Earlier today I went on the first "real" run after the surgery. I have run a grand total of about 15 kilometers since the surgery, but decided to stop the runs because of the close temporal proximity of the operation and the fact that I was not entirely confident that running on a hard surface would be the best thing when trying to heal jaws that are attached to your skull by mere titanium plates. Additionally ever since the Helsinki City Run I had had small issues with my left foot. It would get this nasty pain at around the instep of the foot after about five kilometers.
Anyway, as said, today was the first time that I actually ran. I started from my flat with an aim of first running along the northern shore of Lauttasaari and then over the bridges to Kaskisaari and Lehtisaari and finally to Keilaniemi and then back to Lauttasaari. So around the Keilalahti bay. I would imagine that the run was about 12-13 kilometers, give or take a bit. The weather was quite decent with a temperature of about 16 degrees and only a minor breeze. And the run was absolutely epic! For the first time in a while running was easy and very enjoyable. Up until and including the HCR, the runs had been sort of forced; ram things through any way possible.
This time round, it was amazing. I was sort of worried about what the sick leave might have done to my health and whether or not I could even run the entire way without stopping. The start was quite typical, nothing out of the ordinary. After about 3-4 kilometers I noticed that my left foot wasn't acting up at all. The scenery was also brilliant; I have never actually run around Keilalahti even though I've lived in Lauttasaari now for about four years. After getting to Kuusisaari I started getting a bit tired, but continued to push on and on the bridge to Keilaniemi this sort of strange feeling came up. I was getting more and more tired but my speed kept steady and slowly it became easier and easier to run. I've read about the runner's high previously, but I don't think I would quite classify this experience as such, because it wasn't as strong as what others have described and the distance that I was running wasn't the typical 20-30 miles that people typically talk about when they mention a runner's high. But I would say that I was able to achieve a type of flow from Keilaniemi onwards.
Timewise the run was pretty much exactly an hour long, meaning that I was in fact running surprisingly quickly considering my overall shape. Towards the end I was actually starting to worry about whether or not I could go on until the finish and whether or not I would lose the flow if I slowed down. I ended up walking rapidly for a bit less than the last kilometer just to cool down and because the situation was so strange for me. The description may sound funny, but I've never encountered this while running. I have, however, encountered similar situations a couple of times while golfing. At some point you might be able to achieve a flow during a golf round; you stop thinking about your game and you just find a type of balance. That's when you are able to play amazing rounds and get hooked on the game. So, I guess this experience should serve as a very good motivator to start ramping up my running again and slowly increasing the distances in search of the magical runner's high.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The modern man
The modern man is an ironic thing. Because of history's nature, the modern man must accept the consequences of his fathers and pay the penalty for the previously masculine world. No longer is the modern man allowed to in any way criticize or oppress women. The modern man knows that gender equality is the thing to work towards and his collaboration is to remove himself from the new status quo; to not object to the brave new world of women.
Motherhood is obviously a purely patriarchal construct that is used to oppress women and make sure that women are never able to reach the positions and salaries that men are able to. The woman sacrifices herself and takes the burden of motherhood on her shoulders. The modern man knows that motherhood is not a gift, it is a burden that must be shared. As are household duties. In fact, if all things were equal, the modern man should in fact care for the child and the household while the woman is free to do as she pleases, be it an increased focus on her career or exercise her newly found sexual freedoms. After all, marriage itself is again an oppressive patriarchal construct--a deal between the bride's father and the groom.
The modern man knows that women are not objects and that scantily clad women are in fact doing a disservice for other women. He knows that a woman is never too thin or too thick, just right. He also knows that he is in no position to comment on the lifestyle choices of the woman. After all, a woman need not answer to any man. Yet the modern man is also very aware that he must work in keeping a trim body, since the underwear commercials in which men appear are commonly acknowledged to be acceptable. Physically the modern man has a fat percentage that approaches zero and has a flawless skin as well as a neat six-pack of abs. He knows that he if he fails at this, he is a slob and having a beer with the mates is unacceptable, since male bondage is typically around quintessentially male subjects. Circles where women haven't traditionally had any sort of foothold. Formula, ice hockey, and technical gadgets. But he knows that this is wrong, since the previous men have used their power to keep women out of these fields. Mathematics and other sciences have been dominated by men, which is very unfair as it promotes a masculine view of the world.
