Having Fallen Behind, I Catch Back Up

Just Keep Running

Let us return to the IM of the past. That’s because, before today, it has been 18 days since last I ran. Why? Because I started a new job and I was not feeling the best physically. So, I took a break.

Pushing Keys

Yeah, uh……. not sure what I am going to write. I honestly have no point I want to make. I’ve no grip. Not a bitch to voice at all. So, you’ve got to be wondering what the hell I’m going on about? I just had a hankering to post something on my blog. It has been a while. Some people manage two, three, or even ten posts a day. I’m lucky if I have the gumption to create two posts in a week. Most of them are about running. Sometimes they are about our cats. On occasion, I voice some political or social opinion. However, they tend to be loosely formed and without specific evidence to support them. It’s not that the evidence doesn’t exist; it’s that I’m too damn lazy to research, instead just surfing the headlines of the major news outlets.

Oh! There it is. I heard it. Did you? The collective gasp as people clutch their pearls because I dare to surf the headlines and not dig deeper. Whatever. I don’t dig deeper because most headlines are misleading; the stories focus on generating fear to suck the readers deeper and increase clicks or drive up ratings. If I’m going to post a political or social opinion, I want it guided by facts. I’ll scour a few stories to see what facts are consistent across the media landscape.

However, I avoid religious sites. They are notorious for cherry-picking only those facts that support their ideology and denigrate all other doctrines. Once upon a time, the Christian Science Monitor was a great news magazine. They had enough faith in their beliefs that exposure to other facts did not threaten them. But that was a different time before planes hit buildings and the nation collectively shit its pants. Faith that all is part of a bigger plan got lost. Suddenly, the Children of Creation started pointing their fingers, denying each other that status. We all are of Creation. We are all part of the Whole. The belief that all are belonging to the whole weakened.

And that’s the problem today. Many peoples’ beliefs are weak. They do not have enough faith in what they believe, afraid of any information which counters what they desperately cling to in a vain effort to avoid the perception that their religion, ideology, or doctrines are false. But these constructs are not fact-based. Metaphysics is about accepting we have very little knowledge about life and the universe. Ultimately, it’s about our lack of facts. Scientific methods work towards changing how we understand life because of the realization we lack facts. Religions, ideology, and doctrines also need to be about dealing with and accepting change. Change for which we have no understanding. To embrace change without facts showing how and why it is needed is not only reasonable; it is necessary. Those people desperately clinging to their way of thinking without allowance for change seem always to be the same who are afraid and angry.

Permanence is an illusion. Impermanence is the foundation of life. The only permanence in life is that it changes. Grasp the paradox that life changes is permanence, and we all might find the peace we seem to have lost.

Well, would you look at that. Seems I found a point.

I Have Not A Sad

Lack of privacy

This Wired story does not produce one single tear of concern. Look deep in my eyes, and all you’ll see is a desert. I have the Sierra Desert of eyes.

It may have looked like little more than a war of words between two rivals, but Facebook – which warned of the “headwind” posed by iOS 14.5 in its 2020 accounts – was right to be concerned. Since the update went live last month iPhone owners have been opting out of data tracking in their droves. According to Flurry Analytics, 85 per cent of worldwide users clicked ‘ask app not to track’ when prompted, with the proportion rising to 94 per cent in the US. Apple did not respond to requests to comment.

Wired

I have never believed my data belonged to any business. And if they are making money on my data and online behavior, then I deserve appropriate compensation. I spend 1/3 of my life getting paid for work that someone else makes money off; I believe that concept applies to what I do online. I am not an internet slave. Do you want to make money off of me? Well, then you damn well owe me a cut.

That Damn Cat

One of the cats just knocked Smokey’s treat bowl off the table. Before Loki joined the household, there was a time we were only giving Kang treats. He was on a forced diet. That’s because he had become a fat tick. His belly damn near dragged on the floor. To keep him from eating all of Smokey’s treats, we put her dish on a table by the kitchen window. Again, Kang, the fat tick, couldn’t jump up and eat the treat. Smokey has a habit of not eating her treat all at once but coming back time from time to nibble until it’s gone. Kang? Oh, he chows down on his, then searches for more. We also put dry food up on the table for Smokey to have something besides the treat. Oh, and the treat is wet cat food.

Well, Kang lost weight. His belly is several inches higher from the floor. Smokey no longer has a dry cat food bowl on the table. She developed the habit of knocking both the treat bowl and the dry food bowl onto the floor. The dry food bowl was rarely empty, inevitably resulting in a mess on the floor or food in the water dish. We still have to keep the treat bowl on the table. She likes looking out at the front lawn while eating. I tried putting the treat bowl down on the floor with the other two, but she pouted and didn’t eat her treat for two days. So, yeah, the bowl is back on the table.

Well, not really, because some damn cat just knocked it on the floor.

Keeping The Pace

Just Keep Running

I decided to take a walk on Friday instead of running. With today’s run, I did four days of exercise this past week. Today’s run was a surprise improvement of pace without an excessive heart rate.