On the virtues and flaws of humanity and Lance Armstrong

I started writing this yesterday, but I never got it together. I couldn't pull my thoughts together coherently. And then I saw the news about Boston. I still can't wrap my head around it. I was up late last night with things to think about. And I think I'm going to try this again, only, with a little different slant.

I wanted to make a point about what I see as the main flaw of humanity. But in processing last night, and after having read this comment by Patton Oswald from Facebook that my sister posted:

...here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will." Patton Oswald

I think this message is more on point. This idea about the goodness of humanity diluting and weakening the evil. It is in the same vein as one of my favorite quotes:

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always." Mahatma Ghandi

When I started writing this yesterday, I wanted to call us out as a species for having this one universal flaw--the need to exact justice, tear down our heroes and kill our Gods. Yesterday as I was grocery shopping there was a crazy long line and my baby was done being patient. I was surprised when I got to the register and a woman came from I don't know where with her cart, got right in front of me and started unloading her things on the conveyor. Not just a couple things, but a cart full. She didn't make eye contact, but I could see from her expression and constant huffing that she was almost daring me to say something. Somehow she felt justified, cutting in line. So I just kind of sat there, watching this happen and in my mind I was trying to figure out what series of events led up to a woman acting like that, oblivious that everyone else had circumstances too. I didn't say anything, because, I really didn't want to get splashed with whatever ugliness she was experiencing. It just took a few extra minutes of my time, holding my 2 year old and putting back all the candy he kept reaching for. I decided it was an opportunity for me to practice what I'm about to preach.

That brings me, finally, to what I've been trying to write about since yesterday. Lance Armstrong. I have a hard time saying this exactly right. Because, I don't want to justify lying. Nor do I want to condone the kind of bullying that he did to maintain his lie. That is disheartening. But I also think it is important to just pause a minute and try and understand what series of events lead up to those lies, and aggressively maintaining that false narrative. 

First, why was there so much doping in cycling?   Basically, to compete professionally in cycling, you have to be a superman. And you do have to be a man. Not because cycling is sexist, it is just that men physically have greater lung capacity, so no woman has ever come close to qualifying.  You have to have a VO2 max of like 75+ to compete. VO2 max= milliliters of oxygen used per kilogram of body weight per hour of activity. The average, athletic woman's VO2 max compares to about the average for a man. About 45. From the article:

Over the long, flat stages, the monitors suggest that riders hover between 50 and 70 percent of their VO2 max. That may sound like a light workout, but keep in mind that when a Tour de France rider is “resting” at 60 percent of his maximum capacity, he’s working about as hard as an average person at full exertion.

The time trials and mountain stages are entirely different. The long time trials last more than an hour, during which the cyclists remain above 90 percent of VO2 max. (As a crude comparison, for the average person that would be like sprinting for an entire hour.) In the mountains, thinning oxygen supply becomes an issue as riders traverse terrain above 8,000 feet, all the while staying in the vicinity of 90 percent of full exertion. Researchers have identified pulmonary edema — an accumulation of fluid in the lungs caused by the effort to supply enough oxygen to the body — in Tour riders after mountain stages.

Studies have also shown that, during the course of a multi-stage race, professional riders experience a steady decrease in levels of testosterone and cortisol as the body struggles to rebuild itself after each day. This decline seems to be unique to cycling, as professional marathon runners have to train hard for six months before experiencing the kind of hormonal deficit that cyclists suffer in three weeks.

Again, I'm not trying to justify the use of illegal substances. But cycling is a brutal sport, even if you are some kind of He-Man you still can't overcome the toll it takes on your body. See how it might be easy to justify? Even as a superior athlete with a precision-tuned body, you just can't overcome your body's process of righting itself. Because it isn't natural to do what those cyclists are asking their bodies to do. I am in awe of that kind of drive and determination. I love running, but I only love it for about an hour, and I'm never at a full sprint. 

Aside from that, the Lance Armstrong story is this amazing story. It was anyway. An athlete who came back from nearly dying of CANCER to win Tour De France. And then he just kept winning. I really wonder how many people had the will to keep on fighting, just because Lance did that. How many people have been directly helped, financially by the Livestrong foundation? I can't think of one other athlete that has done more, or who is more synonymous with philanthropy the way Armstrong is. I understand wanting to control the narrative. When BJay died, I wanted to control that narrative. I repeated that story to everyone willing to listen. It was vital to me, that people understood that BJay was a hero. He didn't just die. He died saving our sons. I wonder if somehow in all the justifications it wasn't a lie to Lance either, his version. Because he had this thing to uphold. It wasn't right to maintain that lie, and it was terrible the way he did it. But I get it. He was mythic. And that was the problem. As humans, we have a problem with myths. We need to expose them for what they are. What is that? 

Initially, I couldn't watch the Oprah interview. I knew it would just make me mad. I finally saw some clips the other day and they broke my heart. Especially when Lance was talking about telling his son to stop defending him. And the heartbreak in realizing that, even though he'd never talked to his children about it, they fully trusted that he was telling the truth. That is hard stuff. Breaking the trust of your kids. Hard, hard stuff.

It was a hard interview to watch. And Oprah needed those ratings, btw. In the interview, Lance admitted that when he lost control of the story, he expected that he'd lose his sponsors and his titles. But he didn't expect to lose his foundation. He also said that he deserved to be punished, but he wasn't sure he "deserves the death penalty". And that is what he got. As an athlete. He is not allowed to compete. In anything. It doesn't seem fair to me. When most people are punished for a crime, aren't they supposed to pay their debt to society? Lance hasn't just been stripped of his titles and disgraced. He's been stripped of every good thing he's done, or could do. And what a waste! He can't run in a marathon for charity?

 I think this is the problem with humans exacting justice on humans. We're so limited. We don't have the ability to see the big picture most of the time. I think eventually, at some point this will be righted. I hope, at some point Lance Armstrong makes amends to the people he's hurt, and only those people, because I don't think he owes anything more to society as a whole. I hope he gets to compete. I hope he gets to do what he was put on the earth to do. I hope this isn't the end of this story.

I love Oprah, but I wasn't loving her in that interview. Especially when she questioned him about tweeting this photo:

I don't know, I get this photo. And in the interview Lance apologized for it. To me, it says: Fine, take away my titles, I deserve it. But you can't take away the fact that I experienced every one of those races. That is my take anyway. In my opinion, the good of Lance Armstrong totally dilutes the bad.