This and that

Here's a selfie from the camera on my phone. It's not great is it?

It's been a wee while since I've blogged and I'm conscious of it. It's not just because Peter has all the best pictures. Time keeps getting away from me. I have ideas for blogging when I'm out running and then they're too difficult to explain. For instance, as a follow on to my last blog, I wanted to say that my understanding of where 'I' was when Kennedy was shot was too simplistic. What I was really looking at was 'Where were my constituent parts when Kennedy got shot?'. But the 'I' is not so simple. What is it? Where is it? Is it some cross-talk from the nervous system, that wakes up one day and becomes conscious of itself? I dunno.

Another question which occurred to me was, does your consciousness come on all at once, like the Christmas lights, or does it grow gradually until one day it reaches a kind of critical intensity and taps you on the shoulder and says 'I exist'?

Other thinkers have said, "I am what I am, I am my own special creation." See below

"Uh, thanks for the philosophy lesson."
"Uh, you're welcome. Have a nice day."

That was thought no.1.

Thought no.2 was on a different tack. For some time now I've been kind of falling out with running. Well it fell out with me first. All that heart business. And I did my best to stay with the running and then after I was supposedly fixed I was still crap and I didn't know why. And then there's the thorny question of how I developed a heart problem in the first place. Did you do that to me running? Did you? Well. did you? Hmmm?

Running says "Don't blame me. Nobody asked you to get so damned excessive about it." And the thing is, there's nothing like running. Even today, I have a cold, a real streamer and I hardly slept all night. It's raining and I feel tired and hot and dull but the thought of getting out for a trot and a bit of air was too tempting. "I won't run hard" I promised my cold, which was saying "Errr, are you really going out running in the rain when you've got me?" "It'll probably be good for you" I equivocated. What I really meant was "Get out the way, I'm going out for a run if it kills me."
And it was delicious getting outside. So lovely and cool. I wore a rain jacket but fortunately had the sense to wear a vest underneath because, as I suspected might happen, the sun came out and suddenly it was roasting.

So I really can't fall out with running, but to keep it in its place, I've decided to call it 'cardio' when it's getting above itself. That's what the weight lifters do. They regard it as secondary to piling on muscles and only do a very little of it.

So I'm glad we've had this talk and cleared the air.

In sportsland, I have tried very hard to improve my swimming over the last two months and the thorny test of it will be in a little over a week at the Craggy Island Triathlon. I hoped to swim a lot this week just to get some endurance in these here arms and lungs but fate had other plans. It's often the way. I went to the pool on Monday but if I went today I think I would drown.

See you again some time. Maybe after the weekend.