LIFE'S NOT FAIR

LOOKING BACK

George Carlin, one of my favourite comedians of all time, once said that we’re saving too many lives with helmets and air bags. We’re denying mother nature the chance to cull the truly idiotic among us, allowing them to develop to full maturity, where the butterfly effect matures to warp everyone else’s opportunities.

But life’s not about being safe all the time to lengthen your time on earth. If that was the case, life would be a clinical, sterile and boring existence from which the pain (or silence) of death would be welcome.

Looking back at my own life there are too many near misses. Chances where death wasn’t looking close enough and let me get away. By all sense, I should have expired. But I didn’t, I’m here and supposedly a lesson was learned.

Others, however, are not so fortunate. Mere bad luck has killed off an infant who did no wrong other than to be born on the wrong side of the tracks. Forced to dig for a meal in a dumpster, not knowing that there are dangers, and finally when killed by disease, or a predator, unknown to them, idiots far greater than they are living in the lap of luxury protected by those air bags and helmets.

NOT ALL BAD

It hasn’t been all that bad, some very good choices were made, which I did not know at the time. My arrogance got me into a competition where the challenge was to finish a full marathon. Run 42.2 kilometres just to prove to someone else that I could do it from sheer genetic superiority. That was an idiot moment. I survived, finished in slightly over four hours, and the next day was at the local hospital complaining that I’d fractured, or broken, my foot. Of course there was nothing wrong with it, but the untrained feet had been thoroughly abused for over four hours. What did I expect?

That one challenge brought on a lifetime of running marathons. Once that was completed, and I was healed, my memory of the pain and suffering went away, and I, this time, willingly signed up for another race. This time no competition, no challenge. Just to prove to myself that I could do this comfortably.

The results were good, and I challenged myself again and again. Reaching, at the height of my fitness sub three-hour races. I was in my twenties and thirties. Now in my sixties, the pressure and extreme training followed by the totally draining effect of the effort of the run has ensured that I am relatively healthy and fit. A accidental and welcome consequence of decisions made without too much planning.

If I’d taken a different path, I would be overweight, perhaps with failing internal organs from the years of abuse, arthritic, mentally foggy and living a life inside my thoughts. My days spent commiserating and remembering the good old days. Living in the past and trying my best to forget the present and dread the future. As it stand now, I really enjoy the present and anticipate a graceful entry into a promising aging process.

LIFE’S NOT FAIR

I remember an incident in boarding school, in the middle of the night, our more senior bullies took pleasure in waking up our junior dorm. Imagine bright lights on at two in the morning, where it was only a moment ago dark and quiet, they arrive like a thunderous hoard of savages, making noise, beating their chests, banging on our beds, pulling sheets to wake us up. In this instance, they left my sleeping neighbour alone. I remember telling one of the bullies that it wasn’t fair that they woke me up and they didn’t even bother my neighbour. I snitched. The bully quickly corrected this error waking up my poor neighbour, who wasn’t exactly sleeping, but pretending to. He took one look at me, a look that asked what was wrong with me? Why did I snitch on him, if the bully hadn’t seen him, he would have gotten away, even if he didn’t sleep, at least he would not have been subject to the ragging and harassment that was soon to follow.

At the time I was probably thinking that this is not fair. What wasn’t fair? That he was sleeping, and I was awake? What’s not fair about that? Should everyone be inconvenienced at the same rate? If I must be bullied, why then shouldn’t you?

That behaviour continues into adult life. Office politics regarding the coffee machine, cubicle assignments, airline seating arrangements, meal portions or salary and vacation allowances. The general attitude is if I cannot have it, why should you? However, if the coin landed on the other face, and I had the advantage, then I would think perhaps it’s OK. There’s no problem with me getting the corner office, the Christmas bonus, and the company car while you sit in a cubicle and take the bus home.

EPILOGUE

Even after all this time I really haven’t learned anything new. I’m the same person in my brain who was born sixty years ago, and I doubt that I have matured. I may think that I’m not bothered by these petty comparisons, but the fact that I think about them means that perhaps my mammalian brain which still thinks that it’s in the jungles of Africa chooses to fight for its survival. 

There’s no trust and no capacity for sharing. If you have one then I too must have one. Having two would be better. It means that you cannot consume more meat than me, get stronger than me, and then beat me out of my home and take all of my stuff, which includes the mates I have attracted in order to ensure my posterity. For me to win this fight, even an imaginary fight over who gets the corner office or the first fresh cup of coffee, you must lose. And if you hear me talking about a win/win strategy, then be very afraid.