Conversion to Machine

I enter age 37 with a desire to take a trip and get lost on a random adventure. In a banal daily work routine, which can feel like a constant slideshow of indistinguishable and bland virtual meetings, interactions seem progressively colder and more detached. Work hours pass in purgatorial fashion. All smiling is off-camera. All laughter is on mute. There is an agenda and we must tackle it. We must perform. There is no time for small talk. No time for warmth.

The conversion to machine is gradual and is predicated on the need for comfort.

I try to counter these dark feelings, which I write about freely here, with cycling. Cycling is purely for me, the most selfish of hobbies. Adults generally don’t give a damn that I can ride a bike really far. There’s no one to impress. It’s not like my old days as a swimmer, when I won to gain the adulation of everyone around me. I just find cycling fun. Adults are often too consumed with their own consumption to be concerned with activities involving movement. Cycling is my antidote to the soul sucking virus that is careerism.

Is there still a ghost in the adults of today, or has the spirit left the shell?

Virtual work means that jokes are followed by silence and emails are followed by a false sense of urgency.

“This is the new trend!” I’m told, but I note that the general population has gained misery, weight, and anxiety since the pandemic. There is always a trade-off for convenience. Faust doesn’t grant wishes without taking something in return.

Years ago, I was lost somewhere in Russia. It was a random trip I took while living in China. It’s a coastal city with a relatively friendly atmosphere.

Getting lost is actually pretty fun; cycling reminds me of that when I take a wrong turn. Trips remind me of that when I meander aimlessly through the foreign city streets. Adults hate being lost, but kids generally love it. Adults prefer predictability and assurance. A destination is the ultimate form of salvation for the worker. They want a linear path without bumps. Point A to Point B, and not a minute to waste.

Yet the white rabbit is always a slave to the queen, as Alice in Wonderland showed. But the modern adults wants pavement, an air conditioned environment, and a to-do list that forever grows, forever demanding haste. I cannot relate: I find solace in the rocky terrain of a faraway trail, where haste is revealed to be arbitrary.

I remember hiking Eagle’s Nest Hill in Vladivostok and quickly getting lost, somewhere off the trail due to a lack of focus, and not really caring. Time ceases to matter when there is no agenda. Can adults abandon agendas for awhile? Who cares if the paved route is far away? I remember being somewhere high, on a bluff, overlooking the city. So I still arrived at some interesting destination. It’s the randomness and unpredictability that I prefer. I was on the opposite side of the world, which is both thrilling and terrifying.

The computer, and its primary appendage the phone, is placed at the altar of the modern posh careerist. It demands of its flock a new form of faith and a false set of promises. Mortality can be avoided, it says, with the swipe of a credit card, the pop of a pill bottle, or the adherence to a politician. Swiping requires money, which requires work, which requires sitting and staring and hurrying.

May we all be lost somewhere, in a strange city we’ve never been to, and wander aimlessly, without an agenda, in search of new adventures. Maybe somewhere, in the midst of that wandering, we’ll reencounter our long lost inner child.

Visiting Cousins

My younger brother and I spent the weekend in Ohio to attend my cousin Michael’s wedding. I hadn’t seen Michael in well over a decade and was humbled to have received an invitation. There have been a confluence of recent events that have led me to want to visit family more often. My uncle’s passing and my cousin’s wedding invitation were two important markers.

My brother and I lounged on a patio upon arrival at the venue and eventually met my aunt (Michael’s mom). Honestly it was nice to see faces and personalities whom I had been estranged from, yet share a genetic line with. As I get older and see the similarities we share in mannerisms and behavioral patterns, I find genetics to be more profound. It’s odd because reuniting with friends can be awkward and conversations can be forced. With my cousins, however, dialogue was an effortlessly flowing river.

In the wedding speeches to celebrate Michael I heard life events that easily could have been mine or my brother’s (loving sports, practicing pro wrestling moves for fun, drawing from an endless source of energy as a kid). It stokes the nature vs nurture debate. How can two people growing up in different states and different circumstances exhibit the same life patterns and struggles? Genetics and chance. Which also begs the question: how much of me is me?

The weather was perfectly conducive to an outdoor wedding (sunny and 75 degrees Fahrenheit) and I was glad the ceremony went off without a hitch. I was also humbled that my extended family was happy to see me. All the credit for the visitation goes to Michael, who was always the best of all of us at making an effort to remain in touch. It was a lesson for me to take the time and visit; the emotional rewards are well worth the effort.

I was caught in a flurry of flight cancellations on the flight back to Saint Louis and am currently sitting in the Charlotte airport (my layover) hoping I don’t have to stay overnight. So far my flight is delayed almost three hours. Eric’s flight was canceled and he’s off to a nearby hotel. We’ll see.

I spent Sunday afternoon drinking coffee with my brother Eric and cousin Katie (Michael’s older sister). We had an interesting conversation about human nature. It was one of those coffee talks that veered a hundred directions and someone landed on human nature.

