Day2 Tuesday 08/31/10

I was eager to run today and I look forward to eventually not feeling the strong need to stop after three minutes. As I was huffing and puffing I started thinking about something to take my mind off of my fatigue. Someone I know well and have known for a long time told me an undeniable lie today. It was not a big deal and I did not think much about it at the time, but it got me to thinking about lying on a broader scale and about our human nature to tell lies.

There is a curious and seemingly unavoidable tendency every person seems to have when it comes to honesty. I firmly believe that most of the words that come out of our mouths are embellished truths and half-lies. A smaller yet very significant percentage of our words are complete lies, though. And the bad thing about complete lies is that they are like snowballs rolling down a high and steep mountainside. Complete lies do not go away and tumbling snowballs do not thin.

I am attempting to establish a sense of scale here. One person exaggerating stories to their friends or telling small fibs to their family is generally harmless, normal and human among their own social circle within any given city. I do it and you do too. What is scary is if you imagine thoroughly magnifying the scale when you view the potential of truths and lies through the lens of government. It is pure parody and circus to read about and watch politicians behave and talk.

If you can come to terms with the fact that we as human beings embellish and lie more frequently than we would like to admit then you can really begin to see the disingenuous troll that a government can be. As I previously commented, it is human nature to behave this way and it is expected of you and me. For you and me, stretching the details of a story to make it a little more exciting is a favor to anyone listening because it makes things more interesting. And to tell a small lie or to withhold information is also a favor to others if you are trying not to hurt their feelings with a painful truth. If you do not want to get involved with someone else’s lies or exaggerations then you may lie or exaggerate to them to prevent your association with their verbal misgivings and lies. This is a small example of what happens when a snowball hits a snowy slope. If this is true, and our politicians are indeed human beings just like you and me, then they undoubtedly behave the same way but at such a grander and more impacting scale.

For me this realization and this belief, which I thoroughly advocate, encourages me to rely as little on government for my well-being as possible. It has shown me to be as good to others as often as I can because they will help me back, not my government. It has definitely taught me to not believe the majority of the words that come out of politicians’ mouths and to think for myself. And it has encouraged me to read as many books as I can about as many different topics I can find because knowledge is a power that no government can corrupt.

The campaign trail went well today. I ran 1.9 miles and that was 0.6 miles more than yesterday so I am moving forward to get in the routine of running at least 2.62 miles per day. I am stiffening into the sore stage of what happens any time a human body begins physical rigor new to its body.

2,076.8 miles to go.

Day1 Monday 08/30/10

I just made my first run in my hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana. As you read further you will begin to understand that this is the first of many important runs I will have coming my way until November 6, 2012. This day will be a Tuesday and more importantly it will be Election Day for the next president of the United States of America. It will either be Barack Obama or someone else. To get right to the point of what this blog is about I am determined to help someone else win by personally running against Barack Obama for the next two years. I am going to run every single day regardless of what state or city I am in or what street I am running on. Weather will not stop me and illness will not deter me in any way from accomplishing this goal that I have.

I am running against Barack Obama because I am not a politician. I am running against him because I have an average job and no money to campaign with. I am running against him because this is the only thing I can think of to do to try to strengthen the point that there are millions upon millions of other people in this country that feel the way I do and that our united voice is constantly ignored on extremely important issues that our government keeps locked away in a suggestion box our leaders and representatives refuse to open.

Running and blogging are the tools I am going to use for this campaign and my platform is to get Obama out. I will attend no caucuses and my pundits will be few. Mudslinging will be self-inflicted from the heels of my shoes. The only primary I will participate in will be running myself into exhaustion everyday for the next two years and blogging about it.

It is out of belief and admiration in this country and all of the brave history I have read about it since its conception that I feel drawn to do this. It is from two years of talking with family and friends, eavesdropping on others at coffee shops and malls, listening to their discontentment in American politics, and generally feeling that so many others simply must feel the way I do…that so many things just seem wrong. Yet, what can you do to really make a difference? It is a helpless and desolate feeling, especially at this point in time with so much at stake. That is why I am doing this. If only a handful of people ever trip over this blog then I will be happy. I am tired of saying the same things over and over, hearing other people complain about the same stuff over and over, and nothing being done. There is one simple fact that our government cares as little about as the masses of people in this country fail to consider. We have numbers. We have an astronomical amount of numbers compared to what any government can successfully deceive or manipulate. But, like ants in a kicked over anthill, we all seem to run outside and make a fuss only to scurry right back into our homes and forget. This trait is one of our weakest contemporary shortcomings. We have grown to accept that politics are politics and that things are what they are. That is not how this country was founded and it is certainly not why you are so happy to be a citizen of it. We are different here compared to the rest of the world and things are not what they are.

Each day from this day forward I am going to run whatever formidable amount of mileage I can endure, regardless of weather or illness, until I reach or break my goal of 2,080 miles. I chose that number because it is the distance from my home in Lafayette, Louisiana to Washington, DC and back. Just to give you an idea of my daily quota for running, it will be a rough average of 2.62 miles a day everyday for over two years. And everyday that I run I am going to post on this blog. My reward is good health and a creative outlet in exchange for the frustrating and senseless governing our government has shut its people up with over the past two years. And as time will tell, it is not only Obama, or either of the two parties as a whole, that consume the political arena of senselessness. The emergence of tea parties across the American landscape was a huge message not only to our current president but also to the American Government in general. And this was a long inevitable process over the last few decades in American history, seeing what the American peoples’ breaking point was. Barack Obama just happens to be the proverbial straw that could possibly break America’s back. His ideas and motives are so radically life-changing in America for me as I interpret his direction, that another term would give him the opportunity to do what he really wants to do, without the consequence of having to earn another term by being only mildly as extreme as he is now.

It is our constitutional right to weigh our government on a scale and to write that weight down. And it is our government’s obligation to eat more, trim some fat or to continue its diet based on that number.

I ran 1.3 miles today. It was hot, humid and awesome to get this blog started. The idea of doing this occurred to me in July of 2010. Just as I was about to start stomping the pavement some unexpected travel came up with my job. Then my wife, Lindsey, and I took a small vacation when I got back. After a brief postponement of getting this thing started, the idea was ready to be taken out of the back of my mind and polished up. I discussed it with my wife and she agreed that someone else would indeed be the better candidate and that I should do this. After all, in order for someone else to win he or she will have to contradict most of the ideals that Obama believes in, so for the short term that has to be the indisputable option, at least for now.

2,078.7 miles to go.