Falling short

It's been a full-on three weeks since my last blog. I had laid it out so that I would have a final push to prepare for the Onehunga Half, then a week "off" to do our education audit, and then to swing back into training the week after. What did I get? Well, that familiar story.

The week before the race I ran mostly at night for once. I tend to be a morning runner but with so much going on in preparation for the audit, an early morning blessing at a new campus one one morning I decided to switch to flip it. Evening is not my preference, for one, I would have to do it before dinner as it takes too long to digest dinner, run, then have the body settle down. On the Tuesday I did a "double tempo" which is a longish run with two patches of fastish pace. The first stretch I ran through the familiar Balmoral and Three Kings streets at the target paces before I dropped pace for the "rest" period. I was making my route as I went along and thought I would have enough distance to do the second stretch and be back in good time for dinner if I traversed into the St Andrews Road and Manukau Road.

St Andrews Road isn't a good running road in several places. There is one section where there is minimal footpaths on both sides, and in the section I was going to traverse across it had a part where the thin footpaths were well-separated from the road with a grassy verge. This meant that to cross it I would have to be mindful of cars and then run across possibly uneven grassy ground, cross the road and overcome something similar on the other side. I did 99% of that smoothly and it was only when I hit the footpath that I rolled my ankle on a slopping concrete edge. The previously sprained left ankle. 

I ran a few more paces with full sensory focus on that ankle and though it had the usual "light twist" feeling, there was no pain, no issues with movement or flexibility, and after a few more hundred metres I thought it was nothing and proceeded into my second tempo. 

The next evening, since it was a rare week of running in the evening, I went to a social running club that I would attend from time to time in the past. There were some really fast youngsters doing the 10kn route and I was pretty happy to try my best to keep up with them. But at the 8km mark I noticed a distinct change in my left ankle it became sore in places it hadn't been for months and my whole confidence it its stability disappeared. I kept going at a slower pace and eventually crawled back to shop where it starts and finishes. I did my stretches, chatted a bit and then went home. On the way home I tried running but strangely didn't feel any issue. That gave me the confidence to test it the following evening but again, the ankle was just useless after about 5km and I aborted the run. This was three days before the event and I decided to not run at all for the two days before and then see how I would be. 

Sprint forward to race day, I did my warm-ups and felt nothing amiss. It started and I was right on my planned pace and really enjoying it... until about 8km when that familiar feeling came in. I had to drop pace and though it was a manageable level of discomfort it was then the focus of everything. The route itself was beautiful - I wish I could have just enjoyed the running and the scenes without thinking about my ankle with every stride. Surprisingly, the pace was sustainable and I crossed the bridge and went to Māngere Bridge and back. People were passing me but I was fine. 

It was about the 15km mark that something strange happened. I realised I could go faster, close to my pace at the start of the race. I crossed back across the bridge and was looking forward to registering a time similar to my last race. However, maybe because I was unconsciously changing my gait to go fast on a hopeless ankle the stresses on my body had changed and at 18km my left hamstring pinged. 

It was pain and I had to stop. I gave it a rub and tried again, and stopped. I stretched it thinking it was cramp, and tried running and couldn't. I could walk but I couldn't extend strides without pain, and so it was walking that I did back to the race base. DNF. 

At least that meant that I could focus on the education audit with plenty of sleep. That week went by in a flash and all signs are that it went well. For all my fears about them making something out of nothing, or the students (or staff) saying something that is misinterpreted, the final summary meeting alluded to nothing out of place. The executive team as a whole was relieved to have a smooth audit done and dusted. 

As for my hamstring, I occasionally jogged over the road that week and I could feel the tightness and planned to give it at least a week. My regular physio was booked up for the week so I got a time in the future but I gave it my own treatment. It was only on the Monday morning that I gave it a kilometre run and found both the ankle and my hamstring fine. I extended on the Tuesday to 5km and again, no issues. Then came lockdown but Wednesday evening I gave it a 10km tempo run and while I felt the hamstring it didn't impede my pace at all. Even so, having felt it on the run, and noticing some tightness the following morning, I had two days of running rest.

Finally, bring on the weekend, I ran 26km and 21 km this morning and though my body feels a little tired for all the work I hadn't expected from them for two weeks, both the hamstring and the ankle did nothing out of the ordinary; the ankle feels a bit more flexible than in the days before I rolled it. I'm going to rest tomorrow and hopefully start back to my normal training again.

So, I feel back on "track" though in lockdown. In three more weeks I have the third in the series of three half marathons, the Tāmaki River Half. It is probably after that that I'll know if I should aim for the Auckland Marathon, which is 10 weeks away.

Whaowhia te kete mātauranga - Fill your baskets of knowledge

The zeitgeist is a funny thing. There probably hasn't been a year where the passions of people aren't tied up in some cultural moment, and at every moment it is easy to believe that there wasn't a time more contentious and polarised on certain issues than the current time. It might be that recency bias, that is, that every moment is just as controversial and you only perceive the current and recent times to be moreso because of amnesia. But perhaps the world really is becoming more complicated with a tipping point of pluralism and technology has both been reached where sudden the once settled world is now lacking the blacks and the whites of an earlier age, and now we have a confusing grey.

I tend to subscribe to the latter idea and there are 101 examples of late, whether it be antivaxx movement(s), Critical Race Theory and, now, New Zealand's own indigenous culture war flare-up: the equal recognition of mātauranga Māori in our education system. Missed it? Here is a taster from the Herald. The letter that kicked off the kerfuffle is here. My own synopsis of it is that the Ministry of Education now insists on mātauranga Māori to be included in NCEA alongside "Western science" and with equal status. This triggered a lot of fire and heat, the misuse of the word "racist" prematurely, followed by a lot of views expressed by a whole range of people that verge on, and often go well into the deep dark valleys of racism.

The term mātauranga is broad as a dictionary reference should give you an overview. It comes from the word mātau which means wise, smart and knowledgeable. From my understanding, mātauranga should cover the knowledge and understandings gathered from the te ao, and shared down the generations. This you could translate as "science" but there is a separate word for that: pūtaiao. In the definition linked above it shows that it has also been used as the Māori word for "education" and "science". Some formal translations that involve it are force-fits for modern concepts as well as the evolution of the language for modern uses. 

So the battle-lines in this tussle? Well, there is what I would call "the white scientist in a white coat" (no, they're not just pākehā). Let's just call it the white-in-white view. Opposing them is a view that is more relativistic - let's call them "the woke". Both have their own beliefs and biases. White-in-white view has two oversimplifications - that there own craft is pristine and non-racial on the inside in how it works; and, in the way it is traditionally learned, objective world knowledge on the outside, and perceived in that way by students and society. The letter discusses quite rightly that what we see as modern science is not western and its goals are universal. This is an enlightened view but one that does not necessarily come from the education system, nor how it is seen. Let's have a look.

The history of science or development is often plotted with these points: Aristotle - Galileo - Newton - Einstein - modern science, or some such variation. It is not an isolated view that European cultures did all the heavy lifting to hoist us up the tree of knowledge, for where are the coloured people? The gaps are many -  the conceptualisation of zero in maths (Indian), gunpowder and paper (China), the gap between Aristotle and Galileo (about 1800 years) where European cultures burned the classic books as heretical, where Arabic libraries retained the language and pushed it forward. The fossil evidence for this is clear in language where al-cohol (which was isolated by al-Khwarizmi) and al-gebra (Jābir ibn Ḥayyān) which both were developed in this time. The modern body of knowledge we call science has been blessed with the contribution of all world's peoples, and it is often the acceptance of "foreign" ideas that things get a move-on. The vanguard of the white-in-white, the letter writers, know this implicitly if not explicitly.

Behind the white-on-white line, there is quite a faction of cultural conservatives that decry and moderation of the white secular mainstream that prevailed before. The Don Brashes of this world are in here who would rather let bygones-be-bygones with respect to Māori, insist that we are all equal under the law and things should just move on. There are many who see no purpose or need for progress, or see it as a threat. (Sidenote: I met an old friend yesterday who'd trained as a high school teacher but now is homeschools his son full-time due to his concerns. Though he didn't raise the topic of Māori, it was about the slide away from just teaching children knowledge, but the increasing priority of education on what to think. I'd include him in this camp.)

Louder behind the line though are people who vehemently do not like these changes, the kind who would say "Māori can have the foreshore but only if they go fishing in waka and with spears" (paraphrasing my father); or willfully throw around strawmen saying that Māori science would be teaching the pantheon of gods who were responsible for creation and natural forces, that biologists should know Tangaroa; botanists, Rongomātāne, and the meteorologists should consult Tāwhirimātea. I would say that these go into the realms of racism.

