Once again an athlete

Yesterday I finished my 28th half marathon.  It had been two years.  A dislocated shoulder last July put me out of commission for a while, and it's taken some time to get back into gear, and to get enough base miles to even consider such an event.  Although it was the slowest of my 28 at that distance, I was able to reclaim the part of me that I call an "athlete."  And at age 63, being an athlete is something that's still vitally important to me; it's an enduring and cherished part of my self-image.

In the past ten days, I had only done two longer training runs--one of 10 miles, and another of 8.  And based on how I felt in those runs, I wasn't at all sure that I could finish a 13.1 mile jaunt.  The half marathon distance is an interesting challenge: difficult but hardly impossible.  But I ran a very smart race, which helped, and I finished 8 minutes faster than my very modest goal.  I had the good sense to run mostly for the enjoyment and the challenge, and not be obsessed by the clock.  I even encountered a 29-year-old woman, a former student, who felt that she would be embarrassed if she finished behind this old geezer.  I happened to catch up with her at mile 12; we talked for a while as we ran in tandem toward the finish line; and then, for the sake of her ego, I let her forge ahead and "beat" me by 8 seconds.  It didn't matter to me anymore--I was already once again a winner.

There are a lot of people my age who are totally incapable of even considering such a task, for a variety of reasons.  Some of them can barely walk out the door.  If I were in their shoes, I don't know how I would manage.  The thought of being incapacitated in any way scares the daylights out of me.  As I approach 22,000 career miles, I can only be grateful that I can still do this.  Hey--when's the next race?

No longer ruled by hormones

Over the last couple of years, I have been in the process of re-connecting with people from my past: old teachers, old friends, and old romances.  It's been an interesting experience.  Most whom I contact are quite pleased to hear from me; a few others, not so much.  But overall, it's been worth the hassle.

The "romances" part has probably been the most meaningful, and vexing.  For several of these people, I feel a need to apologize for my actions.  (A few of them have been impossible to locate, and in a couple of semi-embarrassing cases, I'm not even sure of their names!  Oh my.)  When you're in your 20s (time to pull out a cliche) one's brain seems to be somewhere else than in your head.  The "raging hormone" idea is no less true for me than it is for others.  I can't say that I did anything horrific during those wacky years, but I certainly did things that are not a source of immense pride.

Now that I legally qualify for collecting Social Security, I sort of enjoy not being so ruled by my hormones.  Although those were very exciting years, the choices that I make now driven by other motives and other forces.  As a result, life has become a little less crazy.  It's an odd thing to be thankful for, but it feels that way to me.

Missing the 2014 Think-Off

Well, it's a long story, and one that I don't truly understand--but suffice it to say that I have been unable to access this blog for more than six months.  And now, suddenly, I can!  It's all about Google mail and administrative privileges, but let's just foggetaboutit!

I'll have to catch up in bits and pieces.  One quick update involves the 2014 version of the Great American Think-Off.  Since in 2013, I was a finalist in this event (see a previous posting), I was optimistic-bordering-on-cocky that I would make it again.  But, there are hundreds of entrants, and only four are selected.  So I should have been ready for disappointment.  Anyway, this year's topic was: "Love or fear: Which motivates us more?"  As soon as I saw the topic announcement, I thought, this is a no-brainer.  Clearly, when it comes to motivation, fear trumps love, sorry to say.  If you want to read the "winning" essays, just go to think-off.org.  They are all pretty good.  (And, as hard as it is for me to believe, one of the two "love" essays was the eventual winner!)

Since I didn't get an auditorium of readers/listeners in New York Mills, MN, I will at least post my entry here for my thousands of loyal readers from Boston to Bangkok:
_____________________________________________________________________

Let’s hear it for fear!

Fear may not be the most noble or pleasant human emotion, but boy can it motivate.  And really, in so many ways, it has served the species well.  Fear can keep a curious 5-year-old from making a return visit to a scorching hot stove.  It deters most of us from having three hot fudge sundaes for dessert every night.  It can move an entire nation to take off its shoes before boarding an airplane.  It certainly keeps me off the edge of any sixty-story buildings.  It can even finally transform the lives of those who become “scared straight.”

Of course, there is a weird and irrational side to fear.  Some have a clinical fear of bugs, or clowns, or the number 13.  A website called The Phobia List includes 539 different fears, including alektorophobia (fear of chickens) ambulophobia (fear of walking), blennophobia (fear of slime), carnophobia (fear of meat), geronotophobia (fear of old people), barophobia (fear of gravity), and omphalophobia (fear of belly buttons).  Fortunately, given my situation, I have yet to be afflicted by logizomechanophobia (fear of computers), lalophobia (fear of speaking), or pogonophobia (fear of beards).  But, there’s still time!