“We’re basically chimpanzees, so of course we’re inherently violent. Especially men.”

“We’re savages with brains.”

“But with our brains comes the opportunity for self-reflection, and therefore self-restraint.”

“So we create laws and rules to tame ourselves. And therefore many of us are either at war with ourselves or with each other.”

I also had a pleasant conversation with two people whom I would term my “cousin in-laws.” That is, their father is my aunt’s partner. And through our conversation I was reminded of the struggles so many of us are forced to assume, against our own choice, but somehow, incredibly, persevere through. The oldest child died of brain cancer. There is a genetic health condition passed down in their family line. The next youngest is legally deaf. Both parents are legally blind.

And through stories such as these I’m reminded that, point blank, I’m basically just really freakin’ lucky. And I should be humble to be so lucky. I should be grateful that, in spite of some health issues of my own, I’ve had a good run up to this point in time.

I’m also grateful that, though I reunited with my cousins far too late, I learned that I need to take initiative to invest and be curious in their lives, because they’re pretty incredible people and well worth it. Better late than never.

Montana Hiking: Day 3

We began our final day in Montana with a breakfast at Feed Cafe on Main Street, where I had two of the best slabs of bacon I’ve ever tasted. The food helped erase the effects of the Montana-made Bourbon that I imbibed the night before.

After breakfast and a short nap we ventured to a different mountain range for the final hike of the trip. This was arguably the most challenging hike; it took us several hours to complete. The trek took us several thousand feet up in elevation and the temperature dropped more than twenty degrees from the start to the trail’s apex. The views were breathtaking. We almost didn’t make it to the trail due to ice and snow covering the ground near the trail’s entrance, which our rental car’s tires struggled to grip.

Though I entered Montana in the best physical condition of my life, the high altitude still taxed my lungs and the steep inclines strained my glutes. I was plenty sore and fatigued by trip’s end.

I was told to bring bear spray with me on each hike, but I forgot to buy any. Luckily we did not encounter any bears. It’s my understanding that the region has a mixture of black bears and grizzlies. You obviously don’t want to cross paths with either, but you really don’t want to cross paths with a grizzly. A male grizzly will eat its own child without remorse; it therefore would have no qualms having a human for dinner.

We finished our final day with a walk through downtown. We ventured through a few apparel stores (I just window shopped) and ate one final meal. Each of us had an “elk burger” and for each of us it was the first time eating elk meat. When in Montana, you just gotta try Elk. It’s a very lean meat and frankly I find it almost indistinguishable from bison. Maybe my tastebuds just aren’t refined enough.

I’ll miss Bozeman. The people are friendly and welcoming, and the pace of life is objectively much slower than big city life. I prefer that. My time spent in cities has convinced me that despite their conveniences, they are not natural for people to inhabit. In fact they may be detrimental to the human psyche. Murder exists almost everywhere, but it’s most prevalent in cities and extremely rare in many rural areas. Many people in cities, especially these days, have a certain angst and anxiety about them that troubles me.

I’ve read before (but cannot cite the source) that growing up in the city doubles your risk of developing schizophrenia when compared to growing up in the countryside. This does not surprise me. Nor does the detrimental mental effect that being amassed by tall buildings must have. I enjoy the conveniences of city life and have good friends that live in cities prosperously, but every convenience has its set of consequences.

I’ll conclude this blog with a dream I recently had. I don’t know what it means, but I think it’s loosely linked to my mountain trip and a cynical feeling that suffused me upon returning to the city.

In the dream, I made one last return to my old high school swimming pool. Somehow, inexplicably, there was a swimming competition being held and I was competing in it. My coach announced to a packed crowd via microphone: “We’ve managed to bring Matt back for one final race! This is your last chance to support the guy who broke every record we ever had.” I nervously prepared for a race behind the starting blocks and broke my goggles from my nervousness. Someone gave me a spare pair and I quickly broke those as well. When I finally adjusted my third pair of goggles, I realized that the pool, which was supposed to be indoors, had the opposite wall removed. The pool seemed to extend to eternity. Behind the normal length of the pool, I saw obstacle courses such as climbing ropes and white water rapids. “Obstacles courses!?” I yelled at one of my brothers. “Yeah, you didn’t know?” He said. “That’s what you have to compete with now.” I woke from the dream as I frantically tried to prep myself for a new challenge.

Montana Hiking: Day 1

I flew into Bozeman, Montana on Friday afternoon. Sheets of falling rain and sleet greeted me.

Bozeman is a small but rapidly growing city in the Rocky Mountains. As I drove upwards in elevation, the snow stuck more to the roads and terrain. Snow-capped mountains loomed in each direction.

I traveled with my two brothers and we rented a house near the Bridger Mountain Range. The purpose of our trip was simply to escape the city and enjoy some challenging mountain hikes. It’s common, I guess, for a city dweller to yearn for vacations that are “near nature.”

