Triathlon and Lance Armstrong

We have learned many things from Armstrong.  “The only rational way of teaching is with the example, even when we are not a good example,” quoting Albert Einstein. We learned about how pervasive doping is in cycling and it was even worse; we learned how people lied even when they can lose everything.  Are they stupid? Nope, lack of the right education to live according to the new circumstances is the problem.  It is Peter´s principle: “The capacity to perform well disappears when we do not have the tools to deal with the new scenario.”  It is the case of Debi Thomas.

Lance Armstrong: "I grew up ... like a wild animal."

This week, Lance Armstrong said he made two really big mistakes in his life, and one of them has proved to be much more costly than the other.

One was doping, the other mistreating people.

The disgraced global sports icon was speaking on "Movember Radio" with CEO Adam Garone in a podcast published on Tuesday.

Armstrong, 44, talked about how attacking people during his cycling career proved to be a much more significant mistake than his actual doping…

He replied: "Understand that you may face some decisions in this sport, but, man, don't ever isolate, attack, ostracize, incite another human being."

Armstrong, who was raised by a single mother, added, "My mom and I had more of a brother-sister relationship ... I never had that person that in my life — and I'm not making excuses — but nobody ever tapped me on the shoulder and said, Dude.

"I sort of raised myself. But nobody ever said, Dude, what I just saw. Never do that again. And so it is what it is. And I got to live with that and spend the rest of my life trying to make it right."

Our posts are an effort to teach our kids to think about what is coming for them in order to acquire the tools to face a much more complex reality.  We have said: Dude, what I just saw. Never do that again.  Sometimes parents are unable to say it for the very same reason Armstrong mentions, and teachers do not speak clearly because they are afraid of losing their jobs.  We have to say it knowing all possible consequences.  Most of the time we are counterattacked by pointing out our mistakes instead of looking at how to improve as a whole.  This counterattacking is an ingredient of poverty and perhaps the strongest that keep us poor. We are unable to reflect as Armstrong is doing.  I am not sure that Armstrong will do what is needed because he has a habit/addiction that is very difficult to irradicate but reflecting is the first step. 

There is a well written article that looks into this matter from a psycho-social point of view:

Born to Be Conned

By MARIA KONNIKOVADEC. 5, 2015

New York Times

And the stories the grifter tells aren’t real-world narratives — reality-as-is is dispiriting and boring. They are tales that seem true, but are actually a manipulation of reality. The best confidence artist makes us feel not as if we’re being taken for a ride but as if we are genuinely wonderful human beings who are acting the way wonderful human beings act and getting what we deserve. We like to feel that we are exceptional, and exceptional individuals are not chumps…In a sense, all victims of cons are the same: people swept up in a narrative that, to them, couldn’t be more compelling. Love comes at the exact moment you crave it most, money when you most need it. It’s too simplistic to dismiss those who fall for such wishful-seeming thinking as saps — just as it’s overly neat to dismiss the types of people who would take advantage of them as unfeeling psychopaths…Nobody thinks they are joining a cult, David Sullivan explains. “They join a group that’s going to promote peace and freedom throughout the world or that’s going to save animals, or they’re going to help orphans or something. But nobody joins a cult.” We don’t knowingly embraces false beliefs. We embrace something we think is as true as it gets. We don’t set out to be conned. We set out to become, in some way, better than we were before.

The great Jacques Lacan would say:  “L’amour, l’amour…c’est pour ça qu’on a inventé l’ inconscient (Jacques Lacan, Le Seminaire, Livre XX; 11).” Armstrong is working hard trying to understand why he blew his life up, perhaps for the sake of his children.

20 août 2013

TRIATHLON AND PETER PRINCIPLE

24 juil. 2013

Tour de France, the Best of the Dopers