On a more somber note, we often direct our fears to those whose skin color, or religion, or sexual orientation, or national origin is not the same as ours; in such cases, fear and distrust can become a toxic mix.  In 1942, motivated by the lingering fear of Pearl Harbor, we told more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans that they had 48 hours to leave their homes and go to internment camps.  Never mind that during the entire war only ten U.S. citizens were convicted of spying for Japan, and all were Caucasian.  More recently, the nation of Uganda made homosexuality a crime punishable by life imprisonment.  The natural question becomes, what in the world are these people afraid of?  As ugly and irrational as fear can be, it doesn’t change its motivational nature.  If anything, it only underscores the power of fear to do all manner of things—some quite sensible, some quite odd, and others quite disturbing. 

Even love itself is grounded in fear—in particular, the fear of isolation.  You could say that online dating services are all about the beauty of love and romance, but lurking underneath is the nagging anxiety that you might spend your life alone, without a companion.  And there is the fear of rejection as well.  When I was in 6^th grade, I liked a girl named Sandy.  Now at the age of twelve, I’m not sure you can really know much about love.  But I did know that after Christmas vacation, our class was going ice skating.  The only problem: I didn’t know how to skate.  You could say I was motivated by love to learn, but the hard reality is that I was afraid Sandy would make fun of me or find it strange if I was sitting on the sidelines, just watching.  And so every morning and every afternoon for those two weeks of vacation, I trudged to the local rink to learn—wobbly ankles and all.  After those two-a-day workouts, I became a pretty decent skater, although I’m sorry to report that Sandy didn’t seem to notice anyway.  But, at least I avoided the potential embarrassment.

Fear is even an important motivator in our professional lives.  Politicians will engage in elaborate cover-ups out of fear that they will be scandalized.  In most organizations, bad news doesn’t travel upward very well because people are afraid that if the boss knows, heads will roll.  A recurring nightmare that I have is that I’m not ready for teaching a class and I’m about to make a fool of myself.  The fear that drives me is a fear of failure—the prospect of looking like a total idiot in front of 25 people.

What, then, of love?  Surely love can motivate, but not with the same intensity as fear.  If love is a warm glow radiating through our soul, fear is a swift kick in the gut.  It’s not that love can’t motivate, but fear is more primitive and runs deeper and stronger—it’s been a key to our survival.  Does that mean love is unimportant?  Not in the least.  We should never dismiss the value of love.  It may be fear that is instrumental in keeping us alive, but it’s love that makes it all worth the effort.

If you love dogs, then you must hate people

Leave it to Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten to come up with whatever evidence she can to support whatever case she is making.  Those who read her know that she's a longtime foe of things like "secular humanism" or "moral relativism."  So, in the August 25 edition of the Strib, Kersten shows how the world is going to hell: one academic researcher, in one obscure study, found that, hypothetically, people might save their pet before a human being in the face of an advancing runaway bus.  From this, she concludes that humans have become increasingly devalued.  Oh my.  Although the Strib chose not to publish my response to her rant, there's always a place for rejected material at good ol' CI!  So, for the record, here is what I sent to our local daily newspaper:

I must confess to being intrigued by Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten.  Although I disagree with her most of the time, I frequently try to figure out what makes her tick.  And that sense of mystery surely surfaced again when I read her recent column, “Is puppy love turning us into misanthropes?”

Her thesis: because one academic study done in Georgia revealed that a fair number of people would choose to save their dog from a runaway bus rather than a person, we may be taking the civil rights of humans for granted.  Not only that, but we are plagued by a society that embraces the dastardly philosophy of “moral relativism.”

When faced with such a bizarre and convoluted argument, it’s hard to know how to unpack it.  One gets the feeling that she was looking for something—anything—that she could use to advance a more sweeping agenda.  And, in so doing, heaven forbid that a little common sense and balance should get in the way.

The study she cites is purely hypothetical—it can’t determine what people would actually do in “real” situations.  At best, it’s an intellectual parlor game (and one in which I’m guessing some chose to save the animal because in the abstract, animals are often viewed as more “helpless” than humans).  But equally disconcerting is her assumption that if anyone cares as much about the family pet as an unknown human being, that somehow this inevitably reduces the status of humans.  To care about animals does not mean we don’t care about humans—if anything, such a concern for all living things should be welcomed.  For Kersten to even vaguely hint that people would “love to throw granny under the bus” is offensive.  She even has the chutzpah to bring up the Declaration of Independence, arguing that humans have certain unalienable rights.  Then, if she hasn’t gone far enough off the beam as it is, she uses this study to help her rant against “scientific materialism and moral relativism.”