 

I have only had a brief review of how Ministry of Education recommends the teaching of mātauranga Māori. As this was specifically brought up by academics in the science faculty at the University of Auckland, it was interpreted solely in the context of science, and this has narrowed down what is meant to be a wider focus. It is intended that mātauranga Māori and te ao Māori (the Māori world) are included, where "possible and appropriate", into the curriculum, achievement standards and assessments, and treating these equally and not with Māori content being the add-on, the one that you need to leave the room for, etc. Art and architecture, for example, could easily have this component; right now, in my organisation none of the "creatives" have any idea about Māori design, which are now in huge demand. 

But its not just meant for an "ends" approach where having appropriate and equal treatment of content will result in a more complete graduate. I read into that part is to make it clear that other cultures' accumulated knowledge and wisdom are all valued and that your identity in turn has value. There will be a lot of people who pooh-pooh this idea. I do not know how much research "stock" is behind the more woke perspective that providing safety and dignity ends up with better outcomes overall. I just know people who do not feel they have a place in an institution opt out of it. The white-in-white view would be that provision of the best learning techniques with the best information, regardless of where it comes from, is the best way to develop the potential of our students. It probably served me well, and the co-signers probably did well too. I do not know whether there is any research "stock" in this, either, apart from the obvious result being that an elite do arise from it, a few Māori, but the overwhelming majority of them not.

With respect to science, there is still a lot more to be said than just recognising the fact that the Polynesian oceanic navigation techniques were top-notch and led to the location and migration to New Zealand, and to sail to Madagascar in the west and possibly to South America in the east as early as the 12th century; or the cultivation of kūmara in New Zealand conditions; or the development of medicine with New Zealand plants. It is to show that Māori and their ancestors were not merely war-like primitive stone-age people but developed through observation and experimentation, just as readily as those in other cultures. European science had the foot-up from their own cross-fertilisation of ideas through invasions, immigration, competition and communication, but both cultures had the same potential to achieve. They were just placed in different environments. 

New Zealand public schools are now a common environment for students of all cultural backgrounds and there needs to be an equitable approach, and the chance to know they can achieve. Māori students demographically speaking are out-competed by other Polynesians and other immigrant cultures for an array of reasons. 

I for one think the changes are a good start at least at addressing one of those reasons, and making the rest a bit broader minded and appreciate the achievements that sprung up from this place.

A tale of two running years

I write this with much hesitation as I am a superstitious person, and rightly so. In March I blogged about my running renaissance and promptly sprained an ankle. But I would like to risk it all and write about where things stand. Since I'm a data and tracking guy, I'll furnish this with graphics!

So in was the start of Dec 2019 when, after my best running year, I went to my bogey-event, the Omaha Half, where it perpetuated the reason for it being a bogey event: I slipped on a boardwalk, bruised myself, still ran and completed the event, but it left me with issues that took months to recover from. After some physio and then some run/walks during the 2020 lockdown, eventually I got back to some running, but was always hampered by niggles and issues. 

In the end, I only ran a single half marathon that year and a handful of 10k events. In November I strained my hamstring and again had physio and light exercise. But over the summer holidays and on our South Island trip, I started running again and even though at first the hamstring was still noticeable, its irritation got less as I ran more. And as you'll see below, there was a beautiful rise in mileage from Jan 2021 until the ankle sprain "cliff" happened. But I pushed to keep moving and running to recover from it, and again there is a gentle rise until the present day. 

100km is the sweet spot for training where improvements are apparent and in the last five weeks I've plateaued my mileage there. There have been two races recently, one two weeks ago and one today. Today's Ōrewa Half Marathon was a big test whether things were moving forward. 

The weather forecast for Sunday had been a roulette wheel of possibilities, every day I would check and get a different colour, a different chance of rain. Last night it rained. In the morning in rained, but in the end the needle fell on "extraordinarily windy". It is possibly the strongest wind I've run in, let alone raced in. The course was two laps around the Millwater Estuary, going out you were running with the wind; on the homeward leg, and especially the final stretch was near the beach without protection going straight into the buffeting wind. It was funny to start off with the wind so powerfully behind you and not knowing if you really are running too fast or being carried in the gusts. After my first kilometre, I actively slowed myself down.

Half marathons are tricky to pace. I had an idea of keeping pace between 4:40min/km and 4:50min/km, aiming for a 1 hour 40 minute result, with the chance of pushing it at the end if I was feeling strong, with a stretch goal of 1:38. The paces per kilometre for the first half were: 4:36, 4:40, 4:45, 4:30, 4:41, 4:58 (uphill), 4:12 (downhill), 4:34, 4:48 and 4:52. The slowest kilometre was all uphill and the last kilometre was all downhill but the rest were on target or below. And the last two were into that wind. I was a little perturbed that I had the 4:3X splits because they might feel them in the second half. The second half kilometre times, starting back with the wind, were 4:35, 4:35, 4:39, 4:30, 4:39, 5:00 (uphill), 4:24 (downhill), 4:35, 4:45 and 4:52.

Happily the second half was marginally faster than the first. Disappointingly, almost everyone's smartwatch including mine showed that the course was not 21.1 km, probably somewhere between 20.3-20.6 km. If I could keep running until 21.1km with my pace, I would have landed on about 1:38, so I'm pretty pleased. To be clear, and to put it into stark relief, my 2019 personal bests for a half marathon are 1:29 and 1:30 respectively, so there is still a lot of ground for progress.

The Ōrewa event was part of the the Run21 series, three events each with a half marathon. The other halves are in Onehunga in two weeks and Tāmaki River in September. Onehunga's is ridiculously close - not sure if I can really improve much but will go "all out" and try and break 1 hour 35 minutes. My big aim would be to get Tāmaki River's time down to 1 hour 30 minutes. That would put me right back to my personal best and mean that I would be well set for a tilt at the Auckland Marathon.

I'm leaving my entry to the marathon to when I can be sure I'll be healthy. It might surprise you, Dear Reader, that my sprained ankle is still not 100% back to normal. I have discomfort in two places because of it and also some issues as a result of the lack of flexibility that has remained despite the treatment and the regular activity. This might just take time - the nature of the partial tears, scar tissue and blood flow might mean there is still months to go. The key thing is that activity will help, and it has not stopped me running what I would want to be running.

The practicality of the situation

Even though Covid still shrouds a lot of places with death, sickness or in some cases just inconvenience, it has not really appeared much in my blog. After 2020 being wall-to-wall aerosol spread, 2021 has settled on things closer to home. But in real life, many of my habits have remained the same. I still check Worldometer daily just to see whether the case numbers and deaths are getting better or worse in various places; I listen daily to podcasts and vlogs for any insights or food for thought about the progressing pandemic; and even of late I have tuned into the 6pm news, a rarity even in 2021, to see any on the ground reporting especially, of late, Fiji, or the NZ ramifications for the Sydney outbreak. Regrettably a year and a half in, there is still this silly polarisation of attitudes about how to deal with the virus. Perhaps, it's just that we as societies have not had recent historical experience of an analogous situation so to reflect on to consider it thoroughly.

Two of the vloggers I paid most attention to since 2020 have been Chris Martenson (Peak Prosperity) and Dr John Campbell, and their trajectories in the last year have diverged a lot. The former was my favourite for most of the first half of 2020. He was quick, excitable, incisive and clear about the keys to early action with travel bans, quarantine and non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as masks. He was good for deep dives into information and subtle comparisons. The latter comes across as a humble investigator commenting on the trends, news and relevant research. One commonality is that both noticed and reported on re-purposed off-patent medicines as prophylaxis or treatment of Covid-19. But it is in their respective approaches where their similarities ends.

Chris was obsessed by hydroxychloroquine (the drug that President Trump famously tried to hawk from his presidential podium) and ivermectin, both of which he called DWSNBN, the "drugs that shall not be named", ironically because his mention and advocacy of them literally had videos taken down. There today, gone tomorrow. The two drugs were not approved as treatments and since YouTube had implemented rules against disinformation, someone would report his videos. I'm prepared to consider this not in a corrupt, conspiratorial way but as an unintended consequence where tech-giants made rules that did not quite have the right settings and incidentally shut down debate. It became his obsession though, not against the virus, but against how things could be deemed disinformation to stifle free discussion. His partnership with his financial expert partner in Peak Prosperity seemed to have had issues, since the branding was getting complicated by the size of the feud, so after a pause came back with more videos from a different set-up now with an even stronger counter-authoritarian flavour even heading into the anti-vaccine territory.

Dr John reported on hydroxychloroquine weighing up the research and considered it not effective, but ivermectin he looked at and considered a useful, life-saving drug that was being overlooked. I don't believe any of his videos were taken down (can be corrected if I'm wrong), but after some statements to the effect of demanding authorities to consider it for use as a treatment, he has gone back to emphasising the use of vaccines, with only occasional lateral comments about ivermectin. He nailed my feeling on the topic in a recent video (11:25, but the whole video is pretty interesting).