In fact, the modern man knows that gender quotas are a good thing. At least 50% of any group must be women, otherwise the women are being oppressed. A company whose board has a woman majority is visionary and modern whereas the opposite company is old-fashioned and discriminating. But the modern man knows that gender equality means that women ultimately have the power to decide what it means. The modern man must still protect the queen and country; women should need not trouble themselves with issues of war. The modern man also knows that it is his duty to fix broken things and make sure the cars work.
In sports, the modern man knows that having separate categories for male and female competitors is bad as it discriminates women. But having separate categories is also good, because if men were to compete with women, women would be again oppressed in certain sports in which the male physique offers an unfair advantage to men, e.g. through power. As contradicting as this sounds, the modern man does not see it as in reality it isn't contradicting at all. In fact the modern man knows that the world does not have any contradictions, since the modern man is very well aware that his place in the modern world is to stay quiet and out of the way of the modern woman, who in all equality is the most equal of beings and thus allowed to rule the world. Of course the modern man is again smart enough not to say this out loud.
Motherhood is obviously a purely patriarchal construct that is used to oppress women and make sure that women are never able to reach the positions and salaries that men are able to. The woman sacrifices herself and takes the burden of motherhood on her shoulders. The modern man knows that motherhood is not a gift, it is a burden that must be shared. As are household duties. In fact, if all things were equal, the modern man should in fact care for the child and the household while the woman is free to do as she pleases, be it an increased focus on her career or exercise her newly found sexual freedoms. After all, marriage itself is again an oppressive patriarchal construct--a deal between the bride's father and the groom.
The modern man knows that women are not objects and that scantily clad women are in fact doing a disservice for other women. He knows that a woman is never too thin or too thick, just right. He also knows that he is in no position to comment on the lifestyle choices of the woman. After all, a woman need not answer to any man. Yet the modern man is also very aware that he must work in keeping a trim body, since the underwear commercials in which men appear are commonly acknowledged to be acceptable. Physically the modern man has a fat percentage that approaches zero and has a flawless skin as well as a neat six-pack of abs. He knows that he if he fails at this, he is a slob and having a beer with the mates is unacceptable, since male bondage is typically around quintessentially male subjects. Circles where women haven't traditionally had any sort of foothold. Formula, ice hockey, and technical gadgets. But he knows that this is wrong, since the previous men have used their power to keep women out of these fields. Mathematics and other sciences have been dominated by men, which is very unfair as it promotes a masculine view of the world.
In fact, the modern man knows that gender quotas are a good thing. At least 50% of any group must be women, otherwise the women are being oppressed. A company whose board has a woman majority is visionary and modern whereas the opposite company is old-fashioned and discriminating. But the modern man knows that gender equality means that women ultimately have the power to decide what it means. The modern man must still protect the queen and country; women should need not trouble themselves with issues of war. The modern man also knows that it is his duty to fix broken things and make sure the cars work.
In sports, the modern man knows that having separate categories for male and female competitors is bad as it discriminates women. But having separate categories is also good, because if men were to compete with women, women would be again oppressed in certain sports in which the male physique offers an unfair advantage to men, e.g. through power. As contradicting as this sounds, the modern man does not see it as in reality it isn't contradicting at all. In fact the modern man knows that the world does not have any contradictions, since the modern man is very well aware that his place in the modern world is to stay quiet and out of the way of the modern woman, who in all equality is the most equal of beings and thus allowed to rule the world. Of course the modern man is again smart enough not to say this out loud.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
On sports
Many people have often mistaken me for some sort of an elitist or snob when it comes to sports. I always find this a rather funny claim as such, since in the modern world where aristocracy is rare and the former class hierarchies of e.g. the British have been disappearing, it's questionable whether one can even raise one sport above another on this dimension.
