Running for Your Life: “They Go Low, We Go High”

Here’s a thought that came to me when I was running on Tuesday (Nov. 26).

Famously, Michelle Obama said of the Democrats enemies:

“When they go low, we go high.”

It’s hard to stress just how misguided that marching order has been given the modern media world.

Will the Times EVER go low. Or CNN or MSNBC?

Will they ever consider the lesson of LaCorte News, the brainchild of former Fox News dude Ken LaCorte.

An article in the New York Timers last weekend (Nov. 24) characterizes the news site as one that has proven to be successful in delivering extremist “news” to both the left and the right for a profit after failing to find any business traction with more legitimate news sites.

Do progressives ever go low? I wonder. Progressive find succor in the philosophes: Cicero, Aristotle – those who labored on theories regarding the betterment of man.

Consider this from Aristotle:

“He who exceeds in confidence when it comes to frightening things is reckless, and the reckless person is held to be both a boaster and a pretender to courage.”

Our current brand of leadership ‘conservatives” jones for philosophes of entirely different stripes. Say, Thomas Hobbes, for example: Hey, human nature makes for a life that nasty, brutish and short. So in the time you have on earth, you wanna get yours, Jack.

Also Machiavelli, who is given to suggest – although he didn’t actually write these words – the end justifies the means. (He actually said, “One judges by the results …”)

Guess what, Michelle, the go-lows have the edge. I can’t begin to think that most thoughtful folks will be satisfied with another moral victory in a presidential election, this time in November 2020.

Next: Running for Your Life: Anonymous Heard From

Running for Your Life: Why Run (the late November version)

Before my run today (Nov. 26), I wasn’t feeling it. It’s been a busy run-up to Thanksgiving, lots of errands, personal matters, of course, work.

But I run every other day, and this one, was a beauty. Shorts-wearing weather, and sure enough, off I go. It’s what I do.

Pretty much every run for – I don’t know how long – I go past a kite that has been trapped in a tree in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. (Remember, if you are one of those folks of a certain age, Charlie Brown’s kite in a tree? That’s what I’m talking about.)

It’s been at least a couple of seasons, but the colors of the kite have not dimmed appreciably. In fact it is just beautiful, and in pristine shape, and I start to think about the simple wonder of leaflessness. For months at a time I can’t see the kite because it is obscured by the leaves in this healthy oak tree.

Further on, I thrill with the look, the glistening quality of the larch at the bridge overlook of the park’s boathouse: the golden aura of this monument pine.

Next: Running for Your Life: “They Go Low, We Go High” -- Discuss

Running for Your Life: “The Testaments” and You

Here’s a “Testaments” truth for you …

In reference to the novel by that title by Margaret Atwood, a sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale: Documents written by principals in a coup or even in a “legitimate” democracy aren’t enough to merit the undoing of a corrupt, even society-destroying command.

This observation was made by “The Testaments” reviewer at the London Review of Books, Deborah Friedell:

“If 'The Testaments' were truly a novel for our times, after Aunt Lydia and her allies had succeeded in getting the documents out, after having risked, as they do in Atwood’s book, discovery and death in almost every chapter, journalists would write about them; and nothing would happen. ”

Next: Running for Your Life: A Word on “A Warning”

Running for Your Life: Lonely Hearts

Times columnist Nicholas Kristof write about loneliness being a silent killer (11-17-19).

How people, depressed in a crushing solitude, have lost their way in the dog-eat-dog world that is modern life.

Conversation is one thing but continuity that comes from listening, from paying attention, what Zen followers call the sincerest form of gratitude, that will set us on a path to good health.

“Without:” that is the active ingredient that defines the inactive life “without” energy.

Without love, without meaning, what is a life?

Sorrow yields a living death. Isn’t that why we pepper our fiction with zombies – the sci-fi manifestation of the oblivion of without?

Smile and then what? Recover? Why?

Because when you believe in yourself, in the work you do, that you continue to do, you show the natural joy and boundless energy of, yes, the dog.

It is too bad that Kierkegaard did not write about the moral lessons of a dog, a dog’s nature, her behavior.

Oh, wait a minute, maybe he did. (This line courtesy of “Kirk” – my pal Kirk Nicewonger, that is):

“When one has once fully the realm of love, the world – no matter how imperfect – becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”

Next: Running for Your Life: Yes, David Jones!

Running for Your Life: Still Running

Here’s something that lies at the heart of this blog.

Running, of course.

Not every day but every other day. It’s surprising how many times I’ve been asked this question: “Are you still running?”

I say, yes, of course. To the literal question. God bless, I am still running. I turn 65 next October and have been running since my early 20s. For the most part, every other day: Nine marathons, seven finishers (and six of those in a row).

Lately, though, I am thinking about my mental state when I run. Never with headphones, always just me and the road. Much slower and deliberate than I was years ago.

Still, that is. Still running. As in that word definition: deep silence and calm, as in the “still” of the night.

And so I hope it will continue. As it does in my other pursuits: still reading, still writing …

Next: Running for Your Life: Lonely Hearts