I would like to explain my own feelings on this phenomenon, first by looking at the background of the situation, how it's played out but also looking at some counter-factuals which regrettably I haven't heard voiced yet. (Standard disclaimer: I am not a epidemiologist, virologist, pharmacologist, and have not personally read or reviewed the research. Do not take this as a statement of support for anything except the medicinal power of dark chocolate and strong Chinese liquor.) 

Early in the Covid pandemic, there were no clear ways to pharmaceutically prevent or treat the Covid condition; all that there was were NPIs to prevent infection and luck that either you were less disposed to it, or had less inoculum (fewer viral particle king-hits on your ACE2 receptors). Pharmaceutical companies invested money in development of their vaccines and countries made orders to have certainty for their own ways through this crisis. Needless to say there was a lot of money tied up in the development and the promise of their roll-out all over the world. Then came DWSNBN 1 and 2. The fly-in-the-ointment issue with these is that they were both off-patent - there was thus very few interested parties to fund the requisite large scale double-blind trials. What trials that were run were mostly done in third world countries such as Costa Rica and India. The evidence shows that someone taking ivermectin would have a greatly reduced chance of infection, reduced chance of hospitalisation and death. There was a lot of drama in the middle including an obvious hatchet job against one of the two drugs that caused a retraction in The Lancet. In terms of treatments for Covid-19, it seems clear that especially ivermectin has a better success rate than patented drugs such as remdesivir. But it is not even mentioned as possible drug for treatment and is actively discouraged in many countries. It may be because experts have really looked at it and thought it not to be better than placebo - or perhaps there are more commercial factors at play.

One possible reason for this phenomenon is the expected impact of the discovery and widespread use of a off-patent medicine to treat such a novel disease that has already such a valuable market for the pharmaceutical industry. In the first counter-factual, imagine if any time prior to December 2020, when vaccines were started to be offered to the public in some countries, news about a cheap, effective treatment emerged, was approved by the relevant health authorities and was widely used. It might have caused a massive rejection of the "experimental" vaccines that had already had massive investment from the government and industry. People would instead use a cheap, easily manufactured generic medicine, usually applied to farm animals. Provided it was actually useful, it would have changed the trajectory all together. It would be interesting to know whether such a shock might have bankrupted any business - I'm guessing not, none of the businesses would have "put the house" on the vaccine development.

Back in the reality where such a discovery has not been approved or promoted, it has meant people's lives may have been terminated by the virus at a greater rate than if this wonder-drug had superior efficacy and could be moved more efficiently to the places that needed it. But by suppressing this knowledge and medical approval, it kept the stability within the economic system. This seems akin in some way to the financial bail-outs of the banking sector where industry losses are mitigated through a socialised sacrifice. 

If so, this yet again the bug of the capitalist system. Unethical results from rational big picture financial rational decision-making. In the same realm of pharmaceuticals, there is the well-known dilemma of the development of two drugs - one that cured a condition completely and another that treated it but did not completely cure them, and would be required to be taken over the life time of the patient: only the latter would go to market because the former does not really have a business plan. There is a lot of gnashing of teeth in liberal sections of society when there such an outcome occurs but it is the compromise that was made in accepting this otherwise very efficient economic system.

Another aspect of the counter-factual is that had ivermectin derailed vaccine roll-outs, the world would now be dependent on the supply of one drug which doesn't in itself trigger immune protection. The positive would be that, being off-patent, any country or business could start manufacture it in vast amounts but also that we would be consuming ivermectin in prophylaxis and treatment through the whole pandemic period. It might be able to get individuals through the infection but would still mean that is a reduced or minimal immune response. And alternatively, it might have been found that it does not work as well scaled up, and by then the vaccine developers have moved onto other things and perhaps not keen to have the commercial exposure to further development.

It could be from some of these fears that a health expert may in good conscience downplay or not mention this other drug. A big picture risk analysis to the works of a off-patent spanner might have caused hesitation, or alternatively been provided to decision makers as ethical "cover" for not indulging the easy-out of promoting cheap alternatives. There might also be a tacit understanding that once the pharmaceutical industry had covered its losses that ivermectin might be approved to blunt the third world from future surges. 

The key though as Dr John has said is that no-one is likely to say it as there is a "realpolitik" at play. Although such things are irksome, and enraging for some like Chris, I only shrug. I think it's unusual to see people acknowledge in public: "yes, it's not the outcome we want but this is probably the price of the any greater good." 

Or there could be a prudent "kicking for touch" element where the vaccines work and should be able to end the pandemic, and the desire not to muddy the already muddy waters. 

When it gets down to it, in almost every aspect of my life I've now found myself identifying as a pragmatist, not an idealist. I am quite comfortable with the compromise because I cannot be always confident of the correctness of my own views to run over the top of others. That being said, in my own conduct I'll follow my own way in an experiment of one. 

This last week has been my "run down" week. My immune system stopped really caring and my sleep was rather disrupted. Despite this, my running performance on training runs was as good as I would expect at this stage. God might have dealt me a good hand - Saturday was a wash-out and I didn't run on what would have been a long run. I slept well on Friday and Saturday night. Sunday, I ran my longest run since October 2019 and felt fine. This week has begun and my energy is back. Yesterday I ran a half marathon distance in the morning, not as a time trial but as a fartlek (where you choose different speeds, including slow, for different sections) and still had an energetic day afterwards. Sunday I have my first half marathon in the last nine months and am feeling confident that I can break 1:40, a good standard of training. (For the record, my personal best is 1:30 but will need a couple more months to get to that fitness.)

A'bounding

This has been a rather lame 18 months of running since my Auckland Marathon in 2019. A fall and a weird hip/groin strain seemed to hang over 2020 and just when things were looking good, a hamstring niggle stretched into 2021. And then as physio treatment and determination got me going again, an ankle sprain took me from an excellent start to the year to behind the eight-ball once more.

It's over two months since the sprain that still limits me, but being foolhardy, i.e. a hardy fool, I have now strung together two weeks of 50km mileage. 50km is pretty decent mileage when fit and the physios are pretty happy for me to continue with what I'm doing. (Regular movement, stretching and extending movements, getting muscles to work together.) It's all been because of something rather special:  noticeable progress. Prior to the last two weeks, I'd worried that the strategy of being active had backfired and resulted in a slow healing. What changed? A number of things.

Firstly, my physio Claudia pursued a strapping arrangement to lift my arch. This was rather counter-intuitive as I have in-soles which literally hold my arches up. (And have done that well for six marathons!) But the very evening I ran and found that the usual long process of loosening my ankle was absent. And when I removed the strapping days later, it still had some of the benefit. Then I had acupuncture the following week, and a repetition of the same strapping, and again noticed an ease of movement. On Saturday, I ran my farthest run since the sprain, 15km, and stopped on my own terms. (i.e., my ankle didn't compel me to stop.) Then, third and lastly, we finally got back to our favourite Chinese massage place. The masseuse, Betty, an accountant-turned-massage therapist, did some very interesting contortions, which if she had explained them before implementing I would have told her to avoid as I could only imagine them hurting my glass ankle. Strangely these unanticipated twists and squeezes of my Achilles and joints did not hurt at all, and then I ran again today and felt a noticeable freedom that I had not had before.

Seeing progress is a key and now I can see myself running another marathon this year.

Winged on the road

Accidents are such unique experiences. In a mere few seconds you have a whole array of emotions, a visual lesson in Newtonian physics, and reactions that seem to exceed their natural speeds. In my life I now have had four accidents involving other vehicles and they will be indelibly etched on my memory. 

The first was on Khyber Pass back in my early university days. I was driving a Japanese friend home on night and had reason to do a U-turn. I checked my wing mirror and simultaneously did the rapid acceleration and turning of the wheel, nailing an old fashioned VW Beetle in the passenger door. In my blind spot there had been a car. The driver, who coincidentally was also Japanese was not impressed. Somewhere nearby there was also a policeman, who dashed over and breathalysed me. (Being teetotal at the time, this was a mere formality.)

The second was the funny one, in my mid-twenties. I was a keen vegetarian and a regular at the old Huckleberries on the corner of Balmoral and Manukau Rd. On quiet weekends it was easy to get into but I dreaded going to it in traffic. On this occasion the road was heaving. From the city, there was one tiny, sharp entrance on the Manukau Rd side. I got into the left lane and indicated ready to turn and signal to the traffic behind me that I was going to slow down. That was then a guy in a 4WD who had been in the Huckleberries carpark drove to the entry and prepared to turn onto Manukau Rd. He saw that I was turning and prepared to pull out into the tight gap in front of me, but before he even moved I hesitated: I did not think I would be able to squeeze through the entry with this vehicle. I decided not to bother and switched off my indicator to go straight, and rammed into his now committed vehicle. After exchanging details with the other drier, and then corresponding later on, we were both surprised that despite my inadvertently hoodwinking of him, I was in the clear of responsibility for the crash - a lesson that I call the "free hit rule". He was in a lot of angst over losing his "no claims bonus" for something he didn't see as his fault.