Take, for instance, golf. Golf is a good walk spoiled, as pointed out by Mr. Twain. It is deemed as an elitist sport by some people, yet they are wrong. They assume that golf is only played by affluent people, or at least this is how I perceive their strongest argument. Yet they fail to see that in modern times, golf is not a very expensive sport. A friend of mine in grade school used to play ice hockey and drove motocross. Both are miles more expensive than golf. Granted, if one wishes to join the older and more exclusive clubs, membership will cost more. But again, this holds true for all aspects of life, and golf as such is in no way an exceptional sport. It is comparable to a nice walk in the park during the weekend, and not that many people think of taking a walk as anything fancy--golf is no different.
Fencing is another interesting example. It is again understood by some to be an exclusive or snobbish sport, yet fencing has always been one of the most widely spread forms of doing combat, regardless of social class. The history is long and as a sport, fencing has only recently evolved into what it is these days. The fundamentals are simple: score points by hitting your opponent while keeping on the piste. Different weapons have different rule sets and there is a certain dress code in place for safety reasons; one must remember that one of the most important things about any sport is to ensure that decent safety measures are in place so that nobody gets hurt. The only possible rationale behind the assumption that fencing is an elitist sport is that it used to be the de facto method of nobility to rid the world of each other, namely in duels, during the 18th and 19th centuries. And even then, many other people practiced fencing, regardless of social class.
Some people have thrown snide remarks about how I must only prefer polo. I must admit that my connections to polo are nonexistent; I've been to see polo once or twice, but that's about it. I'm not capable of riding a horse and even if I were, my left-handedness would mean that I would not be able to play it. Now, with polo I'll admit that it is slightly more exclusive, but that is primarily because it is similar to sailing in the sense that it requires larger financial investments; in sailing you must have a boat and in polo you must have a horse. But if you look at the history of polo, it in fact has served the purpose of being a training routine for horsemen, used for teaching discipline and precise handling of a horse. When it turned into a more widely acknowledged sport, owning the horse was again the possible deal breaker, but to my understanding the exclusivity of the sport is very much questionable.
I could go on, but I don't think there would be a point. For some reason I have a feeling that the hostility is based more on people not being familiar with different sports. Everyone has played football, baseball, hockey, etc. in school and are more or less familiar with them. These are good games for schools, since they require little or no preparations and are very safe for kids. Giving swords adolescents and watching them poke each others' eyes out would cause a lot more liability issues. But because people are not familiar with these sorts of "rarer" (yes, I know, in reality none of the above sports, with the exception of polo, is that rare), people are afraid of them. A similar situation can be seen in the typical Finnish attitude toward foreign people. To my annoyance, during my primary school period, my class was full of ignorant and scared people who were afraid of everything that was slightly upsetting their perception of the status quo.
Another related thing is that even though everyone attempts to be a unique individual, people in fact cluster very much and are hostile to people from outside their clusters. As everyone who's ever been to junior high will know, getting bullied doesn't require much; just that you in some way stand out from the crowd. Now, an interesting thing to think about is this: take for instance golf and football. Both are very popular sports, but football is arguably the larger one. Golf has a certain stigma attached to it. So analogically the football crowd is the gray mass in junior high, and golf is that smaller group that stays out of the former group and just goes in its own way. Now think about the behavior of footballists and golfers. Just a thought experiment one could take a bit further...
Take, for instance, golf. Golf is a good walk spoiled, as pointed out by Mr. Twain. It is deemed as an elitist sport by some people, yet they are wrong. They assume that golf is only played by affluent people, or at least this is how I perceive their strongest argument. Yet they fail to see that in modern times, golf is not a very expensive sport. A friend of mine in grade school used to play ice hockey and drove motocross. Both are miles more expensive than golf. Granted, if one wishes to join the older and more exclusive clubs, membership will cost more. But again, this holds true for all aspects of life, and golf as such is in no way an exceptional sport. It is comparable to a nice walk in the park during the weekend, and not that many people think of taking a walk as anything fancy--golf is no different.
Fencing is another interesting example. It is again understood by some to be an exclusive or snobbish sport, yet fencing has always been one of the most widely spread forms of doing combat, regardless of social class. The history is long and as a sport, fencing has only recently evolved into what it is these days. The fundamentals are simple: score points by hitting your opponent while keeping on the piste. Different weapons have different rule sets and there is a certain dress code in place for safety reasons; one must remember that one of the most important things about any sport is to ensure that decent safety measures are in place so that nobody gets hurt. The only possible rationale behind the assumption that fencing is an elitist sport is that it used to be the de facto method of nobility to rid the world of each other, namely in duels, during the 18th and 19th centuries. And even then, many other people practiced fencing, regardless of social class.
