from the podium, and talks with insight and reasoning instead of taunts, arrogance, and racist obsession. 

Here is his speech----you might give it a look, if only to watch a small portion, but the whole speech I thought was intriguing. 

http://public.elmhurst.edu/news/archive/225066212.html