F@ck the System: Don't stir your coffee!

I was just making my favorite-est most refreshing beverage.  Pom juice (blueberry flavored) + sparkling water.  And on sparkling water I sometimes splurge!  I try them all.  I'm a man of the world.

Sometimes after paying 3 dollars for a liter of sparkling water I drink my favorite-est most refreshing drink in a wine glass.  I don't drink anymore.  So this would be my most fancy beverage, I guess.  So I indulge.  I'll sometimes drink 8 glasses a night and can still drive, and am only more hydrated.

Anyway, what does this have to do with 'f@cking the system'?

Coffee.

Allow me to explain.  I was just noticing how lovely my drink looks in a pint glass.  Dark rich purples on the bottom softening into disparate strains of clear up top.  Beethoven underneath Arvo Part!

I realize now that for the last 10 years I've refused to stir my coffee before drinking it.  Sugar, cream, hell even, powdered milk...I just shake the cup a bit if absolutely necessary!

Why?  Homogeneity is boring.  F'ing boring.  I want my drink to change flavors as I imbibe it.  I want the last sip to pack a whallop of whoop ass in the form of un-diluted sugar!  I want my first sip to be nothing but cream. I want to be scared to death of what the next sip brings!

Life is a little short to be frightened of surprises.  Does the 'system' (whatever that is) teach you to fear change and to therefore fall into place.  I don't know.  That is for minds with a better understanding of the world to let me know.  I just have my suspicions.  Healthy ones.  Healthy suspicions are like the vitamins that keep us all honest.

But ultimately, for what it's worth, this guy here is starting a full blown rebellion by not stirring his mixed beverages!

How do you question authority?

Abundant Universal Love

If all available love on the planet that has not been called dibs over gets channeled somewhere, maybe it's through my straw at Lanikai Juice.

The smoothie is the universe condensing down its intrinsic goodness into a medium that gets transferred via tubular plastic and vacuums.  Everything you need to love and live right there in a cup.  (Alas, maybe we can find reusable solutions here?)

Just sayin'.

Lanikai Juice is the first stop on this transport of nourishment and wellness.  Mad props where they are due.  Thank you!

EpicMan Follow Up: Part I

Some events need some distance between them and their telling.  EpicMan was one such event.  It ranks as one of my greatest athletic performances...I'm surely nothing but proud of my DNF.

The reason?  Ambulance rides are easy.  They are a burden on all your health care costs, too.  I'll own my limits and avoid the drama for us all.  In 2012 I want to do less harm in the world.  Maybe I wised up enough to be part of a solution, not a problem.

That said:  I'll just get more and more fit.  Simple. 

Hats off to a race that breaks me in half and gets nothing but praise.

I'm going to leave things at that for now and will revisit as my mental faculties return.

For now just be sure to keep an eye out for Kelly, the woman who left every man in the dust and won the event.  Chick'd power right there.  Mad props and love to her.  I'll spend my career trying not to get Chick'd if she's in the race.  Love it!

Travel the world to get back to your front porch.  Sometimes a DNF makes a journey out of what would just be a race.

On The Surface

I noticed a crack on my front Carbon wheel about 10 minutes ago.

My heart sank.  This could derail my whole Epicman race.  I have no backup wheel set.  I have no money to buy another wheel.  I'd have to borrow a wheel and it would probably effect my performance.

The bad performance would, no doubt, cause me to be a complete failure in my eyes and lead to utter despair over how dumb I could be.

I worked out the equation (possible series of events)  to me being homeless and a burden on my friends and family.

Then I decided to really look at the crack.

It was really a harmless decal peeling in a strange way.

And so it goes.  The constant trials of beating ourselves up over false beliefs. 

Looking at things properly is important.

Mindful Thoughts

Intelligence comes from awareness.  Just as emotional intelligence comes from emotional awareness.

I'm going to infer that physical intelligence comes from physical awareness.

Regardless, this all rests on awareness being synonymous with mindfulness.

Two weeks before racing Epicman I will tune into feeling my body instead of ignoring it as I pound it into submission.  (If I were a gifted athlete, I'm sure I'd be able to pound my body into submission while feeling it instead of numbing out.  There is a wise athlete!)

This leads to me trying to dial my mind into my body so that the distance becomes irrelevant.

Why?  Because I can't wrap my head around the distance of a Triple Ironman.

7.2 Mile Swim, 336 Mile Bike, 78 Mile run.

So because I can't be mindful of the distance, I have to really look into my body now.  (And get to know it as best as possible, because I have no idea what will happen then.)

For what is the entire event  but many millions of tiny moments that I have control over processing and interpreting? 

I will happen.  The event won't happen to me.

The triple ironman will be the unfolding of myriad nows.

It's so simple...but goddamn impossible

Time I got something off my chest:  lofty words and ideologies are best suited for reminiscing - in the immediate we are too busy making mistakes.

I didn't get where I am by believing in myself.  Quite the contrary, actually.  But self-loathing will only take you so far, and I'm ready to take it to the next level. 

Setting your standards beyond your ability is destructive.  Essentially so.

It's all part of the Great Negation embraced by any drug addict.  When you are not yourself you are juxtaposed to your own Being - and any easy way out is welcome.  Blacking out becomes easy enough when you are tired of being awake.

I've seen beautiful perspectives pushing things.  But elevation is reciprocated.  What goes up comes down and the descent is proportional.  Essentially I've been on tour since I was in college.  I changed one rock n'roll life style for another.

But maybe perturbations between Myself and the places I inhabit are shrinking.  Two sine waves not in union produce a tempo with their disunion.  This was the push beat of my life this last decade.

And it isn't going away anytime soon...

...but it's reducing in intensity.  It's so easy to understand, so impossible to practice.

It's sounds so easy to stop when it hurts so bad.  But I'll have to be ridiculously fit before I get near stopping.  It's time to go home, when you arrive, I guess.

The Mind/Body Divide/Union

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.