The out of body experience. The out of mind experience. Where are you then when you have achieved both simultaneously? I can't remember. I've only been there a few times.
I'll hypothesize that in this place you are engaged with the mind/body union, not the divide, and wrapping yourself around an unthought - engaged in a non-act of non-doing and therefore, you're on the road to great things.
I've blacked out a few times. This is not this place. This is the opposite. I was totally present as my eyes rolled back in my head.
I am a monist. Dualism has too much baggage - a world's worth, actually. We compartamentalize Being into factions instead of letting it be undifferentiated lovers.
The only way to get there is to be where you are. Allowing all the non-memories to seep in so that they can't be recalled, but only cherished.
I'm beginning to understand that pushing only can take you so far. So, maybe it's just time to abandon the brakes.
Like dive bombing my Trek down Brandon Gap at 60mph. There is a great letting go the first time you surrender yourself to the turns. Vonnegut wrote of 'fates worse than death'. Braking might be one such fate. Worse than gravel and guard rails.
Endurance racing too often becomes a mall-metal, cock-rock song. Like a Nickleback song it signifies a deprivation - a testament to testosterone and all that you've lost and are compensating for.
Endurance racing should be in the vein of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht. It should be written in the text Wittgenstein refused to write - for he believed 'of that which we can't speak of, we should remain silent.'
Maybe the minute you can walk away from the starting line you are ready to begin. Then you don't have to overcome your body with your mind. Suddenly such a notion is nonsense.
I have found that when I need something, not material in nature, but when I need something to soothe me or make me think about a situation from another angle..well things just seem to fall into place. When I opened my email this morning and saw your post well lets just say that the silence you speak of is something I need to actively search out as of late. I often wonder how my gender speaks to my love of endurance...I am certainly not filled with testosterone and I do not need to pound my chest and posture but how do I explain and forgive myself for the times I get caught up in all the noise? You say we need to be willing to step up to the starting line and then turn and walk away....and only then can a person move forward...I think that is why I am learning to swim...hmmm thanks for this Jason
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