Marathon (A Parable)

There once was a man who had dreams of running. As a boy, he would run, of course. Boys must. But as things became more complicated, he ran less and less. Running was often not allowed. Running was sometimes considered cowardly. One couldn't run and do homework. One couldn't run and write out the bills. One couldn't run while changing babies' diapers. Sometimes, as a father, he ran two or three steps, but only in order to catch his toddlers as they stumbled.

As life became still more complicated, the man ran even less, until, eventually, he ran no more. Regardless, he still dreamed of running. One day, he thought, I will complete a marathon.

Useless Ranters

"I just have to get things off of my chest," some people say. "When I have something to say, I just have to say it. I don't care what anyone thinks."

Translation: "I am completely egocentric."

Why do people feel justified in bragging about this awful tendency? When someone says something like this, I don't know what to say. Should I respond with a sarcasm-dripping: "Wow. Awesome. You're awesome"? Or, should I praise their obnoxiousness and pretend it amounts to courage? Personally, I think, if you are going to point that out about yourself, you might as well get T-shirts printed up that say: "Hello. I am an egocentric ass. And, what's worse, I am proud of it."

Hemispheres

Can a fist fight be good? -- at least for self-understanding? I had one that was, I think.

I remember some scraps from boyhood, mostly while playing football with neighborhood friends. But there was one fight that I remember to this day because, in the middle of it, I became immediately aware of the significance of my thoughts. I was about ten.

It was fall and we were on a tree-lined field; our usual football arena. It was cold, getting close-up on winter. Everyone played the game hard, with that energy that kids radiate during their few hours of freedom under fall clouds and falling dark on a school night. 

The original "Rocky": Marciano

Something happened with an elbow -- he claimed it was mine -- and the other guy came after me, swinging maniacally.

The Old Bicycle Shop

When I was a kid, when things hadn't yet gone mega-hyper-extreme everywhere you turned, we used to take our bikes, for repairs, to a small bike shop five minutes from the house. We'd bought our bikes there and we always had them fixed there.

When I would walk in with my dad, a forest of bikes seemed to go on forever, though there were probably only twenty in the whole place; it was about the size of a big living room. My dad would take care of the business with the mean lady and her mean husband who would both yell at me if I left fingerprints on the chrome, and I would wander around looking at the cool machines. Dad would pay, we'd leave, and I would go home and hop on my newly greased and tightened bike. It always felt like it went twice as fast as before.

The Real/Un-Real World Wide Web

I will begin by saying I know nothing about economics, especially on a global scale. Apparently, this ignorance contributes to my slack-jawed, head-shaking amazement upon finding out that chaos theory applies to naked Frenchmen; for, it seems, just as a butterfly flapping its wings on a teensy hill in, say, Iowa, can, in an eventual and non-linear sense, cause a hurricane, it seems that a naked Frenchman chasing a maid through a hotel and (allegedly) sodomizing her could lead to a global financial snafu.

In case you haven't heard, I am referring to the case of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. As you might have guessed, I am not going to dig into the news, because in the rare cases I mention "what's going on" I tend to use it as a springboard for considering our human situation, in general. This case will be no different.