40 days in walking mess

More walk than talk

I would be the first to tell you that not every day of the last 40 since I started my walks around Manchester as my exercise routine has had me excited and rearing to go, for I have been tired, the weather inclement, and the drive expired, yet, I have persevered.

This evening, after a night of barely 4 hours of sleep, I wanted to fall into bed after work and dream, and snore and enter the realm of deep sleep for longer than I had managed before, I could not because I felt my walk was important and I only had to make my 10,000 steps.

Numbers up and down

In that time, I have done 657,850 steps and my recorded exercises have stretched over 446 kilometres, but those are just figures, my figure according to Brian is changing, not that I can see myself, though last week I found I had lost 4 inches about 10 cm off my belly and I am today, exactly 6 kilogrammes lighter.

I guess the greatest feat in all this was on the 5^th of September when twice I managed sub 8-minute kilometres, even to my surprise at 7’56”, I am not looking to break records, I am happy with keeping it under 9’30”, though I can consistently keep it under that. I will keep at it, I think just by the results, it is a good investment in both health and wellbeing at 54.

The pace for 05/09/2020

Thought Picnic: I will be heard

Many words and no fords

What occupies me is a sense of purpose, a desire to experience the difference between things and their purpose. For I have heard a lot of words, but do they have meaning and to what intent have they been spoken?

Even when I speak, I seek to set a watch on my tongue for in its capacity is the speech to bless and even more to sting. For I will speak the truth without leasing and to the hearing of some shall be shock and disbelief, but the truth shall not be unspoken for an uneasy calm to rest upon us like a plague.

Careful of my speech

Though I wish to speak to be listened to and heard without any misunderstanding, it is with difficulty that one has had to address some men to whom I have allegiance and relationship, be they filial or marital.

I do not arrogate to myself speech that creates universes, but I feel the crashing sound like plates of Chinaware dropped from a great height to the ground, the clatter of dishes broken to pieces as the scramble begins to probably put it back together but never with its original undamaged self again.

I love agreement and detest conflict, but to the apparently stiff-necked, there must be a deployment of voice and strength, of consideration and force, of assertion and assertiveness to ensure that you have not been heard wrong the many times you repeat yourself to their hearing.

I am not tongue-tied

In one day alone, this cup from which I would refuse to drink was brought to my table twice in the thirst of times when I would have preferred to fast than to quench it. From it, I drank twice for what was to be said had to be said and for a long time it was brewing for a showdown.

My silence has been taken for being dumb, for no one knows the wells of memory from which I can draw the waters to speak the unpalatable and inconvenient truth. It is not something I want to be practised at, but when it is called for, you will hear me to the hills that would reverberate with echoes that would deafen. I have not come to speak for nothing.

Barclays Bank has severed its relationship with Core Issues Trust, that's fair

A petition I could not support

I was invited earlier today to register a protest in favour of a British Christian organisation called the Core Issues Trust that according to them works to help people with homosexual inclinations reform and realigning towards what might be pertaining to a norm.

Now, Core Issues Trust has a lot to say about themselves and that is a valid issue, I also want to know what others say about them because they are and the premise of their petition which I do not support is to have the Barclays Bank reinstate the backing services they have allegedly withdrawn from their putative customer at the behest of the agitations of certain forceful LGBTI groups.

Core Issues Trust avers that they are “a non-profit Christian ministry supporting men and women with homosexual issues who voluntarily seek change in sexual preference and expression.” Then reinforces the point by saying, ‘It respects the rights of individuals who identify as 'gay' who do not seek change, and supports dignity for LGBT persons. It does not support gay "marriage" - usually considered an "equality" issue, premised on the belief that being gay is "biological" and is therefore unchangeable.’ [Core Issues Trust]