The second to last one might have been a year later and can count as a surprising one. I was travelling along Mt Albert Road in heavy traffic, coming back from Fisher & Paykel Healthcare. At the time, I had made a discovery that I could lift my greatest language learning weakness, listening, by listening to the Chinese radio stations for extended lengths of times, and there is no better time than when you are stuck in traffic. Or perhaps not. It might have not been the intense concentration on decoding meaning, but I think just a random thought that made my tired mind look away from the road, and up to the right ever so briefly. This was followed by the sensation that all drivers will have experienced at some stage of the object in front of you coming up quickly in your field of vision. The car in front had stopped. And despite trying, I did not quite manage to stop in time, and had my first cliched crash, the nose-to-tail. The surprise was that the driver, a middle-aged Samoan, said he didn't think the damage was sufficient to bother with insurance. Instead I met up with him for coffee a couple of times. 

That would have been sixteen or so years ago now. And I dread thinking about the fact that last Friday I broke the drought and had my fourth accident with another vehicle. It is tied up in a lot of emotions. Both my wife and I loved our car, our Wingroad. It was more homely and felt more permanent than our home in some ways. To be clear, I hadn't treated it well. I had inflicted a few scratches on it in the five years we've had it, so I guess the writing had been on the wall that I might do something worse. The story that goes along with it is clearly one of hypotheticals.

I was going down to Hamilton for work, but we had also planned a long weekend in Hamilton and Cambridge to spend our anniversary. (Hamilton doesn't conjure up romance for most, but we just wanted some time out of town.) Christy, being an online teacher, could teach from down there and then we could go straight into celebratory mode without having to drive far once down. Usually I would drive the work vehicle down to Hamilton and decided to just check whether it would be possible to have a work car over the weekend. That was a negative. Then the day before we were to go down, I accidentally left my power cord at a campus. Since I was working that Friday I would really need the cord and so the morning we were about to go to Hamilton I had to make that pitstop and head into an office to retrieve it before we actually got on our way. All of this circumstance might have had things happen more differently...

After collecting the power cord, I jumped back in the car, probably a bit annoyed that I had to waste the time. Annoyance and impatience are where most of my scratches have come from. I went up the drive-way of the campus to turn left onto the road. It is an annoying turn because cars park right up to the entry way and it is hard to see around. I believe I checked the best I could before emerging onto the road without the appropriate cautious crawl-peer, but rather with the hustle of a person who feels like he has to get moving. And I hustled the front right corner of our car into the left wheel of a white sedan. It was all slow motion, just like it always is. Our cars went some way along the road together. Fortunately neither car hit any other car. I had to evade parked cars on Christy's side of the car as we came to a stop. I jumped out and apologised and said it was my fault, that I had insurance and that we needed to exchange details. In another cosmic coincidence, the other driver was Samoan as well. 

The smallest of mercies was that even though our car was looking very sad out front, it was still drivable and I got it home. I learned another lesson: At the time I got the insurance out I was asked about the value I wanted to be compensated in the event of a crash. I never know how to answer that question - it does tie into the premium. It also becomes the threshold for what value of repairs they are happy to cover. If the value is too low, it is in the insurance company's interest to "write off". I think I changed the value down at some point and as a result the assessor took on look and told me to take all our belongings out of the car. 

A week on I think I've moved on. We have another car now. A hybrid. And it drives rather well. We just have to take this setback as a forced upgrade and a lesson to reflect and take care on the road. 

Excerpt: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." - John 1

Starting this chapter, even with no religious intent I fell upon the intriguing first line of the Book of John in the New Testament. There are interpretations of it and it invites interpretation. The first rule of interpretation is to go to the original, and the original was not English but Greek and so it was not Word but Logos, which presumably roughly means "word". Then we should look whether it is intended literally, or figuratively. 

I would like to write, with words no less, on the literal understandings of words. Words are such a part of our world and thinking that it is hard to remove them from our thinking or even in our sight. One of the reasons for my need to approach this early in my writing is that I have only recently begun to have genuine suspicion about words, generally thinking that while useful, they must be used very carefully and with an understanding of their limitations in any particular situation. Any situation or thing cannot be just words; words can only hold a few fields of information on anything, as all things are boundless in their complexity. Words are bluntest of tools, for which we sometimes think we are able to sculpt David; and when we see someone else's sculpted prose we must take on a lot of faith that there is some similarity with the actual King David. If there is a God, it must be before the "Word". Words are just an attempt to write the detail of reality, and as anyone know the Devil is in the detail. Or rather, the reality is in the unwritable detail.

Probably one of my greatest hatreds is the simplification of something organic into something textual. It is the degradation of something four dimensional into something that is less than a single dimension, words. Words can only capture something incontestable, or something oversimplified or, worse, misleading. And that is for almost anything that can be put into words. 

For a good many years in my twenties I labelled myself a philosophical Daoist, a conceit that could only come from those precious years of youth. I really did have an intellectual interest in the ideas of Zhuangzi and Laozi, and understood them in my own way. Whether I naturally thought or acted in accordance with them would be debatable. Some ideas are like seeds though and may of those seeds are reflective in many of my instincts and reactions now. 

Zhuangzi (Chuangtzu) in particularly was skeptical about words, with plenty of wordy quotes to demonstrate: “The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?” Nice, right? The most apt part of that is the subordination of language as a mere tool that could be disposed of once the truth is apparent. 

The problem though is that the mediation role that words have taken in our perceptions has led us to only see them. We only see the agents and forget the product they are selling. Laozi (Laotzu) said: "The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth" and there is more than an element of that in the exaggerated field of real estate. 

Both Daoists quotes, themselves, are undoubtedly beautiful. The first talks about words as a disposable means to an ends, that ends being to have a clear understanding of meaning. The second that they play on our senses and truth is not necessarily a pleasing, acceptable thing. My current feeling is that words are almost always inadequate to show meaning, approximations at best; and at worst, they damage meaning in the snaring, trapping process to the point that it leads to wrong understanding or self-deception. Be that as it may, I concede that they are probably the best we have to communicate. 

Words, being mere tools, can be misused or abused to create impossible artworks akin to Escher paintings. As we think in words, it is easy to be caught in an infinity loop created by them, unless you constantly subordinate the lingual meaning to a limited aspect of a non-lingual reality. The Chinese word for contradiction 矛盾 (máodùn) comes from the story of a man selling two different products: 矛, a spear that was described as capable of piercing any armour or protection; and 盾, a shield which in this case is absolutely inpenetrable. In the story, of course, a stander-by asked that obvious question: what happens when his two products are used against each other. Clearly there is a contradiction there but it is only an intellectual word game at the end of the day, because two physical objects can be speculated about but at the end of the day the theory can be tested and one object will win. And in it winning, it might only mean that it wins now - can one really know about something being the most of anything without an impossibly omniscient perspective. 

Words can only show a few dimensions of any idea, object, person or place, when there are countless others. Take our hypothetical spear. Actually, don't. It is hypothetical and is literally only words. I do not know if you have ever seen a spear before so please hold in your mind the conception of the sharpest knife you actually have in your cutlery drawer. This is your 矛. Unlike a word spear with extraordinary word powers, your knife is, well, your knife; only you know it. Imagine the feeling of holding the material of the handle; its weight and dynamics in the hand when you want to use it; recall the age, how it came to be your knife; recall what you have eaten with it, or the foods you have prepared with it; though you probably cannot be sure, imagine its production; the origins of each of its components; then look at any grooves or any imperfections on it; do any of those scars have a story? As for whether it is sharp enough to slice through your bulletproof chopping board, or whether the blade will snap upon the first, second or third attempt, let us leave that to our imagination. 

I would aver that the knowledge and the actuality of the knife that you have in your mind, after this mental probing of the knife ,cannot be adequately reflected in text. Even if you write answers to the questions above in text, it is still a mere shadow of the actuality with plenty of scope to underrepresent or misrepresent. And there are far more so for things more complex than an inert kitchen object. All of which means that we should treat meaning and truth represented words bring as approximations, and definitely cast the words away when the obscure sight of what you are trying to see.

In terms of my own growth, especially in the last ten years, it would have been towards leaving linear thought, perhaps a sign that the seeds from my twenties are bearing fruit. Linear thought is a product of the oversimplicity that word thinking can instill. For me linear thinking is the kind that is pure, reasonable, on-paper analysis without any dimensions of rough-and-ready reality. It is what I have an innate ability to do and regrettably has been one of the biggest obstacles for understanding the nuances of the real world. 

What I am calling linear thought is best shown by obviously reasonable but clearly wrong conclusions:

- A smart couple will have smart children.

- He is the smartest so he will be the most successful.

- He is successful so he must be happy.

