Tired

I recently received a response from one of my valued readers pointing out that Indy cars run on, oh, here’s what he said, “did you realize that they use methanol, not gasoline? better research your subjects before you deride them. oh, and for the record, I hate car racing ... think of all the tires they go through that wind up in landfills ... now that is something to be angry about.”

I stand corrected.  I’m nothing if not amenable to change, at least I used to be.  Actually, come to think about it, I used to be angry, too.  And, then I just got tired.  It takes so much energy to be angry and it doesn’t really accomplish anything.  So, I thought, what could I be instead of angry?  Well, why not be happy, “It’s good to be happy,” as my friend Eric Mercer once said before he moved to Minnesota (where people are really big on ethanol, by the way, http://www.me3.org/issues/ethanol/).  Putting aside any perceived Pollyanna from this newfound friendliness of mine, I managed to feel better about myself.  I started looking at things in a new light.  If I could make myself feel happy instead of being angry simply by thinking I could, then what else could change if I simply thought about it.  This led to a lot of thinking without really accomplishing anything, which is kind of where I am now.  I think that if there are lots of tires in the world then we could probably chop them all up and make them into roads, like they do with old shoes and playgrounds.  Instead of tires on the road, the tires could be the road.  Who knows, someone might already be doing this.  If I did better research I’d probably know.  Why don’t they pave the marathon course in chopped up old tires?  It’s probably too late for Athens, but they could do it in Beijing.  And, who cares if it’s too springy and the records fall.  Records were made to be broken, and who ever said we were supposed to run on asphalt.  We should stop running on oil.  We should be running on the springy bark of the forest floor, we should be running on the wind, we should just run, because flying is for the birds.

If I could turn anger into happiness, and we could turn tires into roads, what else could we change, what else can we think about differently (good grammar, maybe).  Let’s do something.  And, who cares if I’m beginning to sound like a lot of advertising jingles.  Those are what get remembered, just because something is effective doesn’t mean it sucks.  It’s really easy to sit around and say everything sucks, it’s much harder to be happy and try to make it not suck.  The truth is, well the truth is “Pravda” in Russian, isn’t it?  The truth isn’t out there, the truth is right there, in your heart and in your head and in your belly.  Every little child knows the truth when they see it just as surely as they know the difference between poop and Playdough.  The question is what do they do about it.  Children cry.  They cry and complain when they see the truth and there’s nothing they can do about it.  Well, we’re not children.  So, the question is what are we going to do about being tired.  Chop it up and make tire pie, I say.  Spread it out for 26.2 miles and let’s run on it until the cows come home.

Jeff Wenker