I RAN 1000 MILES IN 2016

My borrowed iPod Nano stopped working the first week of December, so I've had a lot of time (running) alone with my thoughts. This blog post has been composed and decomposed several different ways over the last 40 miles or so.

I suppose the first thing for me to admit, given the hyperbole of the title of this post, is the technical failings of my endeavor. More than a few of the miles I recorded were walking, and even when I run the pace is by most objective standards pathetic. I only claim to be a runner because I am persistent at it and have managed to wear out a few pair of actual running shoes exclusively through their intended use. I am no great athlete, I don't even love running that much.

The subtitle I wrote for this blog on a few of my jogs was: How selfish is that? How selfish does one have to be to spend that much time on himself, not running for charity, apparently doing it for self-aggrandizement? When I set out to do this last year, I wrote in my first facebook post about the venture that sharing my miles was a way to drum up a little accountability and keep track of miles. I know there are apps and gadgets that do that for you... this is what I had. Whether it was a good system or not, it worked. And I really am glad if I encouraged a few people, or maybe just reassured them that I was alive and not vegetating, but publicity was not my goal.

I ran in two countries (US and Germany), and in eight states (NY, CA, GA, TX, AZ, PA, MN, MD), night and day, hot, cold, wet, dry... the worst miles were consistently on treadmills. I have to guess that about 40-50 miles were run on treadmills, most often in hotel fitness centers. I loved seeing bald eagles soaring over me running in Hamilton, running in Riverside Park on the Upper West Side, Buffalo Bayou in Houston, through the streets of Frankfurt and Salinas, and on the foothill roads near Tucson. My longest day's run was the Boilermaker (9.3 miles) and my shortest was 1.2 miles through freezing rain this fall.

Until my birthday in late June, I logged miles based on my iPod Nano (6th gen.) pedometer. My lovely wife gave me a FitBit Blaze, and since then I have used GPS to track my mileage. What I learned is that the 4.1 loop on which I recorded many of my first 500 miles was really 4.2 miles. In every case, I rounded the miles my devices recorded down, so it is likely that I outran the 1000 miles by a few. On my last run of the challenge, today, I ran 4.3 miles passing 1000 miles by .1.

What did I learn, or why did I do it? Mostly it was a testimony to my belief in incrementalism, that small frequent steps can yield big results where drastic steps tend to result in failure. My clothes fit a little better, I feel pretty healthy, and if I had devoted any attention at all to my diet I probably could have run 1200 miles and enjoyed them more. I enjoy being outdoors, and I feel more connected to a place I am visiting when I run through its streets. Running is a personal experience and it is worth it for so many intangible reasons.

I have a few days before 2017 begins to figure out what, if anything, I want to do next year. Honestly, at 53 years old, just being able to do the same thing again would be pretty good. There is not much about this challenge that I regret, and I certainly encourage anyone who wants to take it on. For now, I am just going to give my legs a little rest as I reflect on the year that was and form expectations for the year to come.

Red & Blue Lenses and the Illusion of Depth

Back in the day when print publishing was a thing, my grade school used allow us to order age and reading level appropriate books and magazines from Scholastic publishing. One of the most popular titles was "Dynamite" - a very splashy magazine for youngsters with lots of colorful illustrations and special pull-out features.

My favorite feature ever was a pull-out poster of King Kong atop the Empire State Building, swatting at airplanes and looking more menacing than terrifying. What made this poster special was that it came with paper goggles with one red and one blue lens so the wearer could enjoy the image in 3D. Planes more narrowly escaping the behemoth fingers or the massive primate fangs, it was just a little more exciting when seen through those glasses.

But, it was a fairly cheap trick. The poster was black and white with strategically out-of-register red and blue line work that tricked your brain into a false sense of depth. This was ink on paper, nothing more than an optical illusion created by fooling your stereo vision by making your right or left eye blind to  either red or blue because acetate lenses in the paper goggles.

That poster and goggles probably landed in the strata of a landfill somewhere between California or New York decades ago. But the experience of the 3D illusion has stayed with me and metastasized into a very sad analogy.

Too many of us still see the world through red and blue goggles. This is apparent in social media when people trumpet their political leanings, sharing posts, articles and memes vilifying people, candidates (who are often people too) or ideas that don't fall within their favored end of the political spectrum. The polarization everyone is decrying in the media has been created by everyone aware of the problem. I am not this old, but but the Pogo quote has never been more appropriate: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." (Walt Kelly, Pogo, 1971)

If you think Obama has ruined this country or that Trump will make it great again, you're as delusional as everyone who thinks Bernie will save us or that Hillary was the most qualified candidate ever to run for president. I said DELUSIONAL - and I mean YOU. Those are all false beliefs and when you propagate them you're not smarter or more sophisticated than the person propagating the opposite belief or opinion, you're the same.

How disheartening it must be to attend a Bernie town-hall meeting and see someone wearing an NRA cap, or a Trump rally and rub elbows with and occupier. Tolerance is as much an illusion as my 3D poster, we can't allow ourselves to see actual depth, or even the possibility that one might agree or disagree with less than 100% of our own beliefs. We accept the notion that states are somehow red and blue, and all the people in them are as well, that Texas is chock full of people ready to shoot you and Massachusetts shuts down to hold communist parades every May Day.

Oh, but the rhetoric of the pundits! Those crazy, stupid things they say, and how frightening it is when a person trying to become President of the United States says anything like (insert Trump, Cruz, Bernie, Hillary quote here), because that is absolutely outrageous, and "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." 

How about a new slogan: If you're outraged all the time, you should probably STOP paying attention - and get some perspective. The only good thing about being outraged all the time is that nature has a way of taking you out early and ending your misery - and whatever misery you tend to cause by being outraged all the time. If I have been too subtle: it's not healthy to have that sort of stress and it will shorten your life.

For perspective, remember most of the people who run for President don't become President. This is true of both parties and strictly inevitable for people in third parties or independents. One person wins, the rest are actually no closer to becoming President than you or me after it is all over. Sure, they're more famous than you for a while, but only a political geek could name more than one or two failed candidacies more than one or two elections ago.

Then, anyone who becomes President has to deal with some very unfortunate realities. There's congress, the constitution, the electoral process, gravity, weather, karma, the Hand of God, etc. -- no magic wand is given to the President upon completing the oath of office. The only thing that happens when a President decides to run outside of the boundaries of the branches of power or laws of physics, is failure. How spectacular the failure is depends on how long or far they manage to go before anyone notices, or catches them. The position is equal parts spotlight and microscope, with very little room for creative thought or movement.

Very little of what candidates promise comes to pass. So little, in fact, as to make the abject terror struck into the hearts of everyone who opposed the election of that person laughable.

Just a couple quick examples, closing Guantanamo Prison was a huge plank in Obama's platform, never happened. Keystone pipeline was every republican's willow switch with which they beat control of the house and senate away from the democrats … still hasn't happened. Was it worth all the gnashing of teeth?

When you look at your neighbors with (insert campaign) signs in their yard and assume they must be holding black mass in their basement, conducting human sacrifices and laughing at the misery of orphaned kittens... you're an idiot. When that guy with the (whatever) bumper sticker cuts you off and you think, "that's just like one of them (ideologue I disagree with)... right!?!"… you're the rube.

There is nothing wrong with holding fast and deeply to beliefs and values, nor is there any harm in disagreeing strongly with the beliefs expressed by other people. Harm comes by defining yourself and other people by their position on your most precious argument. If you allow yourself to think that you're somehow more evolved, educated or enlightened than the person who disagrees with you, you're not just an idiot, you're an ass.

That extremely clever meme you posted that makes the other side out to be murderers, nazi's, Marxists, fascists...etc., actually make you look like an intolerant jackass incapable of seeing two sides of an issue. What's worse, you're contributing to the problem of polarization. When you see this stuff from friends, the response you need to have is to just STOP - don't "like" it, comment on it or share it!

Refusing to see the limitations and nuance in your own arguments is like wearing those paper goggles, with red and blue lenses. When you refuse to see the merit and virtue in other people's arguments, you're failing both yourself and your neighbor. Stop dreaming of a blue or red world where everyone sees things your way - it's never going to happen, and it would be a horrible place if it did!

Finally, if this rant has gone on so far that I lost you, maybe the last point is just for me: there is nothing here about agreeing with everyone or absolute tolerance. This is only about respect and freedom. We must learn to respectfully disagree, and appreciate the freedom everyone has to hold beliefs different than our own. We have a duty to rise above political rhetoric. While it may not make America great, it will improve your life and the lives of folks around you.