Similar certainties are commonly heard. Anyone with any worldly experience knows these are reasonable possibilities but definitely nowhere near the certainties logical, linear thinking should dictate. The sentences should clang in the ear in their arrogant certainty; so many truisms have this kind of reasonability about them that almost certainly recalls Laozi's observation about beautiful words not being true; and true words not beautiful. A smart couple could have a range of children with different intellectual talents; they may have one on the autistic spectrum, a child with Downs Syndrome and a rebel who distains learning and resents the expectations of their parents. Our own experiences of real people will show the linear thoughts to be clearly wrong about success and happiness: Anthony Bourdain, Michael Hutchence, Heath Ledger and Greg Boyd were all smart successful people whose lives ended by their own hands probably in lives where true happiness was a rarity and the agony of being was beyond belief. Linear thinking would not make sense of these people, and to be clear a lot of people still cannot understand their acts of suicide. 

Yet for most of my life I have thought this way. Being someone with a strong affinity to words, I would write down my ideas and draw conclusions. When things did not go according to logic, I would say that it happened incorrectly, rather than to see that I had an inadequate tool for understanding why things happened the way they did. It might be an age thing - we see so much and realise that the inherent complexities in things and people are much more than can be perceived.

Apparently F. Scott Fitzgerald was the first to say the line: "The sign of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." When I heard it it nailed a notion that I have enjoyed pondering for some time:  If one statement is 80% likely to be correct to a degree of 80% or more and a completely contradictory second statement is 80% likely to be 80% correct, it is entirely possible that both seem correct and consistent with most of the evidence. Therefore, if you negate one on the basis of another, you are in jeopardy. I would like to stand up and bear witness to holding two contradictory thoughts. Yet, I am sure it would not be understood.

Words fail in just the same way that numbers do. A staff headcount, something that is always lurking at the background of my managerial life, counts each person as an identical unit, whereas they are all different people with respect to ability, productivity, legacy and fit, not to mention the importance of their ongoing employment to their financial viability. The headcount could be a proxy for an accountant for the cost of salaries, which is only a financial perspective, whereas it loses relevance for the operation in the business and the human side of a working staff. Death tolls are the same, counting each person as an equal unit, which for public health monitoring may be useful but from any other angle had blinders towards the age, family impact of loss, contribution to society, etc. These two counts of human bodies is equal but not equitable and, more to my point, only ever meant to be taken as one dimension because there is no true way to count absolutely. Words are no different. 

Clearly I've rambled for quite some time in words. Obviously the suspicion of words has not stopped me being prolix in my elaboration. I do not find it discouraging for my use of language, but it rather pushes me to try better to touch the concrete, the real and ask the questions without prejudice or prejudgement.  

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?

Excerpt: Non-dualism

There were three weird moments in the first half of my life that I sometimes reflect on. I remember the experiencing them at the time, and also reflecting quickly on the experience. But since then there was recollections of these moments, and who knows to what degree they have changed in nature. They may have been qualitatively different but even through the innocent categorising of them together here, I might be mentally drawing them in to one section to make a point. Dear Reader, I hope you read the below and consider whether anything similar has happened in your life. I will describe them below and leave my own understanding of it to the end.

The first and the most wondrous was during a trip to Surfers Paradise in Australia. At this time I cannot be certain of my age but probably around 10 years old. It is also the sketchiest of the three to include. There is a Ripley's Believe It or Not "Odditorium". To unpack that, many people my age or older will remember there was a show on television, Ripley's Believe It or Not?, where strange but real stories are presented. This show, and anything with the name Arthur C. Clarke, or supernatural stories, I was crazy for. So to find this "Odditorium" (i.e. a specialised exhibit venue of odd things) was like going to heaven. It had visual illusions, stories and artefacts to see. The route was a loop through one floor, with panels on either side of the route. Being ten or thereabouts and in an overstimulating sacred venue, I imagine I probably ran around on my own. At some point though somewhere between the middle and the end, I lost myself. I just remember at the end that for a time I felt as if in a timeless dream, but nevertheless everything in the dream was actually there, just nothing more than the material substance. The final exhibits were just what they were without the expectation that I would have layered on top. It was just what it was. And it felt timeless, it felt like over an hour but it was probably no more than ten minutes. At the end my family caught up with me and we went on.

The second was after we moved to Hobsonville. We had a PC in the so-called "Pool Room" that I was increasingly hogging it for my own personal interests of computer games, philosophy, computer programming and English or Japanese BBS ("bulletinboards", a form of online chat boards). Again I cannot put a year on this but likely 17 or 18 years old. I was thinking about non-dualism - probably when I was new to the idea - and for a moment looked away and briefly again lost myself. I cannot say for how long, but for that time things just were. I just was. And then the spell ended and I went on writing, albeit with a new perspective.

The third I can definitely place in a time: The AIESEC Weekend Away conference in 2001 where I was on the OC (Organising Committee). For context, I had returned from Taiwan in September 2000 and felt something of a change in my being; I supported the OC with an Asia Pacific AIESEC conference in Auckland in January of 2001 and felt unconstrained socially and started challenging my boundaries; and then the university resumed in March, new members joined and it was part of the calendar to have an early conference with new members as part of the education process and planning for the year. I remember bringing the same mind and energy to this that I had at the Asia Pacific conference in the little moments. The only duty I can recall at this time twenty years later was one of my menial roles, washing dishes, and it was there that for periods I would just lose myself again. I would be there but without thought. Just doing. 

Now, others may have these feelings regularly; I might be impoverished and treat these meagre shiny experiences as sacred, while similar may be a dime a dozen for meditators, or available with a tab of Ecstasy. But each moment I think grounded me and opened my mind. They felt akin to a religious experience. I have meditated for periods of my life without every coming close to this, even though you would think that was the most appropriate technique to achieve it. Only one of them was while contemplating something, the other two could have been while in "flow" dissociating from self and only on existence. Without any strict guidance in my own naming of things, I consider these moments when I dipped into a mindset of non-dualism where there is no division between mind and body; no right or wrong; good or bad. It was just is; no subject; no object; no predicate; just verb.

Heart of Darkness

Is there anything better than the Easter break? Four days is just the perfect break length. I'm writing this on the start of the first day and I feel like I've already had a great rest and now I have a full two days to do things. But isn't there anything worse than a four day week, two of which flank the Easter break. 

It has been four weeks since I sprained my ankle but the last week I've started to push it by starting to jog. So far it seems to be therapeutic but I bears some risk. Every sprain is different, the result of a very specific incident with its own torques and forces to an ankle with its own idiosyncratic strengths and weak points. There are three grades of sprain. The ultrasound which revealed five partial tears was sufficient to show I had a grade two sprain, and a 4-8 week recovery time. Easter has been a time to make sure I do my exercises and focussing on the exercises to recover.

I thought the injury would have opened a lot of writing time but I have only done a few bursts of creativity and production. I have been thinking about and listening to many things which sometimes is related to what I am writing and sometimes something parallel. One person I have listened to a great deal is Ramani Durvasula, a psychologist with an interest in pathological narcissism (AKA narcissistic personality disorder, NPD). As a complete layperson in matters psychological, the idea that there is that there are personality disorders at all; I understood mental disorders of various shades, but personality disorders are different in essentially they are strictly about the personality, and not a mental condition. I would be suspicious about a personality described as a disorder, and though I have known my fair share of people I regard narcissists, I would have not considered it necessarily as a condition.

For example, if narcissism were a disorder, it would be something that narcissists would be in all aspects of their lives. For whatever reason, I may have mistaken thought that narcissists acted narcissistic with particular people, or in specific situations. (To be clear, I had not really thought about the subject.) I could imagine someone being a narcissist in a relationship but who works fine as a colleague and does not manipulate the boss; or someone who grows up as a narcissistic child in a family but at school is not abusing others for their own aggrandizement. That may be because there is a borderline between something pathological (NPD) and just the everyday selfishness or our innate tendency of egocentrism that we all exhibit at times, or during phases of our lives. Or perhaps I did not know whether those nasty pieces of work are as nasty in the other environments and with the other people in their lives. Apparently based on the evidence, they are, or can be so, thus NPD is in the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fifth Edition).

Ramani spends time distinguishing psychopaths, sociopath and narcissists, and estimates that narcissists are different from the other two, and are much more common. Some of the typical phenomena outside of those in a relationship are the berating the customer service staff; they are also the ones who have hugely selfish (and hypocritical) driving habits and attitudes; they are the ones who if another person does not feed their self-esteem or give them their needs will tend to cut off and treat coldly. 

If it were a common personality disorder, I would be able to spot many within my sphere. In my working life, I think I have only met a few that I would be able to state with any confidence, and without any psychiatric credential, are likely NPD candidates. For past colleagues, EG seemed to be one. SB another. Back in China, LB and RG were probable. But that was from my own experiences with them, in a professional capacity. But if they weren't NPD sufferers, then there aren't too many others to choose from. It could be that now that I deal with more people in lower positions than me within my small professional pond so fewer people in my working life can afford to show me their darker side. Not that I want to have such a person acting out and affecting my peace of mind. 

