Time

Is it that our hair grows more quickly as the years pass by, or that our years grow more quickly as our hair passes by?

Remember in elementary school, how long the days used to seem? Lunch lasted days of today, recess lasted a month. Take a day, or any period of time for that matter, and live it. I mean truly live it - cherish it, adore it, nuture it. See how much length you can squeeze out of time, but don't rush it. Time is ordinary, a construct, a something that may or may not exist according to us or the world - so, we ignore it. I challenge you to embrace it, feel it, get to know it. You might be astounded by how interesting and fickle time (and, on a greater scale, being) really is. Sit down, meditate, play a game but slow it down - whatever you need to do. Time can be manipulated in a sense, and its interesting what happens when it stops being ignored and starts being attended to.

It is a common complaint that life is too short. In turn, we, as humans, desperately and superficially try to extend life on earth by any means necessary. Maybe if we paid attention to being and time in the first place, we wouldn't have to run away from death. When our time came, we would be able to embrace it if only for all the attention paid to life itself - all the tiny details, all the nooks and crannies, and, most importantly, the vast amount of substance that passes through a lifetime.

Stop looking to the future ("I can't wait for x!"). Stop looking to the past ("What if..."). Live now.

I Am Therefore I Think

"Cabbage, car, plague germ, star: we're all kith and kin. Not, my sun-eyed love, "Cogito Ergo Sum" but, in our distinguished family, we can think because we are..." -Nazim Hikmet

Just a little quote to think about from Nazim Hikmet, from poetry which he composed during his time in prison in the mid 1940's. Its funny to consider the great, elegant minds that end up locked up in prison for the majority of their lives. The solace and elegance that Hikmet and other "prison poets" demonstrate (such as Nelson Mandela - one of whose poems and life was recently the focus of the Hollywood flick Invictus) is truly remarkable in the face of adversity. I hope that I would be able to equally come to peace with my circumstances if ever faced with something as trying.

A little off topic, but another example of this can be seen in an even more popular demonstration - that of Armando Galarraga, a pitcher in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Tigers. Recently, he pitched a perfect game against the Cleveland Indians, which is probably the single most prestigious, difficult, and, well, "perfect" single game achievement in baseball, and possibly even any other sport. A perfect game occurs when a pitcher retires the minimum amount of batters possible in a game - which is twenty-seven (9 innings x 3 outs per inning). This can only happen if: 1)The pitcher allows no hits, 2)The pitcher's team commits no errors, 3)The pitcher does not give up a walk. This is quite the feat, especially considering the pitcher is facing a major league lineup with some of the best athletes and baseball players in the entire world.

There have only been 20 perfect games pitched in Major League Baseball history (21 if you count Galarraga's), a history that dates back over 100 years into the mid to late 1800's. Each baseball season, there are 162 games played (with slightly less games played throughout the course of history) - an attest to how truly rare and impressive the perfect game is. Considering that there are 30 teams in ma jor league baseball (about 24 teams dating back to earlie r times), I'll use this equation to calculate the probabilit y of a perfect game occurring:

150 games (approximately) times 24 teams (approximately) times 130 seasons (approximately - again, I'm not looking up exacts, but the result will be close enough) divided by 20 perfect games. (150 x 24 x 130) / 20 = 1/23400, or .0000427. That means that, out of all the games that have been pitched in major league history, 0.0042 7% of them have been perfect games. Needless to say, that's a ridiculously minute number, and one that would put a pitcher in the Major League recor d books forever.

Now that I've established how amazing the pitching of a perfect game really is, I'll present Galarraga's case in this article on MLB.com. I would check out the video too - It gives a better representation of what happened. If the article isn't working or you don't feel like checking it out, basically what happened was that Galarraga had a perfect game going with 2 outs in the ninth inning. Jason Donald, the Indian's batter, hit a groundball to the first-baseman's right - so Galarraga had to hustle over to first to cover the base. It seemed like a routine play, a little close, but routine. When Galarraga stepped on first base, it appeared history had been made, with the Detroit crowd erupting with excitement and joy, with passion and pleasure at the rarity they had just witnessed.

But wait a second.

Jim Joyce, the first base umpire, had done the unthinkable - he had called Donald safe. Galarraga, though, took what had just happened with extreme class and humility, and a sportsmanship which I have never seen before. Rather than throw a fit or get in Joyce's face, Galarraga reacted in disbelief - but then simply smiled. He smiled and appreciated what he knew he had just accomplished, despite some petty call. I think Joe Posnanski, in this article, put it best: "And when my young daughters ask, 'Why didn’t he get mad and scream about how he was robbed?' I think I will tell them this: I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because Armando Galarraga understands something that is very hard to understand, something we all struggle with, something I hope you will learn as you grow older: In the end, nobody’s perfect. We just do the best we can."

Galarraga's case is an example of how beautiful a human reaction can be on the highest of competitive levels in this world. His actions (or, perhaps, lack of action) is one of my favorite sports moments of all time. Like Hikmet, it is amazing to see what some human beings can do in the face of adversity.