The Taxes of Life

Taxes are due. There’s no circumventing them. People have been complaining about taxes for thousands of years, but they’ll still be due next year, and fifty years from now (if I’m still around to pay them, which is doubtful).

There’s a tax on everything in life and it’s probably futile trying to resist or stress over it. The tax of food delivery is an exorbitant cost for the driver. The tax of travel is a stressful time at the airport. The tax of running marathons is an undue amount of money spent on shoes, gels, and physical therapy. If you enjoy something, though, you just accept the tax that comes with it. Hated the tax is wasted energy. It’s there whether you like it or not.

I’m not sure if I’ll accept the tax that comes with running marathons after I finish Boston. The aches and lack of weekends are a price to pay, and I look forward to more leisure.

One marathon tax that is rarely discussed is the tax on your cardiovascular system. Even the heart can be overworked, and a number of heart maladies have been found in older endurance athletes.

These taxes don’t appear to exist in the shorter distances, or in pickup basketball, which I have thought of taking on again. I’d like to rediscover my fast twitch. I was actually a mid distance swimmer, after all. The 200 meter freestyle is probably closer to an 800 meter track event than a marathon.

Moderation simply demands less tax in most instances.

The Life Balance Sheet

It’s easy for me to get consumed by unimportant information because by nature I’m a data cruncher. For example, I could tell you within a few million dollars how almost every movie performed opening weekend at the box office this year. What’s this useful for? Knowing and potentially regurgitating, I guess.

It’s more useful to know your own life’s balance sheet. I think I’m getting a better handle of that. It’s one reason why nearing age 40 is a lot less stressful than nearing aging 30. “Know thyself.” While living downtown I’d jump over a broken cement wall with the words “Know thyself” spray painted on it. I imagined there was some significance to this.

I think I saw career with more doom and gloom when I turning 30. I’ve experienced enough now to see a career as something that can provide some value, but is relatively trifling when compared to relationships, or the value of understanding life and death. I’ve seen enough people retire over the years, for example, and seen the aftermath (the company shrugs and hires someone younger, for a cheaper salary). The Protestant work ethic wheel keeps turning.

Put more concisely, I’d like to continue focusing on the things that matter, and continue getting to know myself.

The Ebb and Flow of Fortunes

I’ve noticed it is easier to buy nothing when I have nothing to spend. As is human nature, spending inevitably increases with fortune. It is probably less so for me than most people, as I believe I still live a pretty modest lifestyle.

Still, I believe that I possess too much. It is true that I have a pretty small closet, but the closet is rife with stuff. I may own less than most, but I still own much more than I have at times in the past. I’ve experienced what it’s like to own almost nothing (my years in China), and I’ve experienced what it’s like to own everything I had inkling to buy. Of the two, I prefer nothing. It’s more freeing.

Fortunes ebb and flow. Time has humbled me enough to know this. A possession can easily become a burden. Life is tough enough. Best to minimize the burdens if given the option.

I’ve seen how new possessions inevitably rust and fade, and lose their lore. In today’s subscription-based economy, replacements must be purchased at regular intervals. One can easily become a slave to possessions.

I don’t believe owning nothing is necessarily healthy either. Humans evolved by using materials. Shoes allowed us to migrate north, for example.

I do believe I need to reassess what is essential and what was bought on impulse. The mind convinces itself a lot more is “necessary” to buy when there’s money in one’s pockets than it does when the pockets are empty.

How much is enough? This is a difficult question to answer because the answer constantly changes. Generally speaking though, it’s less than a consumer thinks.

If You Want to Learn

“It is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” - Epictetus

Aging humbles me. The older I get, the less I realize I know. When a preconceived truth is proven wrong, a new one takes its place. Then that is proven wrong and I’m left wondering if there’s a red pill somewhere that finally provides the final, definite answer.

One can really go down a rabbit hole of “what ifs” in the search for truth. I remember an old middle school teacher challenging me by saying, “How do you know that God didn’t snap His fingers and create you, and all of your memories, five seconds ago?” The truth is I don’t, nor does anyone. We don’t know how long we’ve actually existed, although we have an educated guess, and we certainly have no clue how long we will continue to exist. Then, we have our theories on what happens after existence.