How well we know others, how well we know ourselves and how perceptions of the world are a big interest to me and disorders that affect perception are curious. 

Another blog about not running (any more)

"I've been pleased enough with things to want to blog about it for quite some time except for the fact that I'm superstitious and don't want to jinx myself." - Saturday, 6 March.

"I think I've sprained my ankle." - Sunday, 7 March.

Well, that lasted long. In various forums on Saturday and before, I mentioned not wanting to jinx myself. Apparently voicing the idea of avoiding jinxes is a jinx in itself. Best not to talk at all. Saturday's run was a landmark run, Sunday's run was going to be an easy run where I could try more trail run-like terrain. I was aiming to go for a 12 km run so to get past that 100km mark for the week. Weather conditions were excellent although rain over the weekend had made it just a little moist. 

I started by going through the trails around the side of Mt Eden and then crossed Khyber Pass to the Domain. The Domain is great for runners in that it has a plateau area with a nice one mile loop, as well as a reasonable few hilly loops through bush and park area even with a small stream waterfall. Despite the 30km's on the previous days, I felt pretty good, perhaps as a reflection of my fitness. As I was mainly aiming to finish 12km, I was always part navigating a route while calculating a distance. Once I left the Domain I felt I just had to return basically the same general distance as I took to get to the Domain, so I decided to go through the Mt Eden tracks again, but via a different route. I went up via "The Stairs of Doom" (a set of stairs up to the summit road from Glenfell Place) and went along the road until the goat track down the mountain. It was basically just downhill to Mt Eden Rd and home. 

But it wasn't to be so easy. I don't believe I was careless or distracted. I had my eyes focussed on the track looking for dangers ahead. But while my eyes were checking a metre ahead, my left ankle was quickly bending inwards on a danger underfoot. Benign ankle rolls do happen from time to time and you can usually "run them out". This one did not feel benign and a few more strides made it clear that it was a sprain of some degree. 

I RICE'd and the following day I went to the physio for treatment and had an ultrasound to find my five partial ligament tears. Three days later I was rather surprised to be mobile enough to get around, and movement is part of the treatment. But now at the one week now mark, there has only been very small incremental improvements. I have kept my entry to The Dual active although I will probably not do much of any training before it.

I'm now quite calm about injuries and set-backs as I've had plenty. I'm sure the near-misses for injuries I've had in the past in the good times are compensated by the occasional direct hit. It could have been worse for example, a sprain or worse just days before or on the run itself (which does happen to the occasional runner). 

So we'll see how the next four weeks treat me and my ankle. Fingers crossed I can get moving to retain some of the fitness I've gained.

Another blog about running

For me, the first stanza of this year has been dominated by two things: one of our school's educational audit and my resumption of running. The two things were a tough act to balance both.  

In the preparation for the audit, there were late finishes, and meetings at any time of the day. Those lead to evenings that I couldn't run, and usually sleeping later, a harder wake-up and sleep deprivation to get runs in. Then the week of the audit, there were requests for information, usually that could not be simply extracted, leading again to late nights.

That all being said, things have been surprisingly smooth on the running front, I'm tracking ahead of my best year, 2019, in terms of mileage at the same point although my pace seems a bit slower. Yet I'm still knocking on wood before every run. In 2020 for every start, every moment of overcoming, came a niggle, recurrence or injury. So far, with reasonably regular supplementary strengthening exercises, I have managed to get by without much worry that the machine will breakdown. I've been pleased enough with things to want to blog about it for quite some time except for the fact that I'm superstitious and don't want to jinx myself.

2019 is turning out to be a useful measuring stick as it was the best build-up and culminated in a good Rotorua Marathon time (early May). This year I'm running The Dual (a trail marathon on Motutapu and Rangitoto) on 10 April so while a little earlier in the year, I can know how I can continue to raise my game from how my fitness has improved in the past. 

The Dual is linked to 2019, too. It was on conclusion of the Auckland Marathon that year, with my fitness truthfully the highest it has ever been in my life, that I wanted my next marathon to be on trail, and the idea (and convenience) of a Hauraki island trail marathon was too good to give up. And after registering there was injury. There was Covid. And there was the entire frustrating 2020.

Now in early March, I am one run away from completing my first 100km week of the year (another echo from 2019). 100km is recognised as something of a sweet spot for marathon training and I intend to stay in the 100s for the next two weeks before tapering. 

This morning I finished my first run over 30km since the 2019 Auckland Marathon and I'm pretty satisfied with how it went. Five weeks to go to The Dual, I hope these good times can keep rolling!

Fourth Uncle

An anniversary is the turning of a year, and this turning for us happened on 2 February 2020 when we through luck and perseverance boarded a flight and returned to New Zealand from the virally Problematic Republic of China. The memories of this time were interesting because we were really concerned about whether New Zealand would close its borders even to citizens and residents. For all the lost enjoyment and quality time in rush to find an earlier flight back, our original flight was cancelled and we were put on an earlier flight as a matter of course. We arrived back to pre-lockdown Auckland and enjoyed the limbo of self-isolation, the delivered groceries, the walks and drives around the block, the reading and watching from afar.

That trip back was only with immediate family of in-laws and I did not get to see or spend time with any of the uncles. Fourth Uncle had been unwell just before our trip back in 2019 but had gotten partially back to health by the time we visited. He was my Qingyuan favourite uncle because he was always so positive and curious, greeting me warmly from the start and asking questions and engaging. He died last month. It was a brief illness, which the doctors could not really diagnose yet asked for a pile of money for treatment for. There was the Chinese equivalent of give-a-little. Then the message not long after that it had gotten much worse. Then it was the rush to get him home to at least say goodbye. But even those in the neighbouring villages, let alone us, would have got there in time. 

I still recall the first time I met him in 2011: my brother-in-law was getting married with a multi-day festivity of food and wine. I got to know all the aunties, helped with peeling the lotus roots, watched the geese getting slaughtered and generally drank in each round of the banquet. I had gone up stairs to accompany the awkward parents of the bride - I only understood why they were awkward later, a tale for another time - but mainly to cool off after drinking so much. After a stilted conversation, my wife came up and mentioned relatives from her family had come and wanted to see me. It was Fourth Uncle and his three nephews, my cousins-in-law, and upon my arrival they spoke quickly and keenly in the accent of a village one hour walk away, a form of Cantonese I still cannot follow well. But Fourth Uncle was smiling and fine to surmount any language barriers to make a friend. And pour that friend a full glass of moonshine rice-wine and drink it till it was empty and fill that glass back up again.

There have been plenty of stories of the people dying alone, or families not being able to see their loved ones' last hours, or the dread of not being able to fly in and/or out to spend precious time. I am lucky that besides a brief family health emergency, Fourth Uncle is the only one that I have had that horrible feeling for. We couldn't see him last year. And we couldn't see him at hospital for his end. All I can do is remotely raise a glass and drink in his memory. And just writing that I think perhaps I should follow custom and cast some alcohol on the ground to return his previous kindness in his afterlife.

A running start

And so it begins. The dreams. The doubts. And the planning. 2020 was a terrible year for running. It was hobbled by a November 2019 mystery strain and even though I managed to pull myself together for a few stretches of training, and competed in a few races, it was dismal. Every time I gained some momentum a niggle would appear. Every time a niggle appeared, I would wind it back, rehab and then cautiously build back up till the next set back. 2020 though was a year of uncertain events. I had two events converted into virtual runs. Major events fell off the calendar with all the Covid fears and precautions stripping out much to train towards. 

It began well with a New Years Day run, and the first 24 days of the year have accrued over 125km (2021 it took April to get so far, but incidentally in my best year, 2019, it took me 24 days to get to the same mark). 

Anyway, the planning begins and these are the events I'm currently lining up:

- Coatesville Half Marathon (14 February)

- The Dual trail marathon (10 April)

A Cultural Revolution

 As part of my own personal revolution to audio-books (yes, it did not end at one book), I revisited the Chinese sci-fi novel Three Body Problem, but this time in English audio. So fascinated by it, I have already given the paperback to a few people as a gift. Each time before I give it, I usually give it a little flick through. It is an odd translation in that it has re-ordered the sequence for the audience starting with what in the book is a historical flashback in the middle of the book. It's an interesting choice: a flashback does occur chronologically first so it doesn't really hurt, I guess, but the sequence is set in the late 60s in a very critical moment of Chinese history, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, usually abbreviated to the Cultural Revolution, is in full swing. However, if you do not know much about the context of the time I can imagine many readers feeling removed from it. 