It is Conversion Therapy

Yet, when I view the Wikipedia entry for the same organisation, I see another face of the organisation, “The Trust claims it is possible to change sexuality and offers "psycho-therapeutic" conversion therapy for homosexual behaviour and feelings. Core Issues Trust states it believes human sexuality in both men and women is a choice; and that sexual preference can and should be changed. The Trust says it does not consider homosexuality a native human behavior, but rather a relational or sexual "damage" that causes "deviancy" that it may be "cured".” [Wikipedia: Core Issues Trust]

My reading of this is unequivocal, this organisation is engaged in Conversion Therapy in everything but name, it is well understood that Conversion Therapy is not only harmful, there are laws being promulgated around the world with outlaw it. “There is no reliable evidence that sexual orientation can be changed and medical institutions warn that conversion therapy practices are ineffective and potentially harmful.” [Wikipedia: Conversion Therapy]

However, I respect the right of Core Issues Trust to render whatever services they deem necessary as their somewhat wholesome contribution to society whilst bearing in mind that many organisations involved in sexuality realignment have folded in comprehension of the reality of what core sexuality pertains.

Freedom to harm others

Core Issues Trust remonstrates that this matter is one of religious freedom and from their perspective, it might be, but I take exception to people and organisations who project their freedoms as the licence to act according to their beliefs that would inadvertently or demonstrably harm others.

I see no difference between their situation and that of hoteliers who provide services to the public but select their customers in line with their prejudices against the broad spirit and letter of trade descriptions laws. It is illegal and they get sanctioned when it comes to the notice of the authorities.

As I have written before, if you want to limit the scope of your services or influence to a particular cohort, you have to be in a confined ghettoised community of that homogenous cohort, the moment your doorway is in the public space, your prejudices would have to be lost to a liberal clientele.

Find a Christian bank

Whilst I do sympathise with the loss of banking services to the Core Issues Trust, it is a matter of reputational consideration that they have also lost the services of PayPal and MailChimp, they have courted controversy for a while that it probably does not need much activism to render them a negative customer to consider a business relationship with. [BBC News: High Court hears 'ex-gay' ad ban 'a political issue']

On the point that Barclays Bank unilaterally without notice or consideration withdrew their banking services, I would quite reticent to think a global organisation like Barclays Bank did not have extensive and involved processes that put this matter before panels of intensive debate and analysis before reaching that conclusion.

It made amusing reading when in their petition they attempted to join issues with Barclays – Qatari deal of 2008 when the Qataris came to the aid of the bank during the financial crisis. It was neither germane nor necessary, yet, interesting.

My advice to the Core Issues Trust who have such high Christian principles is to find a bank that supports their value system, maybe a Christian bank. Barclays Bank is not the only bank in the world, and it is not that Barclays Bank has seized their funds if they do find another bank to provide those services. Petition all you want, the decision has been made, contest it in court, if you’re so aggrieved.

Sound logic and incontrovertible evidence

The techniques are hardly obscure

There are some things I like about the work I do that could be irritating for others who may not understand the intricacies of the technologies at play. On occasion, I get a report suggesting the system is not working, which is understandable from their perspective.

What irks me is when technical people refuse to be technical by not reporting the issue with observational and the crucial detail necessary to pinpoint where the problem might be. There are so many parts to the system which needs to run in order, from it beginning through it failing during any number of visible processes and probably at the end.

The detail is revelatory always

Along with this are chatty logs, a real-time journal of activities that one expects these technical users to be able to review, but for their disinterest or some other thing. It does not make it fun when you find that people put in no effort.

In any case, you review the situation and pinpoint with incontrovertible and documented evidence of what the issue is and how it arose. The solution should not have to be dictated to any other expository verbosity, it should be obvious as it is bright sunlight, but no, they hesitate in disbelief and then expect you to embark on an unnecessarily timewasting rigmarole of trial-and-error, which I just can never have the time or patience for.

Once the case is closed, that’s it

Once the situation is proven, that is the end of any analysis, I am not in the business of make-belief or magic, there is qualitative logic to what we and my engineering background cannot be diverted towards the esoteric for either entertainment or conviction.

