Tuesday 3.43: Some Thoughts

One of the most important things you can learn as a person is to never assume something is natural or inherent. The list of things once taken for granted that I’ve since learned resulted from campaigns or a sequence of particular choices grows longer every day. Hegemony is a choice. Power is a choice.

Toni Morrison said race was a construct of racism, not the other way around. Race is something humans invented to justify a particular manner of subjugation. It doesn’t make either concept any less real, but it’s a helpful perspective because it reminds us that our differences are infinitesimal compared to the things we share.

As we all come slowly out of our pandemic cocoons, I think we’ll each experience personal moments when the realities of a return to normal public life become tangible. For example, a couple of days ago I got three emails from local concert promotion lists advertising upcoming shows in NYC and Brooklyn. It made me pause for a moment.

The more alarming thing about the “reality” moment is that it makes you realize the amount of time you’ve spent living and functioning in an un-reality. In many ways, I’ve been on auto pilot. The pandemic was a major traumatic event for everyone, and we’ll be dealing with its ripples for a long time.

Living through that unreality made me think of the curiosity with which we’ve often looked at, for example, those who lived through the battle of Britain. Amid frequent bombings in London, people just went about their business, a sign of some remarkable fortitude on the part of the citizenry. The pandemic was a different sort of challenge, but it made understanding such an event possible. For the most part, you just keep going, because what else are you going to do?

I get the appeal of mysteries, but at a point some of this True Crime stuff is just a waste of time. I watched about half of a documentary about a triple murder in Connecticut that didn’t seem to have a single element of intrigue beyond the grisly details of a brutal home invasion. The suspects were arrested at the scene and received death sentences, which were ultimately commuted to life without parole when the state abolished capital punishment. They were abused and crazy. There may be some kind of nihilistic tale in there somewhere, but whatever this was didn’t succeed.

I sometimes wonder whether I have some undiagnosed condition that will one day be identified and my life will change dramatically. I have trouble focusing on what I’m reading, for example, I get winded pretty easily despite running at least three times a week, and I suspect I go through life with a low-grade sinus infection that never leaves me. And so I wonder if one day my doctor will give me some obvious little pill and I’ll wake up feeling better than I ever have in my entire life, attentive, energetic, clear-headed.

That’s more of a daydream. I know in my heart that I’m degrading physically, and it’s only going to get worse.

Though the Boston Bruins’ 2020-21 season struck me as pretty inconsistent, their performance in the first round of the playoffs makes me think they can make a deep run. I expected the series with the Washington Capitals to go six or seven games, but the Bruins won pretty easily in five.

I don’t think the Boston Red Sox can maintain their lead in the AL East. Though the Toronto Blue Jays have slid back in recent days, the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees are both within 1.5 games, and Red Sox’ pitchers have overperformed. That said, I did not expect them to be in first place in June, and with each passing day that seems more and more like a possibility.1

After two series against .500 teams in the Marlins and the disappointing Atlanta Braves, Sox will start June with ten games against the Astros and Yankees. That will be a huge stretch for them.

I ran a virtual half marathon on Saturday. It was horrible. Far too hot and humid. I may prefer running with a Camelback, because a belt filled with water bottles was just the worst, I have to say. I don’t know whether I can be seen with a hydration backpack though.

I think the rest of this year I plan on working to improve my 5K and 10K times. I’m hoping there’s a 10K I can run sometime in the late summer or early fall. I was assigned a spot in the 2022 NYC Marathon, so next year seems like it’ll be dedicated entirely to that.

I don’t have the sense that what’s happening in Gaza is really all that tied up in religion, but it’s hard not to see that kind of abuse and not just think religion is such a waste of everyone’s time.

I remember reading about a mass shooting at an Amish school. The gunman killed several Amish children and then himself, and the families of his victims attended his funeral and donated money to his family (he wasn’t Amish, but was known in the community). One of the few instances of true religious orthodoxy in practice that I can recall. I don’t think your orthodoxy can possibly be valid if it justifies cruelty.

I never had any desire to visit Israel.

Comedy seems to have a rich underground, full of the requisite tiffs and abuses, hidden gems and overrated stars, different branches experimenting with various levels of subversion. I even came across a journalist who seems to only cover “indie humor” or whatever it calls itself. I like comedy, but I don’t think I have that much time for it. At least not in that capacity.

I love hot dogs, but it’s very easy to eat too many hot dogs.

The tendency to conflate the establishment of power with the pursuit of subjugation and evil is limited in its scope. A pedagogical relationship is delineated by power (the power of knowledge), and it’s not necessarily bad. Same with many sexual relationships. Imbalances of power are more recognizable for our episteme, but it’s entirely possible that the “solution” isn’t equality, but something else—something beyond our contemporary historical frame.