What is the Cultural Revolution? I'll explain in my own gathered understanding because as the narrative again flooded into my ears via the audiobook I realised a very modern analogue. 

Most people know Chairman Mao as a dictator, near de facto emperor over China. His early story is subject to a lot of contention but struggled successfully to become the leading Communist when the Red Army prevailed over the Nationalist Party (KMT) in 1949. After a brief honeymoon period, his poor economic understanding resulted in the ironically named Great Leap Forward, which starved millions to death. It and other setbacks relegated him to a figurehead with the actual controls of the country in the hands of other capable officials. Things picked back up almost immediately with more liberal policies. Whether it was the resentment of other people leading well or that they were liberal methods, he and his enablers in the government triggered massive demonstrations of support for him. His people in the media turned the tables on the more liberal leaders and the masses rose against them and any others who had supported them. Everyone with any connection to liberalness was a target and people meted out their own justice on university professors, artists, the former landlords and former officials. The whole system of the country effectively fell into anarchy. Similar to the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, the youth were the biggest tools. They organised in groups called Red Guards. They were given weapons to carry out the revolution; but in a twist they also turned against each other to show the fervor of their passion for Mao. 

The book begins in this twisted situation of militarised students fighting a battle, and then a "struggle session" with a professor. (Where they essentially torment an academic until they admit they are bourgeois and confess to all their sins.) It would seem to be another world that the leader of a country launches a revolution against itself to purge enemies and regain power, but Donald Trump ten days ago managed to trigger something similar to Mao. There are moments like this that you just have to laugh.

Dumb as a rock

Our of all the technology that has flowed into our lives, I had only read traditional paper-based books until very recently; never have I read a full story on an e-reader. (One of the few technological firsts that my wife beat me to.) I also have not listened to a modern downloadable audiobook. (I had to qualify that as I have listened to science fiction stories on cassette tapes in my teens.) It is not that I am averse to it, I just had no desire to read non-book books. And this is despite the fact that I listen to copious podcasts.

I broke this streak on a recommended app Libby, with which you can borrow e-books and audiobooks, like an e-library, if you will. Everything I wanted to read was out but just like a real library you can put out a hold, but one search brought up a curious short e-book so I thought I would give it a go while I was on the road. The book, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carol M. Cipolla, was the book, and I only chose it because I knew the author who wrote the foreword. And it was a curious thing. 

Its most interesting point is an objective definition of stupidity, which fits into a simple xy set of axes. Imagine an evaluation of someone's actions with the x axis measuring the net benefit to you, and the y axis measuring the net benefit to others. Actions in the top right hand quadrant are defined as intelligent actions because they don't just benefit yourself, but others, too, whereas the bottom left quadrant refers to stupid actions. They are actions where you don't just hurt yourself, net, but also harm others. As the book defines: "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."

From this, you need to know that stupidity and intelligence are not about IQ. The author in fact posits that there is a ration akin to pi which indicates that if you grab any subset of people, that ratio will be stupid, always. It doesn't matter if you are black or white; professors or drop-outs; women, men or undefined. The corollary of this is that people who are well-educated are equally populated by people who make decisions that harm themselves and others, as the uneducated. (And vice-versa.)

Going back to the axes, the top-left quadrant, i.e., benefiting others but not yourself, your action is defined as helpless; and the bottom right-hand quadrant is that of the bandit. The author even refines this further by defining someone who gets lets benefit than the deprive others by as stupid bandits; and those who get more benefit than how much they harm someone as an intelligent bandit. Similar terms are available for the helpless.

It is the kind of earnest yet nerdy dissertation that you could have over a cider. There is a certain logic to it. And also one where you think about exceptions. For example, are all charitable people "helpless" or is their contentment in giving, which must be higher than the pinch of the financial cost, enough to make it an always intelligent thing to do. If we are taking into account contentment, then there are many horrendous things that could be done without being "stupid", such as a revenge on a bandit. 

More critically, it fails to take into account probability and the effect of iterations. Is an action only intelligent if it benefits others and yourself on the occasion you do it, when actually there was a chance that it could harm both. Going 110km an hour routinely on highways is stupid, but on a single occasion might be intelligent because of the benefits of extra time to you and your passengers, and the realistic low chance of a significant accident or a traffic fine on a single journey. 

That aside, it is useful to think about. The author structures it with some principles:

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation
2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. And the corollary: A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Now let us talk about the American political situation...

Travelsplaining

I do not know why anyone would trust my powers of travel itinerary planning and implementation. Back in 2000 when my friend Justin and I were touring around China, we discovered very late that the day we were going to stay in Hangzhou did not exist. Somehow we had miscounted days and we literally pulled into the station, waited several hours (in which I had a memorable stomach upset...) and then got on the train again and left. In 2012, when we arrived in Queenstown I found that I booked November instead of December and had to rebook at the front desk.

The theme recurred on our summer trip this year twice when somehow I booked our Dunedin accommodation for November instead of December AND when we arrived in Ashburton I discovered that we had not arranged for the following evening of accommodation (I thought we had accounted for every night). Fortunately, the Dunedin hotel was understanding and moved the booking even though it had effectively passed; and in the second case, in the border-closed summer that it has been, there was still a lot of free rooms in other towns, and we chose Oamaru for an evening.

Oamaru rates a mention not just for its spontaneous appearance in our schedule. We had planned to go straight from Ashburton to Twizel but early in our planning Oamaru was an option instead of Twizel. Now we would be doing both. Oamaru was one of a twin pair of dots on a map to me for most of my life, Timaru and Oamaru. They are like our Paraguay, no, no, Uruguay! 

Timaru is a stop on the way to Oamaru and was much more substantial than my imagination. It had a huge bay and port. But we barely stayed there more than an hour. Oamaru was the gem, though. The appeal of it was its proximity to Moeraki boulders, penguins and Whitestone Cheese. What I didn't know before hand was the Whitestone wasn't just a name: The Oamaru area was regarded as "whitestone" country, because of the abundance of limestone. And the Victorian quarter shows it, with almost every building in a stunning white. The limestone was laid down through an era when the land was submerged and an age of microorganisms that died and calcified. (Higher up the valley in Duntroon there is a fossil museum for the area where they will say how fossils have been found as they were cutting out the bricks for the buildings.)

We ambitiously wanted to see the boulders and penguins before dinner. The penguins, yellow eyed penguins, were not up to it when we were there but at least got to walk around the boulders. According to Gavin Menzies, in his book 1434 which speculated that Chinese explorers may have got as far south as New Zealand, the Moeraki boulders may have been anchors for their boats. They are certainly curious stones but apparently there are natural processes that may have formed them.

Whitestone Cheese tour was a lark. We were led around by Jim, a raconteur of old. He could roll out his favourite lines, roll in the stories of those on tour and generally have a rollicking time of it. At the end was the key part: cheese tasting. There were two options, with or without wine matching and beforehand I chose with, only to find that I was the only one! (Not surprising since it was before noon, but clearly all other men in the group had their wives or others do their bookings because they were quite surprised that that could be done, and were envious.) 

Then it was up the valley to Omarama and then Twizel on a beautiful highway with plenty of rocks and a series of lakes. Twizel has another one of those evocative names, like Methven and Haast. Twizel was apparently a designed town in the Scandinavian mould, with schools and facilities in the centre and ring roads around it. The town was small but was more of a launchpad for Aoraki Mt Cook National Park. We could have stayed in Mt Cook Village but I was worried about the chances of bad weather and thought a more central base gave us more options.

The trip to the trails in the park was stunning with Lake Pukaki on the right, snowy mountains peering from the end of the valley in front and massive hills on the left. At the end of the valley road, you have two choices: The village side or the Tasman side. The Tasman side of it had tracks going to the Tasman Glacier viewing points and also the lake and river flowing from it. I probably had the wrong expectation of the Glacier track; Tasman Glacier terminal point was far away and it was just the lake to see, really. But another track took us to the Blue Lakes, which had turned green because of the amount of rainfall. On the village side, there were more significant tracks and we went on a route up to "Kea Point". It was a pleasant walk although regrettably shorter than I would have wanted.

Then it was the long drive to Queenstown. I had been there so many times but this was the first time with a rental car. The joy of driving between towns inland in this area made it all the worthwhile. Lindis Pass and surrounds were epically beautiful and then the Kawerau River Gorge again was breathtaking. It made a long drive simple. There were a lot of places I had wished for more time to investigate, such as Bendigo. 