Sometimes, I wonder, if I were a lawyer using the law of evidence, whether anyone who suggests a hypothetical line of discourse once I have closed my case. I think not. Take it as it is except if you can present better evidence. On that, I am up for the challenge and ready to learn something new.

Thought Picnic: In triumph beyond the memories

An ordeal called life

I called the matriarch for a chin wag just after work and what a conversation we did have all down memory lane into streets and avenues I never knew existed. Paths and tunnels couched in stories that have probably never been told to anyone else, the wealth of experience in a world where the loved have the darkest hearts known to man.

The things I learnt were hair-raising leaving me tingling with sensation that the saints lain under tombstones long ago were anything but, the evil they perpetrated lives in the tales that get told in remembrance of them.

At a point, I thought, should all these reminisces be jotted down and then told for if not one for non-fiction, it exuded the elements of fictional thrillers, but for the grace of God, here we stand, and they are long gone.

Grace and enduring peace

Then you wonder about the inability of people to capture the zeitgeist, the things said in jest that have become the definition of people in whom we once laid trust. They have forgotten taking umbrage at strained relationships they in their careless talk forsook.

Yet, in not any one of them have we been left blinded or in their shadow, for in the deliverance of great favour and fortune with the goodness of people as angels we have risen. We would tell stories of amazing triumph that leaves the slights way behind in the completely forgotten, for we have been blessed and that prayer has been a living stream from the mouth of the matriarch.

For all her faults even amongst those who have sought to besmirch and assail her, she remains faultless, navigating the strangeness of this world with premonition and insight, guided by the divine through the many valleys of the shadow of death to new still waters beside green pastures, her soul restored, her peace enduring. I smile thinking, I do love my mum.

Sticking to walking as my exercise routine

The numbers are in

Whilst I only got my tracker on the 7^th of August, one constant that has not required it though meant having my mobile phone on my person was a record of the steps I had taken each day.

With August now over, the numbers are in, I took 590,530 steps in August, up from a paltry 60,343 steps in July. Let’s not put that in the statistical comparison of an improvement because at 879% on the previous month, the question obviously should be on what I changed in my life.

Walking works for me

I bunked out of going to the gym and took to walking instead, meeting the daily threshold of 10,000 and exceeding it to put in a daily average of 19,049 steps, surpassing anything kind of exercise I have ever put in before. On one of those August days I even did 30,172 steps and did not collapse writhing in pain after.

I believe walking briskly for at least 8 kilometres daily, gets me past 10,000 steps and the extra simply brings the results forward a bit earlier than anticipated. As I don’t really want to develop anything, just keep trim and fit, this works for me, though it may not work for others. You have to find a regime that works for you.

So amazing looking at love

So right

It is impossible to think of anything that has felt so right to me especially in the affairs of the heart than when I saw him two Decembers ago, everything told me that this was so different and quite so different it was, for before him I had looked no nearer nor as interested, I just coasted along.

Then here I was enraptured by things beyond my control, a beauty that captivated me even though I had counted myself out before the barest encounter, and it could never have occurred in my slightest imagination that I would be a person of any interest talk less of having him come to say hello.

So free

Yet, providence works in realms outside the purview of limited perceptions, for whatever forces of the universe or coincidence were in play, we were brought together and from there we were left to explore whether it would be a brief encounter or a prospect for something substantial.

As good fortune would have it, we became friends and lovers, soulmates and betrothed, then engaged to be married soon. If on the first date I has said, you’re looking like love to me [1], I might have been laughed at as a fool just falling in love again, I swear, I never felt so free [1] to be with someone and long to spend my life with him, Brian brings that smile to my face and glow to my heart, I have been blessed with something so amazing that I will follow him to the moon and sky above [2].

References in Italics
1. [Genius: You’re Looking Like Love To Me (Roberta Flack & Peabo Bryson)]
2. [AZLyrics: So Amazing (Luther Vandross)] [YouTube]

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