Some people have thrown snide remarks about how I must only prefer polo. I must admit that my connections to polo are nonexistent; I've been to see polo once or twice, but that's about it. I'm not capable of riding a horse and even if I were, my left-handedness would mean that I would not be able to play it. Now, with polo I'll admit that it is slightly more exclusive, but that is primarily because it is similar to sailing in the sense that it requires larger financial investments; in sailing you must have a boat and in polo you must have a horse. But if you look at the history of polo, it in fact has served the purpose of being a training routine for horsemen, used for teaching discipline and precise handling of a horse. When it turned into a more widely acknowledged sport, owning the horse was again the possible deal breaker, but to my understanding the exclusivity of the sport is very much questionable.
I could go on, but I don't think there would be a point. For some reason I have a feeling that the hostility is based more on people not being familiar with different sports. Everyone has played football, baseball, hockey, etc. in school and are more or less familiar with them. These are good games for schools, since they require little or no preparations and are very safe for kids. Giving swords adolescents and watching them poke each others' eyes out would cause a lot more liability issues. But because people are not familiar with these sorts of "rarer" (yes, I know, in reality none of the above sports, with the exception of polo, is that rare), people are afraid of them. A similar situation can be seen in the typical Finnish attitude toward foreign people. To my annoyance, during my primary school period, my class was full of ignorant and scared people who were afraid of everything that was slightly upsetting their perception of the status quo.
Another related thing is that even though everyone attempts to be a unique individual, people in fact cluster very much and are hostile to people from outside their clusters. As everyone who's ever been to junior high will know, getting bullied doesn't require much; just that you in some way stand out from the crowd. Now, an interesting thing to think about is this: take for instance golf and football. Both are very popular sports, but football is arguably the larger one. Golf has a certain stigma attached to it. So analogically the football crowd is the gray mass in junior high, and golf is that smaller group that stays out of the former group and just goes in its own way. Now think about the behavior of footballists and golfers. Just a thought experiment one could take a bit further...
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Feminism? Masculism?
A friend of mine recently posted a link to an article called Men's Silence is Women's Gold. The main point is that women seem to have been able to fairly effectively domesticate the wild man and put him between the stove and the fist, so to say. Gender equality is of course important, as always, but it somehow indeed feels that with all the lobbying for women's rights and such, men are getting trampled and we're just staying quiet about that.
Another interesting thing related to this was that today on Facebook I noticed that some people I know had joined a group called "Kotirauhaa - Naisiin kohdistuvan parisuhdeväkivallan vastainen kampanja", which roughly translates to "Domestic peace - A campaign against domestic violence against women", or something to that extent. What the hell? Can domestic violence only be against women and not against men? At this point I call bullshit; this is precisely the attitude that makes me get incredibly annoyed with all the trendy feminist organizations. The problem isn't with men hitting women or women subjecting men to psychological violence, the core problem is about intra-relationship violence between partners. In my opinion gender doesn't have anything to do with it. Hell, does this mean that partners of the same gender never resort to violence? I guess it might be, considering that they are typically quite a bit more enlightened about all things related to equality than your average heterosexual.
This sort of behavior from these liberal feminists and whatnots is not only short-sighted, but also very offensive and degrading. It is undoubtedly true that if we look back in history, women have been treated very badly at times, but does it really give the moral authority to women to cut men's balls and shift the power to blatantly oppress others to them? Right now it feels that both feminism and masculism are extremist hard-line ideologies and both are very dangerous to the general equilibrium. It's already very good that people associate extreme masculism with negative things, but we should also try to understand that feminist organizations are none the better and should be treated with the same disgust and prejudice as their patriarchal opposites.
