Fresh Perspective

It feels like yesterday that I walked 2 miles home on a Monday afternoon--stranded and scared and in disbelief after two bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

I watched in confusion as my underdog holiday became a moment fit for a national audience. 116 years of sweat outdone by one year of blood.

Though we vow to never forget, we overlook the fact that, for many, the price of being "Boston Strong" is far more than a $20 t-shirt.

And though we will show up and cheer our hardest this coming Monday, so many people will wake up on Tuesday still limbless, or childless.

This reality is why I both look forward to and dread the Marathon this year. We need this day in order to move forward. But it feels like an insult to not look back.

To reconcile this time spent in limbo, I've thought a lot about what the Marathon has meant to me, and what it means to me now.

And I was pleased when I finally came to a word that embodied the Marathon of both past and future, just when the two were feeling so different from one another. 

Perspective.

At its most basic principle, a 26.2 mile footrace has always given me perspective. It has humbled me during my own workouts, and inspired me to push harder. It has made me think twice about how tired I truly am, and how much energy I really have left in me.

The most crucial part of any race, the competitors, also put things into perspective. As I watch Dick Hoyt run by, pushing his son uphill in a wheelchair, the weight that I carry suddenly seems less of a burden. My struggles seem a little easier.

This past year, I involuntarily and unwillingly took on a different perspective. I was forced to see that I was not entitled to a violence-free life despite living peacefully. I was forced to watch an event taken to the ground by two men who hated it for every reason that I loved it--who raged against its pride and tradition perhaps even stronger than I was drawn to it.

And this year, as I search for the feelings that used to overcome me when I watched the Marathons of years past, and seek to avoid the sinking perspective forced upon me last year, I will surely find a new perspective. 

I hope that what I find is that no matter how far we feel from hope at any given time, we will find it again. Whether we are in the middle of Heartbreak Hill, feeling the absence of someone or something you loved, or waiting for the city to heal, there will be a brighter moment than this. But without experiencing this heartbreak, we won't know how far we've truly come.

Whether it's an actual finish line that you cross this coming Monday, or more of a metaphorical one; we all should gain a fresh perspective.


"And the walls came tumbling down in the city that we love. Gray clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above. But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing's changed at all?"
-Bastille, Pompeii

On Mourning Celebrity Deaths

With Philip Seymour Hoffman's recent death, I have already seen the posts coming in from those who believe that we, as a society, should not waste our time mourning the death of famous people who "threw their lives away," "made poor decisions," or "contributed nothing but fluff to society" when there are people who "gave their lives to save others" particularly soldiers, firefighters, etc.

These posts bother me for a number of reasons that I'm about to outline here.

1.) Claiming people are stupid, poorly informed, or otherwise wrong for mourning celebrity deaths and not mourning deaths of those they believe have contributed more to society is inherently a flawed argument. Celebrities are not famous for dying, they are famous for living. Suggesting that other non-famous persons deaths should be recognized and honored instead of celebrities' deaths is a comparison of apples and oranges. What we are mourning when we mourn celebrity deaths is the ending of a life that we were familiar with. Those who were familiar with non-famous persons' lives certainly mourn those people. There are simply a larger amount of people that are familiar with celebrities, leading to a naturally higher amount of mourners.

2.) As distasteful as the chastisers find the public mourning the death of celebrities instead of the death of people whose lives they subjectively believe were more important, I find it equally distasteful that the chastisers pick and choose which deaths they believe are "more important" than others. What they don't realize is that while blaming us for putting one death "above" another, they are doing the exact same thing. There is no universal criteria for who deserves to be mourned after they die, and who doesn't. 

3.) These posts all indicate that your life is somehow validated by the number of Facebook posts and tweets about you when you die. Is this really what it's all come down to? Was a soldier's death truly "wasted" because I didn't tweet about it? Was Paul Walker's life truly of higher value because I did tweet about it? 


“We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”

-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows