The earth is like a spotlight

Back to running after a few weeks

Back to running on 6 June, 3.5km in 23:16:33 or 150.39 m/min. That's rather bad. The week after, I got my new shoes but haven't had any chance to run it. Last week there was a meeting and now I have just recovered from illness.

Regarding tea

“The first cup moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my loneliness, the third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some five thousand volumes of odd ideographs. The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration,—all the wrong of life passes away through my pores. At the fifth cup I am purified; the sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals. The seventh cup—ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of cool wind that rises in my sleeves. Where is Horaisan? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither.” (Lotung, a Tang Dynasty poet - from The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

By the seventh cup, I would've thrown them up, and thus a feeling of peace, you know, that nice feeling after you've puked. Wait, of course he was talking about the small Chinese tea cup. I guess that would be fine.

The usual running log

The week before last, 3.5 km in 22:37:73 or 154.67 meter/min.
Last week, 4 km in 25:51:28 or 154.71 meter/min.

Yet another running journal

• Today: 4km in 25:04:43 or 159.52 meters/min.
• Last week: 4km in 25:20:34 or 157.86 meters/min.
• Two weeks ago: 4km in 28:42:99 or 139.29 meters/min (sometimes I can be pathetic).
• Three weeks ago: 4km in 25:13:08 or 158.62 meters/min.

Increasing to 4km

As an excuse to be able to run slower, it's a good idea to run longer distance. So 4 km now.

• 28 Feb, 4km, 25:01:05 or 159.89 meters/min
• 21 Feb, 4km, 25:28:14 or 157.05 meters/min
• 7 Feb, 3.5km, 21:40:70 or 161.45 meters/min
• 31 Jan, 3.5km, 21:12:04 or 165.08 meters/min
• 24 Jan, 3.5km, 21:57:34 or 159.41 meters/min
• 17 Jan, 3.5km, 21:23:33 or 163.63 meters/min

Explaining and excusing

Some behavior might be explainable, but doesn't mean it's excusable.

The difference between explaining behavior and excusing it is captured in the saying, "To understand is not to forgive," and has been stressed in different ways by philosophers, including Hume, Kant, and Sartre. (Steven Pinker - The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, page 180)

Interconnectivity

I have been reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate for these past two weeks when this afternoon, listening to SGU podcast episode 20, they're talking about the book. What a coincidence!

Arriving home, I opened The Greatest Show on Earth and continuing my reading at page 155, it mentioned the Great Chain of Being. It sounded so very familiar. Oops, I've just read about it on The Blank Slate a few days ago.

Reading a lot of books, this is one phenomenon that I observed, how the writers know the same things and how it gets repeated again and again, but unfortunately, people who don't read books won't get to know about it. And there's no other way for them to know, since it's not something found in newspapers, TV, or most magazines.

My simplified conclusion of this is, if you want to be at least in the know of what humanity knows, go start making reading books a habit. This knowledge is of course power. If not, it's still satisfying to know more about the world we live in.