Somewhere in adolescence, swelled by our pride, I think we set out to form answers to every question. There’s never a time when we seemingly have more of the answers. I could prove any professor wrong back then.

Then time humbles us. It accelerates and snowballs, and as it gathers momentum our precious answers combust. At some point we’re a blank slate again, and maybe that’s for the best.

I still want to learn with whatever capacity I have.

Judgments

I sometimes wake up in the odd hours of the night with a brutal anxiety that I can’t describe. Usually it’s severe enough that my system enters “fight or flight” mode and cannot fall back asleep.

I’m awakened by a dream, usually, in which I’m either replaying a stressful past event or a hypothetical future one. It isn’t so much the event itself that causes me stress as it is my perception of the event and how it might affect me. For example, I often dream of making some awful work-related error that destroys my reputation or gets me fired. Even when awake, it feels too real to erase from my mind. Or my mind amplifies the stress by creating another dozen similar hypothetical scenarios. I ensnare myself in these fictions and convince myself that I am powerless.

It’s never the event that causes stress, as events are just moments in time. It’s our judgment regarding the event, and our ability (or inability) to let go.

Judgment plays a key role in how we shape and present ourselves. If it wasn’t for judgment I’d probably live like Rob Greenfield, owning just a dozen possessions and dumpster diving when I need something else. It’s a shame, really, that I still can’t seem to let go of my own need to uphold a reputation.

I still have time to learn though. Here’s to hoping I figure it out before my 40th birthday.

First Impressions

I try not to act too instinctively, though I think my instinct is usually pretty accurate. It isn’t foolproof though. No one’s instinct is completely foolproof. Some of my best friends in life, for example, were people I was initially intimidated by. I had to peel layers off the onion before realizing what there actually was.

So I try to question and challenge my initial impressions to exhaustion. Sometimes I overdo it and I find my mind in a permanent state of indecision. Sometimes I’m still wrong. But then, everyone and everything deserves a fair chance. Better to think things through than to completely misjudge.

Sometimes it takes years for first impressions to change. Sometimes, through those years, views fluctuate back and forth. I’ve had conflicting views on education and politics for my entire adult life. One should reserve the right to change them.

I know that the first impression I imprint on others is rarely one of the person I am. It takes awhile for my sense of humor to emerge. So I try to consider that, too, when forming first impressions.

Maybe in my constant questioning I’ll arrive at a higher truth.

Old Strength, and Returning

I started a weekly strength training class called “Old Man Strength” (I guess I’ve finally attained the honors to join this class thanks to Father Time). It was great, I learned some new exercises and had the instructor correct a few bad habits I had on exercises I knew. I will definitely be sore tomorrow. I like that most exercises involved full range of motion, single leg balance, and power. That’s what I was looking for. In fact more important than strength, to me, is power. It’s actually power that typically diminishes at a faster rate than strength when you get past 40. Power is also a more useful tool, in my opinion. You break a brick with your fist primarily with power.

The class started at 7 am and lasted an hour. I had a rare meeting at 8 am and I said screw it, and I made bacon and eggs and ate them slowly instead. I want to enjoy a ritual, not shove food down my throat for the sake of moving forward. People who request meetings at 8 am should be tarred and feathered. A peaceful morning is sacred.

Nothing interesting playing at the cinemas. Squid Game season 2 started slow but I’m invested now that I’m on episode 4. I think the South Koreans are producing a lot of high quality cinema/television.

I hate that my smartphone always follows me around and seems to demand attention. They’re doing their best to become appendages. Nostalgic for the days of arriving home from school and roaming the local neighborhoods and parks at dusk. Maybe once free of the 9-5 I’ll find a way to minimize phone use. You can’t really think in a state of distraction.

Denzel said something along the lines of, “Youth is for learning, the middle is for earning, and the older years are for returning.” Maybe I’m old, or I’m returning a little early. I’m good with either of those.

Square One

Sometimes the best path forward is backward, one of those paradoxes you’d think only exist in a Lewis Carroll story. I’m not just taking a step backward these days. I’m sprinting towards what once was, but hasn’t been, but potentially could be again, if one resists the natural ebb and flow of things and swims toward the maelstrom.

I think of time and how deceiving and malicious it can be if one isn’t careful. Age 10 was both yesterday and three decades ago. A 10-year-old’s idea of sprinting down a sandy hill for the sake of feeling a cool breeze on the cheeks and the adrenaline rush of raw speed was enough to try something that an adult would consider dumb (because it’s unsafe, of course). A tumble and scraped knees were worth it. I think of trying to skateboard and drink coffee at the same time, and failing spectacularly at both.

Contrast that to adulthood, when movement is mostly calculated. We are tethered to a beaten path, a watch, a pace, and a “goal.” Even the trails are a set number of miles, a metric. The daily walk stays on a flat sidewalk, perfectly smooth, manufactured for the sake of comfort, a number of steps that a doctor says must be “hit.” Walking for the sake of “exercise.” Movement is a chore; you’re either sitting robotically or walking robotically. What adult yearns to hang upside down and study the clouds?

I try to find the spontaneous boy who thrived in random chaos. That person, I think, was waiting patiently, not dead but just in hibernation.

I go out on a brisk fall morning and run barefoot in the park. A few random sprints with no set interval or time, just the rush and fast twitch muscles activating. I wander through neighborhoods I hadn’t seen before and study the halloween decor in the lawns.

I drive to work listening to what I used to consider 90’s trash, Limp Bizkit, and think a metal show sounds like a great idea, just losing oneself in music, aggressive and fast music, cathartic music, anti-establishment stuff with machine-gun guitar riffs and banshee vocals.

It seems preferable to another day with a prescribed routine: a day that slashes routine to pieces.

We have a pumpkin painting activity at work, for team building, so I paint Art the Clown, the evil killer clown from the Terrifer films. Everyone else paints happy faces or just writes inside work jokes. Nothing left for wonder or awe.

I doubt I won the contest, but I know I created a nightmare or two.

Hurried Driver

Veering the steel cage around a slower steel cage, breathless, frantic, throat clenches, phone tethered to hand (who texted me?), a white rabbit racing. I have somewhere I must be! Panic overwhelms the mind, foot on the pedal presses forever downward, yes I must be faster, traffic could destroy me if I don’t act rash. Slurp the latte, fight for a parking space near the building. Ten seconds to spare, the morning is a game of inches! Breaths at last. Rinse and repeat. Freedom via the car. Maybe it needs an upgrade. A raise would permit that. It will have more space, better mileage. Touch screen linked to the cloud, GPS showing the way.

What Dreams May Come

I had a dream last night in which it was dusk on some isolated and vacant beach, and I was at the shoreline, lying face-down on my stomach, belly against wet sand.

Waves brushed me and foamed around me as I stared at a fading scarlet sun and watched the water darken. My mouth was just elevated enough to prevent choking on water. I had nowhere to go and nothing to become, but I felt a satisfaction regardless.

I woke before dawn and thought that if I could make my life that still, it would be an accomplishment.

Talk at the Pool

I was coaching a local club swimming team that I help with on Wednesday evenings and found myself talking to an eight-year-old boy, who swims in one of the beginner groups.

He’s especially small and wears board shorts that are long enough to look like pants due to his short legs. He still has those puffy toddler cheeks and squinty eyes that also make him look especially young and somewhat cherubic.

Somehow we were talking about the fast technical race suits that swimmers used at major events until they were eventually banned for being too fast (the “super suits”).

“They’re like shark skin,” I said. “And they can cover your whole body, and the water around you just rolls right off. You fly through the water.”

His eyes grew wide.

“And you wore them?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “For a little bit, before I retired. Then they got banned anyways.”

“But why’d you retire?”

I paused and had to think about that for a moment.

“I finished college. Then there was nothing left to compete in.”

“You don’t have to compete though,” he said. “You can still enjoy it.”

Then he pushed off the wall and started swimming, and I felt a pang of sadness and thought about how damn wise kids can be sometimes.

2024: A Hopeful Step Back

Sometimes you have to take a step backward to move forward. I have a pervading sense that backtracking will be a theme for me in 2024. I’ve realized, through trial and error, that I want to revert certain aspects of my life.

The first change surrounds my cycling. I tested the waters of fitness cycling for a few years and have decided to go back to my bike commuter roots. Broken bones are not the primary reason for this. I find the most joy in keeping cycling simple: just hopping on a commuter bike and riding around a park, or on a short trip to the grocery store. I envision my future and cannot see myself embracing cycling as a sport: it just seems like an added stressor, and cycling is supposed to be my stress relief. So, I’m selling my endurance bike and a lot of my cycling apparel.

I often find the most joy in life when I keep everything simplified. Cycling for me is a prime example of this. I want cycling to be an adventure, not a chore. I want it to be organic and raw, not an exercise monitored by GPS watches and power meters. I want to breathe fresh air and have the world slow down, not obsess myself over the desire to speed up. I generally hate “intervals,” so why am I pigeoning myself into more of them during a hobby?

I want to rid myself of the Protestant work ethic while on a bike.

I’m also ditching the Kindle in favor of more physical books. I read far too much via blue screen. There was a time in my life when I only read text on paper. Electronic reading is a strain on the eyes. Sometimes I wonder if our screens will render all of us prematurely blind.

I’m aiming to write more reviews. Years ago I enjoyed providing reviews of various elements of pop culture and I’d like to return to the habit. Some of my favorite authors, including Edgar Allen Poe and George Orwell, were also prolific reviewers.

Finally, I’m prioritizing my own dreams. Over the years I’ve let them slip too much for the sake of money and as I look up the capitalist heirarchical ladder, I don’t see more money solving any problems. In fact, I see more money creating new problems.

When I die, I don’t foresee anyone reading a eulogy about how much money I made or how productive I was as an employee. That would be terrible as part of anyone’s eulogy, and the thought of that having anything to do with my character is nauseating.

What would I want to be said at my funeral? I think everyone must ask himself or herself this question at some point and come to terms with the finiteness of life. I think for me, the answers are starting to be more apparent, and they have nothing to do with materialism.

So here’s to 2024, a step back for the sake of forward movement.

Heritage and Setting Sail

In the mid-1800s, an Irish woman named Mary set sail for America. En-route she contracted ship’s fever, causing her to lose her hair, but she survived the journey and went on to make a living selling homemade items.

In the US she met a mysterious journeyman named Tom Fitzpatrick, whose origins are unknown, and they gave birth to Catherine Fitzpatrick, who grew up to own and run a boarding house, which she rented to mill workers.

Catherine then wed another traveler, John Devlin, an English-born sailor who ran away from home at 14 and traveled to Australia, South America, and South Africa.

These were my ancestors, and as you can see, it is in my DNA to be on the move. It helps to explain why I cannot sit still for long, and why the office quickly feels like a prison with florescent lights and prisoners who happen to have nice health insurance. It is why a noble death involves a fatal maneuver while on the most epic of journeys, not sitting somewhere and rotting.

It is why I begin planning the next journey as the current one ends.

"I Don't Wanna Die"

The fall season is a bit like life in that it’s both beautiful and painfully ephemeral.

It seems like we are allowed a few weeks to appreciate the vibrant foliage before it desiccates and leaves behind a gaunt assemblage of ghostly spindly bare trees.

I reckon we can feel this way about how our bodies age. There’s a grace period where time affords us some beauty after having weathered the storm of our youths, but eventually the destruction can be merciless, especially if we don’t plan for it.

The cold is starting to creep into the bones and I especially feel it in my right collarbone, which has broken twice. It is a harsh reminder that not all things fully heal.

I find myself thinking of ways to make time slow, which requires discomfort. The sameness of days only makes time accelerate.

I’ll fight my own mortality to the end because frankly, I don’t wanna die.

Fall may be brief, but I’m determined to catch the next one.