zatopek wrote:
What is your point?
We all can be great and take integrity seriously.
For I am from you, I am among you, I am for you. If any of you truly love running, you will heed my messages. As long as I am with you, there shall be time enough and mercy enough.
Running, the mighty foundry. Many turned to it from the beginning for deliverance socially, romantically, aesthetically, spiritually. Have ye forgotten?
As it is,
the NCAA,
the economic realities of income and corporate sponsorship,
Book publishing and camps,
the proliferation of running subculture websites and services,
the culture and infrastructure of shallow comparison, conspicuous display and marks seeking,
The life cycle of athletes,
These have become our own worst enemies, leading us all further and further away from the pure foundry of running and, furthermore, blinding us all on how to really harvest, save and protect and promulgate the gifts of the holy fountain of running,
For ourselves and future generations. Successive generations are already leading successive generations astray. There is an utter lack.
Christianity
Like running, the holy signs and marks are being abused, watered down and sold for a pittance, for a cheap buck and for marketing and reputational purposes.
Language
The English language and the sister familiar languages of Europe (which be the fathers of the European Americans) are all being neglected.
Endurance sports
The social media era,
driven by sex, ego, insecurity and worsening economic dynamics,
Has turned endurance sports into a circus of distasteful redundant display. So weak are our psychologies that we have invited Corporations to be our gatekeepers.
Yoga
An ancient vast practice of knowledge, ritual and virtues has been defamed by the fake teachers among the living and those who have turned it into a trivial, vanity and sex driven hobby.
Sports
They’ve become corrupted with PEDs, undue worship and glamorizing.
Sports are a tool, not an end. They can be leisurely, give us exercise and teach us teamwork, but the real ends and teams are out in the landscape of society without any preconceived limitations and definitions.
Social ethics
These matter everywhere, every walk of life, every age, every nation, etc. We need to pay attention to whether and to what degreee we and those around us are and are prone to compromising morals for popularity, sexual pleasure, mating and even social stability and fitting in.
The Facebook was started, straightforward, as a Hot or Not popularity and dating and hooking up platform. Worse than casinos and addictive drugs, social media has been for its millions and billions of users all this time.
Computers; the World Wide Web
Desktop computers and the World Wide Web had the potential to empower human beings and bring them together in earnestness. At the turn of the millennium many were hopeful and outspoken for such ideals. Slowly, we allowed and invited in unscrupulous Corporations to chaperone for us. Carelessness (or worse) led, unsurprisingly to disempowerment and deception.
Business
Law and government
The prestige and income involved in the law profession
And the unthinking status minded paranoia of parents
Has pushed many college students into the law schools and the profession on an extremely unhealthy and inappropriate footing.
This combined with the allure of selling education for profit as well as the dictates and recruitment needs of mega firms to create a very unhealthy professional system.
Budding professionals started out on a bad footing and have made sacrifices to their souls, ethics and time and effort. They have to have a reward and something to show for it. Therein the allure of the prestige and mighty dollar of increasingly huge firms is impractical to resist.
Romance
Environment
I’ll tell you later
Academia
I’ll tell you later
Medicine
I’ll tell you later
Ourselves
Modern life is rushed, competitive and distracting. Modern life is filled with false comforts and consensus. Divided in pettiness and united in idling and emptiness. Many do disservice to themselves and their true dreams. Now, distracted and unable to reflect, they forgot how they got here. I tell you, trace the sources back to your beginnings and rediscover the earnestness in your initial causes.