Declaration

Read the stories of age grouper triathletes and you will start to notice something that many of them have in common. They declared that they would no longer be bound by whatever impediment quashed their spirit. The impediments need not be the same. For some it is weight, or shyness, or fear, or lack of fitness, or grief. But the declartions are remarkably the same. As Wil put it on one of the GYGO episodes:

"This has got to change and it starts right now."

Making the declaration only once hardly suffices. We make it again and again when we live it out--every time we rise in the dark, conquer our fear of the water or our demons on the long ride or our pain on the run. In the blogosphere, every time we encourage each other, we pledge faith to that declaration.

Our declaration may be apolitical, but it is a close kissing cousin to that declaration of 230 years ago. By the power of that declaration we travel this country without identity papers, freely enter races, freely compete, and even blog without fear that King George X might be offended by our thoughts. Read a little bit of it again. Although the words are different, they declare, "this has got to change and it starts now," and then they pledge their "sacred honor" to their brethren. 230 years later, they would have been posting comments, "You can do it. Hang in there."

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
* * *
"We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, . . . . — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."