Another interesting thing related to this was that today on Facebook I noticed that some people I know had joined a group called "Kotirauhaa - Naisiin kohdistuvan parisuhdeväkivallan vastainen kampanja", which roughly translates to "Domestic peace - A campaign against domestic violence against women", or something to that extent. What the hell? Can domestic violence only be against women and not against men? At this point I call bullshit; this is precisely the attitude that makes me get incredibly annoyed with all the trendy feminist organizations. The problem isn't with men hitting women or women subjecting men to psychological violence, the core problem is about intra-relationship violence between partners. In my opinion gender doesn't have anything to do with it. Hell, does this mean that partners of the same gender never resort to violence? I guess it might be, considering that they are typically quite a bit more enlightened about all things related to equality than your average heterosexual.
This sort of behavior from these liberal feminists and whatnots is not only short-sighted, but also very offensive and degrading. It is undoubtedly true that if we look back in history, women have been treated very badly at times, but does it really give the moral authority to women to cut men's balls and shift the power to blatantly oppress others to them? Right now it feels that both feminism and masculism are extremist hard-line ideologies and both are very dangerous to the general equilibrium. It's already very good that people associate extreme masculism with negative things, but we should also try to understand that feminist organizations are none the better and should be treated with the same disgust and prejudice as their patriarchal opposites.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
On women's clothing and men
I hold the view that as a man, I can nor need understand anything about women's clothing. I readily admit that it is way out of my grasp and more often than not I haven't the faintest idea what looks good and what doesn't. As such, I often remain silent about this subject and when I don't, I rely only on my very subjective and uneducated opinions, which are undoubtedly very wrong, if one attempts to verify their correctness from the fairer gender.
That said, I saw the new Sex and the City movie last night and I have to say that not only did it appear that Finnish females dress in an awful and horribly tacky and unoriginal way, but it might do good for a decent portion of them to get acquainted with a track suit or running gear in general. And yes, I will get stoned for this, but so be it. And I know, I'm being mean. ;)
That said, I saw the new Sex and the City movie last night and I have to say that not only did it appear that Finnish females dress in an awful and horribly tacky and unoriginal way, but it might do good for a decent portion of them to get acquainted with a track suit or running gear in general. And yes, I will get stoned for this, but so be it. And I know, I'm being mean. ;)
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
On men's clothing and women
Considering the appalling state of dress in the current world, it may sometimes be warranted that women lend a helping hand to the men who struggle with clothing and looking good. However, as was so brilliantly phrased by Nicholas Antongiavanni:
There has never been a well-dressed man who was dressed by women; for their tastes diverge from ours; and though they may recognize what looks good when they see it on you, they cannot recognize it in stores, being by their nature drawn to the latest fashions, the quality of which was given above.
This holds very true and is precisely the reason why I obtain my clothes by consulting mainly myself and not others, especially not women. Women's opinions may be interesting to hear, but in the context of men's clothing, especially if the man himself knows even a bit about the subject, should be discarded. I'll venture a guess that this is also the reason why the tailors who cut for men have always been men.
Now, I guess at this point I have to also point out that the above mainly works for men's clothing, not the adolescent male fashion nonsense and other similar areas. But again, these areas are of no real interest in this discussion, considering that stylish men know better than that.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Two weeks later...
Well, it's been pretty much two weeks since the operation and I guess it's time to recap a bit. Overall the experience this far has been a lot less painful than what I'd anticipated; I was even able to get rid of the heavier painkillers less then a week after the operation, opting instead for three daily dosages of ibuprofen. The swelling and bruises subsided fairly quickly, with some minor swelling still present in the maxilla area. A general numbness still plagues the lower parts of the face, but my upper lip and the area around the nose have some feeling in them. So to summarize, the outward appearance is starting to look very good, but the issues with the nerve are still troubling me. Medicine-wise yesterday I finally got through all the other medicines with the exception of the ibuprofen, so that's also nice.
The sick leave itself has been, well, semi-interesting. It's been the first time that I've really been forced to slow down in years. Right from the outset I began to clear the backlog of books from my night stand and thus far I've gone through Jeremy Clarkson's Don't Stop Me Now, Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan, as well as Nicholas Antongiavanni's The Suit. Fortunately with three more weeks to go, I still have a ton to read.
