When you travel from west to east, you lose time. I am flying on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Mumbai as I write this. I slept for a few hours on the plane but woke up with a start about an hour ago. I felt this overwhelming sense of grief; as if Simi just passed away. She passed away in October of 2014, but it felt like it just happened. Maybe it has something to do with flying long distances. Simi got very very sick when we were in South Africa. On our flight back home, our hearts were heavy. When we returned back home, she was feeble and still very sick. She never recovered and passed away a few days later. It hurts just to write this.
Before falling asleep, I saw a documentary/movie on Lance Armstrong and his doping scandal. It made me think of the conversation we had at dinner with Rahul and Janki a few days ago. Lance Armstrong is a seven-time Tour de France winner, but systematically used performance enhancing drugs. His whole team did. He denied it for years and years. He intimidated and threatened anyone who was in the know and went to the press. Eventually, he was caught and confessed.
Lance Armstrong is a cancer survivor. He created Livestrong Foundation donating and raising millions of dollars for cancer causes. The foundation still lives on even after Lance has been banned for life from sanctioned sporting events.
Is Lance Armstrong a good guy or a bad guy? It’s tough to tell, isn’t it? So then, let us not judge him; let us judge his actions. We all have a bit of good and bad in us. We all make mistakes. The world would be a better place if we judged deeds and not peeps. IMHO.
I fall into the same trap of judging people. For example, I have recently said, “I can’t stand Donald Trump.” It’s a true statement. I can’t stand him. I have even used expletives to describe him. Instead, maybe I should say (and think) that I don’t agree with Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric; I don’t agree with how he insults all of his opponents; I don’t agree with his ideas, his lack of economic policy, foreign policy or social policy; I don’t agree that he wavers on so many social issues; and the list goes on and on. I don’t even like the mop on his head (there I go making personal judgments again).
I wonder what it would be like if Trump actually becomes the President of the United States. All indications now are that he will win the Republican nomination. I doubt if he can beat Hillary Clinton though, but in today’s American political climate, you never know!
I haven’t worked out in a few days now. I’m tempted to get up and do some jumping jacks on the plane. I don’t think that would go over very well…