What, according to Kersten, is moral relativism?  Because it involves no “universal truths,” each person simply chooses what’s “true” for him or her, with the goal to simply be “happy.”  In her view, moral relativism is all about “our personal preferences and tastes”—nothing more.  Such a description is equally ridiculous and totally misleading.  It’s a false dilemma to suggest that either we have absolute standards or basically no standards at all.  Earth to Katherine: moral relativism is still based on principles, and standards; it is simply that in most situations, there are competing principles that must be carefully weighed and considered.  Even Kersten has her relativistic tendencies: for example, she lauds “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but is quite comfortable to deny those guarantees to people seeking same-sex marriages.  I think in the end what can be so galling about Kersten’s prose is its smug simplicity: take one obscure study and then conclude that Western Civilization is in danger because the Judeo-Christian framework is in peril.

Kersten is right, of course, that we must always consider morals and ethics.  But whether she likes it or not, there are lots of ways to do that, most of which are more complicated than she makes them out to be.  In looking for a nice, neat ledge to stand on, she not only trivializes the need for ethical reflection, but she also offers a caricature of those who don’t see eye-to-eye with her that’s unjustified, erroneous, and more than a wee bit unfair and paranoid.  Take a cleansing breath, Katherine: all of us care about doing the right thing; we just sometimes have more deep and nuanced notions about it.  Moral relativism, simply put, is not the lack of morality, nor is it simply justifying whatever one wants to do.

Great American Think-Off

In the category of totally serendipitous events: the Contentious One entered--on a whim, and for the first time in his life--the Great American Think-Off, a quirky-but-charming event held each of the last 21 years in New York Mills, MN.  The Think-Off question this year?  Which is more ethical: sticking to your principles or being willing to compromise?

With somewhere in the range of 400 essays being submitted, I did not expect to be selected as one of the four finalists.  But, I thought I might have a shot at it--after all, you just never know.  And so it came as a pleasant surprise to be named one of the two "compromise" advocates for the event.

Defending that case for compromise in a public forum--attended by maybe 250 people in the local high school auditorium--proved to be a daunting challenge.  My semi-final foe, who turned out to be the eventual champion, was a wise and gracious man by the name of Paul Terry.  I think that my essay was quite competitive with his, but in the end, he may have had a slight edge in the "Q & A" segment, hosted by a moderator and culminating in an audience ballot.

Anyway, the whole event was an unexpected shot in the arm.  For all of us, any sort of recognition for what we do is a rarity--to appreciate that, all you need to do is watch an episode or two of Undercover Boss.  So, under the circumstances, I tried just to soak it all in--despite failing to make the final round, and despite all of those voices within us that wonder, still, if we're really good enough.

Oh, and for the record, here's that essay:
____________________________________________________________________

This year’s Great American Think-Off question is rooted in a longstanding conundrum: is it better to regard ethics as more absolute, or more relative?  Like any worthwhile question, there is no definitive one-size-fits-all answer.  Still, I would contend that in general, an approach based on compromise is the better way to go.

We have been cautioned not to dwell on national politics.  But to ignore politics entirely would be to miss an important teaching/learning opportunity.  In the last few years, we have basically been held hostage by people who are convinced that they must stick to their principles.  The only problem is that little can be accomplished by those who use principles to promote moral purity and take some perverse pride in their intransigence.  Where’s the virtue in that?  Principles tend to operate independently of context, and more importantly, of other people.  Those who stick to their principles may not be “selfish,” but an orientation to life that excludes the views of others and refuses to compromise is itself ethically suspect.  And so when advocates with principles square off in the public forum, the result of everyone sticking to those principles is gridlock, and a collective sense of loss and frustration.

Compromise is an interesting word.  It has a pejorative sense: if you “compromise your principles,” it sounds as if you lack integrity.  But in another sense, compromise is truly honorable: it demonstrates sensitivity to details, and nuances, and the ideas and feelings of other people.  Compromise shows a healthy respect for others and a healthy degree of humility as well.  Indeed, it is a false dilemma to suggest that either you stick to your principles or you “abandon” them and don’t have any.  It is misleading to suggest that compromise shows a lack of principle--because compromise is itself a principle.

My definition of ethics is not very fancy: if you have a choice to make, and that choice can affect others, then there is an ethical issue at play.  So, on a daily basis, we make many ethical choices: whether to drive our car or take the bus, whether to let our teenager stay out until 2 a.m. on a Saturday night, whether to buy from a company that exploits its workers, whether to be totally candid in our evaluation of our fellow employees, or the greatest moral quandary of the millennium: paper, or plastic?  In every case, the answer always becomes: it depends.  There are simply too many variables to consider.  If I have learned anything over the years, it’s that life is messy.  Unwavering principles, on the other hand, are just too darn neat.