The operation itself was on a Tuesday, and during the following weekend I set out for short walks around the countryside. The surgeons suggested that I should try to get out walking as soon as possible as it would help with the swelling. And it certainly did help, as far as I could tell. Yesterday I exchanged walking for some jogging and went for a 5km jog both in the morning and the afternoon. It's quite apparent that what little stamina and health I had before the operation are now gone and while the 5km jogs didn't really kill me, they were notably more difficult than the 10km jogs before. But I guess I'll try to run at least 5km each day to slowly get my strength back, but as of now I officially decided that I will not under any circumstance take part in the Helsinki City Marathon. I was, however, thinking that if I find some interesting half marathon somewhere during the autumn, I might try that again. As for golf, I haven't really gotten to the course yet, but was planning of trying that too later in the week.
Eating started off as fairly tricky and my diet from the outset consisted of a liquid diet. Since then things like mashed potatoes and minced meat have been proven to be a fairly nice meal. The doctors suggested that I should prepare for an up to 7 kg drop in weight. So far I started off with a pre-surgery weight of 84kg and at worst my weight dropped to 79.5kg, but quickly regained to about 81-82kg, so this seems to have also worked out fairly well. I'm still waiting for the six week mark when I can officially started chewing soft things. One of the things that makes eating very difficult right now is a thing called the splint. It's a plastic rail which attached to the teeth of the upper jaw and helps guide the lower jaw into place by utilizing rubber bands. This, I've been told, would be removed at the four week mark, so still two more weeks to go.
One of the more interesting parts of a sick leave is that officially you are not allowed to do any work, namely because of insurance related issues. If you injure yourself during the sick leave and it turns out that you were working, no insurance would cover that. That said, I may have attended a couple of conference calls already and prepared some slide sets, kept my inbox clean, etc. But that's only for my own sanity, as doing small tasks for work really helps during a time period when in essence you're forced to be with yourself for weeks and weeks, instead of being able to run around town and so on.
The sick leave itself has been, well, semi-interesting. It's been the first time that I've really been forced to slow down in years. Right from the outset I began to clear the backlog of books from my night stand and thus far I've gone through Jeremy Clarkson's Don't Stop Me Now, Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan, as well as Nicholas Antongiavanni's The Suit. Fortunately with three more weeks to go, I still have a ton to read.
The operation itself was on a Tuesday, and during the following weekend I set out for short walks around the countryside. The surgeons suggested that I should try to get out walking as soon as possible as it would help with the swelling. And it certainly did help, as far as I could tell. Yesterday I exchanged walking for some jogging and went for a 5km jog both in the morning and the afternoon. It's quite apparent that what little stamina and health I had before the operation are now gone and while the 5km jogs didn't really kill me, they were notably more difficult than the 10km jogs before. But I guess I'll try to run at least 5km each day to slowly get my strength back, but as of now I officially decided that I will not under any circumstance take part in the Helsinki City Marathon. I was, however, thinking that if I find some interesting half marathon somewhere during the autumn, I might try that again. As for golf, I haven't really gotten to the course yet, but was planning of trying that too later in the week.
Eating started off as fairly tricky and my diet from the outset consisted of a liquid diet. Since then things like mashed potatoes and minced meat have been proven to be a fairly nice meal. The doctors suggested that I should prepare for an up to 7 kg drop in weight. So far I started off with a pre-surgery weight of 84kg and at worst my weight dropped to 79.5kg, but quickly regained to about 81-82kg, so this seems to have also worked out fairly well. I'm still waiting for the six week mark when I can officially started chewing soft things. One of the things that makes eating very difficult right now is a thing called the splint. It's a plastic rail which attached to the teeth of the upper jaw and helps guide the lower jaw into place by utilizing rubber bands. This, I've been told, would be removed at the four week mark, so still two more weeks to go.
One of the more interesting parts of a sick leave is that officially you are not allowed to do any work, namely because of insurance related issues. If you injure yourself during the sick leave and it turns out that you were working, no insurance would cover that. That said, I may have attended a couple of conference calls already and prepared some slide sets, kept my inbox clean, etc. But that's only for my own sanity, as doing small tasks for work really helps during a time period when in essence you're forced to be with yourself for weeks and weeks, instead of being able to run around town and so on.
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