40G Reason No. 7: Yoda was a punk

Yoda.  Everyone's favorite Jedi Master.  And, in my book at least, the source of some of the best movie fight scenes ever, world without end, forever and ever, amen.  And remember he does all that fighting with only three digits on his hands and feet AND some other guy's hand jammed up his butt.  Four out of five dentists agree, when it comes to tearing it up against the Dark Side, Yoda just can't be beat.  Except I guess he was ...

Anyhow, Yoda's probably most famous for his quote, "Do or do not.  There is no try."  Unfortunately, like a lot of boys growing up in the US, I internalized Yoda's oversimplified outlook on life, as well as a lot of other similar cultural messages from actual people, that promoted a narrow binary, on/off,  yes/no, fail/succeed. happy/sad, kill or be killed perspective that is elegantly summarized by this image.  As far as I'm concerned, that's just not a good way to be.  In Joaquin World, it's not "do or do not," it's "trial and error."  And sometimes a whole lot of trials and a whole lot of errors before something that feels like progress is made.  Failure IS always an option.  And, for me at least, recognizing and appreciating the possibility of failure makes it easier to make plans and strategize to minimize the chances of it happening.  But while that seems pretty obvious right now as I'm writing, it's not always so easy to make it a reality in my non-blogging life.  Which is where the $40G comes in.

Frankly, every time I give myself some time to think about it, raising $40G in a year seems totally impossible.  Check it out: so far I've raised over twelve times more than the minimum required to ride in the 2011 NCAC. That's more than three times as much money as I've ever raised in my life and it's the most money raised by a single person in the history of the event.  And yet I'm not even halfway there.  And I feel like I'm running out of ideas, energy, and the goodwill of others.  After a few more turns down this mental death spiral I get to: I'LL NEVER MAKE IT!  GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As sadomasochistic as it may sound, getting myself stirred up into such a frenzy like that every few days is kind of the point of this $40G thing.  One of at least 40, anyway.  Because every time that happens I get to also practice thinking stuff like: "That's 100% true, dude.  You might not make it to $40G.  But that's just fine.  You can quit at any time and, while it'll be a little embarrassing, it won't really be a problem in the grand scheme of things.  And you will still have raised an F-load of cash for a great cause."  And that gives me great comfort.  In fact, by my last count, I've quit trying to raise $40G at least five times already.  But, so far at least, it didn't take long for me to decide to un-quit and keep on trying, coming up with new ideas, contacting donors, yadda yadda yadda.  And, oddly enough, giving my self permission to quit, and even quitting for awhile, is making it easier and easier to stick with it.

My hope is that having so many opportunities to practice turning "Do or do not" into "Try, err sometimes, then try again" in this $40G microcosm will translate into making it easier to practice that same mental flip in all the other areas of my life.

Reason #5: Because Lance isn't HIV+ (as far as I know)

Lance Armstrong's comeback from testicular cancer to win the Tour de France more times than anyone ever thought possible is one of the most motivational, feel-good stories of the past twenty years.  And then, as if that weren't already enough, he's used his cycling to raise dozens, maybe hundreds, of millions of dollars for cancer related services.  The man's face and name and yellow rubber bracelets are some of the most recognizable, iconic images of the 21st century.  In fact, I heard from a friend of a friend that Chuck Norris wears a special bracelet that reads, "WWLD?"

Which makes me wonder: How much money would Lance have been able to raise if the diagnosis weren't cancer, but HIV?  Of the people and companies that stood by him when it looked like his racing days were over, how many would have still been there if he had announced he was HIV+ as the result of unprotected sex or sharing needles?  Nobody can say for sure, but my spidey sense tells me that the answer is something along the lines of, "a whole lot less." 

Although some cancers are correlated with specific risk factors, for the most part cancer is perceived as a disease that could strike anyone at anytime.  You don't have to do anything to get cancer and there's not a whole lot you can do to avoid it.  Consequently, there's very little stigma attached to being cancer+.  Now contrast that to the history and common perception of HIV and AIDS in the US.  Yeah, pretty different.

In part, it's thinking about stuff like that that motivates me to be such an ardent HIV/AIDS activist.  The fact that people who contract HIV tend to be some of the most marginalized, least powerful, and therefore least supported members of our community really, really torques me off.  I mean, come on, why does it matter who it is that's suffering?  Suffering is suffering, dude.  For me, this imbalance of regard and care for the HIV+ and at-risk-of-contracting-HIV community is especially maddening because unlike with cancer, we are 100% certain about how HIV is spread and it's 100% preventable. So with just a little more effort from The Man we really could have a very significant effect on reducing HIV's impact in our communities.

There is something about this unfairness of regard and treatment and funding for everything HIV as well as the lingering stigma attached to being HIV+ that obviously resonates very strongly with me.  But I always feel inadequate to the task of trying to characterize it accurately to others or even myself.  The best I can do is point to everything I do now and have done for the NorCal AIDS Cycle and the AIDS LifeCycle before that and say that all of that work and training is an attempt to somehow understand and soothe these intense feelings of anger and injustice that well up inside of me anytime I think about HIV and AIDS.

40 Reasons Why: Reason #4 - Men on a mission!

For today's reason for why I'm raising $40G for HIV and riding the event itself on a tandem instead of on my single bike, I'm providing some photos of me and Jerry on this morning's NorCal AIDS Cycle training ride.  I'll let you add in the reason.