Decisions

Photo by Taylor Deas-Melesh on Unsplash.

April is already on its way out the door in 2022. Some months feel like I never really settle into them. I just sprint across the surface from the first day to the last before I realize the entire month slipped by.

Been thinking a lot about actions and words lately. Mine. Yours. Other people’s. I am of the opinion that neither actions nor words are done or said arbitrarily. People always have a reason why they do or say something. They may not be willing to be honest about why they did or said those things, but they know damn well why they did it.

I like semantics. Formal, lexical, conceptual—I welcome all perspectives on the study of meanings because I want to understand your message. I want to know exactly what you are thinking from what you are saying to me. Your words, hell even your body language, should tell me everything I need to know. Why guess? Don’t leave it up to speculation. Give me the deets and make it clear.

We should choose our words carefully every time we speak to someone else because our words say so much about us. How we use our words can speak volumes about where we’re at emotionally, but our words, no matter how loudly we yell them, do not resonate quite like our actions. Honest Abe was right.

You can say what you want about anything in life: opine about your own individual greatness, humble-brag about opportunities and success, righteously preach to others about how they should live, or detail how differently you would handle a given situation if you were involved in it. None of it matters if your actions diverge from your words.  

An Imperfect Situation

Photo by Jose Francisco Morales on Unsplash

Sometimes you think you have a choice when really you have a decision to make, and it’s just a matter of when you follow through with it.

There have only been 23 perfect games thrown in the history on Major League Baseball. A pitcher has to retire 27 batters without letting any of them get on base in any way in order to complete a perfect game. It’s hard to accomplish because a big part of getting it done is out of the pitcher’s control. Giving up hits and walks are two things pitchers have some control over.  But, even if a pitcher is perfect on their own, they still have to rely on their team to make the plays in the field and the umpire to make all the right calls in their favor. A pitcher may also have to worry about whether or not their manager will let them stay in the game long enough to complete it. A lot of shit has to go right for a pitcher to toss a perfect game

Last Wednesday, Clayton Kershaw, long-time L.A. Dodgers ace, one of the best pitchers in franchise (and MLB) history, had a perfect game through seven innings against the Minnesota Twins, but he wasn’t given the chance to take the mound in the eighth and let it fly. The reason we were all given behind the decision to pull him, according to manager Dave Roberts, Kershaw himself, and pretty much anyone else in the dugout that day is that Kersh was on a strict pitch count. Since this was his first outing after returning from a pitching arm injury that affected him for most of last season and ended it early, and since he’s pushing into his mid-30s with a growing injury history, and since Spring Training was abbreviated due to the lockout, and since the temperature at first pitch in Minneapolis was close to Kershaw’s age, Dave Roberts pulled him from a shot at history.

What shouldn’t be lost in this decision is that despite all those conditions working against extending Kershaw into the 8th inning, if he wanted to go back into the game, if he insisted that he take the mound again to take a shot at making history, he could have. Maybe he didn’t want to go back in. Roberts took the heat for it, and the “what if?” potential of this situation wrote its own headlines in sports media news the next couple of days.

“What if he pulled it off?”

Yeah. That would’ve been historic.

“What if the game was at Dodger Stadium instead?”

Maybe Kershaw takes the mound in the eight, and they evaluate him one batter at a time.

There’s no doubt that it would’ve been wonderful to see an athlete who has battled with injuries the last few seasons do something so incredible their first game back from yet another injury. It wasn’t going to happen, though. It was never really a choice so much as it was a decision that would’ve been made one way or another. It was only a matter of when the time that decision would come.

Inactive Bystanders

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If you saw someone getting attacked by another person, would you do anything to stop the attack? How long would you wait to decide to intervene? Would it matter to you if the attacker was a giant? Would it matter if they had a weapon?

The world continues to watch Russia destroy Ukraine, passively helping the Ukrainian resistance with weapons support and other aid, but NATO nations can’t offer any direct help because of the threat of nuclear war. Putin sent a message in his declaration of war against Ukraine, and we know now that he’s probably serious about using nukes against NATO allies if they get involved in stopping his genocide.

Fuck him. He’s got the world by the balls right now, and it doesn’t seems like he’s going to let up anytime soon in Ukraine. It does feel like we’re being drug towards a world war the longer this goes on and the more the economy and inflation run wild. Being alive is starting to cost too much. How far will it go?

Mariupol has been completely leveled after seven weeks of Russian bombardment. Now, the invading troops have launched “a full-scale ground offensive” for control of the Donbas region of Ukraine. The fate of Ukraine, the war itself, appears to come down to what happens in Donbas. Putin will intensify his threats against the West and NATO for helping Ukrainian resistance in any way, and we’ll see what happens.

NATO will talk tough and continue to drop sanctions every which way against Russia. Down the road, and not far, there may not be a choice to make so much as there will likely be a situation where another tough decision will have to be made by the NATO bystanders.

It’s easy for me to criticize global leaders for how they have handled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the comfort of my home, typing away on my laptop. I don’t have a full understanding of all the moving parts involved in this situation, but I do understand that if the U.S. and NATO get involved, the situation will escalate into an all-out world war.

How much longer does the world stand-by and just watch, though?