We eventually pulled into the Ramada on 31 December, recalling eight years previously being in Queenstown on New Years Eve. We shot over to Arrowtown to celebrate, but just prior checked out the sites, including the restored Chinese Mining Settlement. The story, and this was a much repeated story in Otago mining towns, was of Chinese workers in the late 1800s invited over (men only allowed) to mine the spent patches to sustain the economy, but excluded from much integration into the Pakeha world. The courage for the original British settlers was huge; imagine it for a Chinese person in that era to come to these distant isles. Some of them had already done mining in California and Australia but many were direct from the farm. I could imagine them as my in-laws from the village coming to this frosty foreign place. We walked around reading plaques and going into the restored "homes". Christy cried at one point reading the story of a boat taking the remains of the Chinese who perished in New Zealand sinking in the Hokianga Harbour. In Chinese tradition it was important to be buried in your home and to think a whole boatload of souls were permanently interred still on the wrong side of the world was a bit too much. 

After dinner, it was New Year. Christy had hardly ever stayed up for New Years before but after fading earlier in the day picked up after 11pm and we went down to Queenstown Central where it was crowded and pumping with sound. It was a time for Covid-thoughts. People had lost any vigilance and there was no hope of social distancing, and we, as with others, were not wearing masks. It was a potential story: outbreak in Queenstown, but fortunately it didn't come to pass. What did was some of the best fireworks I had seen. 

I celebrated New Year Day by running my longest run since 14 November, seemingly without any issues to speak of. I followed it up two days later with an even longer run. It is a good omen for 2021!

While in Queenstown we visited Glenorchy briefly and then went forward onto our next destination, Dunedin. Again though the trip was quite "a trip". The scenery road from Alexandra toward Dunedin was rock-strewn, probably used in Lord of the Rings. The flooding of previous days was also clear in the murky rivers. Along the way we stopped at Lawrence where gold was first discovered in Otago. There was a Chinese settlement and the site of it was well done with the stories of the miners, well recorded. There was a house that had been retained too:

Once in Dunedin, and aafter a quick scout around, we were off to the tip of Otago Peninsula to see Royal Albatrosses and Little Blue Penguins. (Along the way we also passed Otakou, the misheard, misapplied name that became Otago.) The one key story of a lot of New Zealand's wildlife is that what we have is a blessing that sometimes we don't deserve. This point used to have plenty of birdlife but human occupation pushed it the edge. It was only modern conservation ideas and the protection of the iwi that allowed animal life to bounce back. The birdlife is dense: I have never been so scared of a seagull horde; there was a whole community of cormorants; I spotted my first Royal Spoonbills ever; but of course we were there for the extraordinary albatrosses.

Then there were the less breathtaking but exceptionally cute penguins. The real spectacle for me was to witness them grouping offshore into "rafts" and then storming the beach en masse before their eager waddle up to their homes. It is a brilliant function of nature that you can imagine that independent penguins returning from their feeding in different places all gather, swimming about, and then once critical mass is reached, they flock ashore. Some of them have long walks home - one curious one was in advance of us as we went back to our car, climbing a flight of stairs before getting to his high hill burrow.

The next day was a wet day but we still got to Dunedin Botanic Gardens for the Kaka and plants; and to Baldwin Street that I had always wanted to run up. After some time in the museums and then to St Clair Beach, it was almost time to go to the airport but I snuck in a stop along the way to Tunnel Beach. This now not-so-secret beach one of the city founders had cut a tunnel to an isolated beach with high cliffs. The beach, stunningly set. It had a waterfall, steep cliffs, a seal lolling in the centre and a ton of other people.

And then it was the airport in the middle of nowhere and back. This trip only happened as a result of the pandemic, so I guess we can be thankful for it.

Onwards 2021

2020 had a fast and furious working end to get everything in its right place before holidays were started. Despite not publishing a blog in the month of December, I did start writing extensively for two projects of my own, one of my memoirs and one of my thoughts. 

Memoirs might sound like a premature thing to be writing, especially as I have a blog which acts as a diary and has quite faithfully recorded my life and moments since 2004. But I am now in a period of my life where I am more aware of the loss of my memories. It is also well known that a memory remembered is a memory recreated and thus more liable to error. The use of a good diary or memoir is to freeze it in its earliest iteration before much confabulation enters into it. 

The writing on my thoughts I wish to have a clear arc of how I think and value things at this time, purely descriptive but hopefully help me think through what I think and how I got to where I am philosophically.

My blog will be just a journal of the day and what I see, experience and think at the moment, but may also have some writing that don't work in the two projects, and also once any part of the two projects are how I want them to be, I might publish them here.   

Mainsdreaming

The number is astonishing to the mind: 70,686,229. As at 5pm 8 November 2020, that is the number of people who, presuming no fraud on the part of his campaign and supporters, cast their votes for Donald Trump in the US 2020 Presidential Election, very close to half of the votes cast. Although one could attribute it to "echo-chambers" (which we should be self aware enough to know that we are also in), partisan media and political tribalism, there can be little glossing over his belligerence, his contempt for others, his lack of consideration of the value of truth and facts. The 70 million have two eyes and two ears to appreciate the unveiled ugliness of this individual, yet they voted for him, rather than the other bloke. It boggles the mind that they collectively assented for the continuation of his quite obviously corrupt reign. But they did. In the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton was chastened when she called his supporters "deplorables", and so she should because, while there are many deplorable aspects to Trump the man, his supporters rationally have chosen him as their preferred leader.

If only as a post-mortem of an ugly chapter in global politics, it is interesting to think about how it happened that they chose him in such numbers this time round. 2016, his initial election, we can put to one side as it was clear he had a successful image and without a political track record. 2020, he was very well known by his words and actions in the political sphere. His voters would know some of these. It might not be a unique thought but I would say that what they were voting for was not him as a person, but his force to restrain the change towards pluralism in a country that was evolving towards recognising its own diversity and giving the required seats at the table to address it. 

It is an ugly thing that his side took the national symbols of flag, the name America, the anthem, and even the chant "USA" as a partisan weapons. But it is emblematic of a war to define what is American, and to exclude others from being so. If I were free to muse I'd say that like any entity or individual, that has had a good run of it, there is a feeling of Providence, of their own personal superiority that led to them being great. The United States has had quite the run, and as of today is still likely to be running for quite some time into the future. The America that was "Great" has been interpreted as that built by apparently capitalist, white protestants and their innate virtues (but without adding the introspection of the vices). This is embedded in the programming of the way they speak, make TV and movies and interpret events. That does not mean it is racially oriented, although it is easy to manifest itself or be perceived in that manner. There are plenty of people of all races that aspire for these values, and identify with Trump.

Previous presidents  tended to actively profess the need for inclusion, even if tacitly indicating that the minority voices needed to follow terms of inclusion. Trump verbalised this explicitly, though, often in racial terms: black people should be grateful to "America" and not protest; children of immigrants can go back to "their countries" if they are unhappy, as those countries aren't as "great" as America; judges of non-white ethnicities cannot be trusted to judge fairly (as if white judges have no prejudices). This could be heard by those 140 million ears but in a way where Trump was the one defending the founding principles of the "Great America" from adulteration. They might even agree with statements with racist premises, such as that black sportspeople owing the country, even though not seeing it as a double standard. Or that white people have the Second Amendment right to carry a gun, but a black person with a gun could be shot because they are a danger. Trump stood up to defend these principles that they have been told are the secret sauce of American strength.

He pressed the "socialism" button, too. Since its take on capitalism (forgetting all the socialistic aspects) is another thing that made "Great America", standing up for capitalism, or portraying those "coming in" as being socialists, or framing the opposition as controlled by socialists is another way to tap back to that threat to the mainstream. 

Nationalism as a response to pluralism isn't necessarily an evil thing, just a naive one: some without a scope of history might feel they were never consulted, or fully informed, about the changes that globalisation, modernisation and immigration would bring. When Trump talks about how China has "taken away" the jobs from people, it is a pain that is felt; they were sacrificed for a reward for the whole (of which Trump inherited). No-one wants to be sacrificed. There is no room for some utilitarian thought that for every American losing a job, ten Chinese were lifted out of poverty. Or the long term view that the prosperity of the nation was enhanced by turning those ten Chinese into consumers, or cheap technicians that allow them to have cheaper products that enhance their lives. Their nation gained prosperity in the 1800s collaborating with other empires to bring imperial China to its knees, driven by the same capitalist, white protestant values, causing untold suffering that is still remembered today.

The same core mainstream existed in New Zealand, too. Don Brash was the obvious one, where he very uncharismatically, and much more politely, did basically did the same as Trump. Maori people had to agree to the terms of inclusion, to something they should never have been excluded. But the mainstream still felt his call to the core of what they thought New Zealand was as a strong attraction. The vague analogy is that the mainstream was averse to Maori tino rangatiratanga, and no real compunction that they hobbled iwi from the time of the Treaty, in the same way that African Americans had been hobbled from slavery, to Reconstruction, to the Jim Crow era to even present times. (Any racists should be amazed that inferior people can get through all these and still be strong, smart and push for their betterment.) 

It's an understandable desire to hold that mainstream view, a stable worldview that apparently lead to something great. But the times have changed to the complexity of pluralism, local and global, and they need to know that the greatness is but a dream.