One principle that I have stuck to since my junior year in college is to refuse to eat meat.  That does not mean I am totally unwilling to compromise.  I don’t carry placards in front of factory farms and fast food restaurants.  With comfort, style, and durability in mind, I tend to wear a little bit of leather.  I’ve never forced the rest of the family to go vegetarian; indeed, I cook hearty meals for the carnivores in the family regularly because it’s something that they want, and it needs to get done in our household.  But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve nonetheless done my part for animal welfare and made a difference; in this case, all that “sticking to my principles” would do is tick people off and make the rest of my family unhappy and inconvenienced.

Where I work, “transparency” is a celebrated concept.  But complete transparency would be a colossal mistake.  What about the practical limitations?  The economic and legal considerations?  And plain old human decency?  Once these competing considerations are offered, transparency suddenly gets a little more murky, and some element of compromise clearly emerges as the more sensible orientation.

The problem with principles is that they are like cotton candy—sweet, but lacking in substance.  You can offer a litany of saccharine platitudes (be fair!  be honest!  be nice!), but the question still lingers: what does it mean to be fair, honest, or nice?  That’s another reason why principles will only take you so far.

Of course, an ethical stance based on compromise is not without its potential pitfalls.  It could lead us to make inconsistent or contradictory decisions.  Rationality could be replaced by rationalizing.  Nonetheless, compared to the alternative, it’s way ahead.  For the problem with sticking to your principles is that, well, you are stuck.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks again to all who made it a memorable weekend, including my entire family who showed up to provide support, along with our very special friends Steve and Shirley Mellema!

Charge God with child neglect?

Just finished about my 10th Jodi Picoult novel--in this case, The Storyteller.  And although I am not drawn to stories about the Holocaust--they are, frankly, just too painful--I'm glad that I read this one simply because Jodi is such a gifted writer.

The story is dominated by the events crashing in on Minka, who eventually winds up in a Nazi concentration camp.  In considering her horrific existence, Minka says "Some of the women prayed.  I saw no point in that; since if there was a God, He would not have let this happen."  And of course, therein lies a fundamental problem with theism: the idea that God is at once omniscient, all-powerful, and endlessly loving.

When six million people are rounded up, beaten, starved, exterminated, and thrown into mass burial pits, no one can tell me that any sort of decent God would allow something like that to occur.  You can try to explain it, you can try to rationalize it, you can try to say that "God works in mysterious ways," but the reality is that either (a) God doesn't exist, or (b) God simply doesn't have all the magical powers with which He is associated.  Any other answer just makes no sense.  The suffering in the Holocaust (or Darfur, or Bosnia, or Cambodia--take your pick) has been so beyond tragic that any reasonable person ought to see the folly in thinking that God runs the show.  If He does, He should be charged with neglect and abuse.  A powerful, loving God would simply not tolerate such suffering.  Yet there are those, believe it or not, who think that God has a hand in all their little affairs of the day: whether they get to be homecoming queen, whether they get an accounting job, or whether it's going to rain on the day of the family picnic.  Hey--if God can take care of these trivial matters, where in the hell was He when Hitler charged into Poland?  Or when the gas chambers were turned on at Auschwitz?

Praying away the AK-47s

Ya just can't make this stuff up.

From the Huffington Post:  Rick Perry, the GOVERNOR of Texas, and a serious 2012 candidate for PRESIDENT of the United States, has revealed his own plan for combating America's gun violence problem: prayer.  PRAYER!

Huffington reports that in the Houston Chronicle, Perry acknowledged the problem of violence in the U.S. but said enacting tougher gun laws was not the right way to solve it.  Perry said that there was "evil prowling" in the world that has appeared in television and movies, and then found its way into vulnerable minds.  Perry reportedly said, "As a free people, let us choose what kind of people we will be. Laws, the only redoubt of secularism, will not suffice. Let us all return to our places of worship and pray for help. Above all, let us pray for our children."

Perry also assailed the liberal media and politicians for attempting to use the Sandy Hook shooting for a political end "that would not have saved those children," according to the Chronicle.  This is not the first time the outspoken governor has launched rhetorical assaults on "secularism." In September, Perry unloaded a blistering attack against those who believe strongly in a separation of church and state:  "Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you, and one of the untruths out there that is driven -- is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena," Perry said on a conference call.

Huffington concludes by noting, "This idea that prayer is the ultimate protection, even against guns, has been circulated among the conservative Christian community in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting.  Bryan Fischer, an executive with the American Family Association, said God did not protect the victims of one of the deadliest school shootings in American history because children and teachers were not allowed to pray for protection in the classroom."

What to say?  Gosh, I've ranted about the idiocy and toxicity of organized religion more than once.  When "religious" people sort of mind their own business, I guess I can mind mine.  But when religion collides with public policy--in this case, whether we need legislative answers to the problems of gun violence--then I have a lot of bones to pick with people like Perry.  And I have to continue to ask, why in the world do the Rick Perrys of the world even have a national platform in the first place?  Why should they get ANY attention?  It's disgusting.

But, not to worry--get ready to pray away the AK-47s!