To be “near nature” is a sort of odd yearning because everything is nature. A city is nature. Wildlife creeps into the cities just as wildlife finds its way into everything. There are rats in the sewers, squirrels in the yards, trees in the parks, and insects in the alleyways. Maybe it is more appropriate to just say one wants to be “away from man-made cities.” I don’t particularly like cities, aside from their conveniences.

Saturday morning the snow continued to pile on and we attempted a hike along Drinking Horse Mountain Trail. The hike up this mountain was already vertiginous and was all the more brutal due to the icy conditions. There was a breathtaking beauty though, even amongst the frozen tundra.

I was constantly slipping, as even my hiking-specific boots were not equipped for the weather. However, the view from the top of the mountain was breathtaking.

After this hike, some delicious breakfast burritos, and a little recovery, we embarked for the “M Trail,” a slightly more difficult hike along a neighboring mountain. The snowfall stopped by our arrival at the trail, but the mountains remains snow-capped. Some mountain areas had upwards of twelve inches of snow on the ground to trudge through. I believe the snow and ice doubled our time to completion.

On the way down the M Trail we took a wrong turn. In fact, we took several wrong turns and ended up crossing into an intersecting trail. It’s difficult to say where exactly our hike went wrong because the snow hid a lot of trail demarcations.

We accidentally took a much more difficult climb down this mountain (and it was a climb by that point, not a hike). I often skidded and slid, and mostly just hoped I wouldn’t re-injure my right foot. Luckily, I made it.

The extremely high altitude taxed my lungs and the added challenge of walking over snow and ice exhausted my body. I knew quickly that I’d wake up with sore glutes.

So, after these two hikes and some excellent barbecue, I relaxed with my brothers at our house’s outdoor hot tub, which also provided an incredible view of the mountains. I could see several prairie dogs poke out of holes in the ground all through the valley.

The next day would involve a drive to Yellowstone National Park.

San Francisco: City and Coast

I drove a few miles north of San Francisco to absorb the breathtaking views of the Northern California coast. I had been far removed from the ocean for a long period of time, which can cause a rebound of relief upon returning to the coast. The Pacific breeze was steady and harsh.

I enjoyed clambering down the rocky cliffs edging the beach and walking along the sand; in spite of the freezing water, there were a number of surfers in wetsuits.

I do believe that Northern California has some of the most incredible geography on the planet; it’s rare to have the ocean, mountains, and a bustling city within such close proximity to each other.

After returning to San Francisco I walked along the pier near Union Square and ate a good dinner.

It can feel like pandemonium for someone not used to a city of its magnitude; traffic is a constant assemblage of skateboarders, cyclists, and car drivers. Still, I was constantly impressed by the cycling community in the city and the cyclists’ ability to mount some very steep hills.

Weekly Plunder: Week 26 - St. Patty

I registered for a 5 mile (8 km) “St. Patrick’s day run” with some friends. Usually I try to avoid these sorts of events, especially considering that I am still far from my peak running form, but I thought that completing the run would give me some closure in my foot rehabilitation.

It took months to walk painlessly following my foot injury, and more months after that to jog again. I’d like to see a tangible result of my daily rehab.

On another note, I was asked once what the goal of this blog is. The answer is, there is no goal at all. It is a collection of my thoughts, sold without a charge, undiluted and lacking an editor. It is as flawed as I am.

Regarding the need to profit from my writing, there is a quote I think of from Cicero: “The free man who sells his work lowers himself to the rank of slaves.”

What I’m watching: I revisited Dark City after thinking about the modern fascination with “flat earth” theory (no, I do not actually believe the earth is flat). Dark City is a delightfully weird film with a twist that oddly enforces flat earth theory. It’s also The Matrix before The Matrix.

What I’m reading: The Right to be Lazy, and Other Studies by Paul LaFargue. LaFargue writes with both comedy and consistent anger. He was wrong on a lot of predictions but made some valid points that I find worth considering.

What I’m listening to: “Snow (Hey-Oh)” by the Chili Peppers. I sang this song a lot in karaoke during my last few months in China. I think for that reason I now associate this song with finality and endings. I knew during these karaoke sessions that my time time was coming to a close and as my final days neared, I sang this song more frequently. I can’t hear this song now without thinking of both China and of endings.

What I’m doing: I’m preparing for Sonoma county in two weeks. I’m looking forward to biking along the Pacific coast, drinking wine, and breathing fresh air. And of course I’m looking forward to seeing San Francisco.

2021, Goodbye Forever

It’s time to pull the curtains on 2021. As Seneca is credited as saying, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

I spent the afternoon lounging outside Mike’s Bike Shop in Central West End with some pals who work the store. We shared a beer together; the weather was cool and yet bracing enough to wear just a tee. The atmosphere was jovial, a festive ambience in the air. Randoms sauntered by the shop, hopefully on walks without destinations, and wished us well.

For a change it seemed the world was content to pause. How nice to spend the last afternoon of the year outside, with random conversation about celebrity deaths (Betty White died shortly before her 100th birthday), crappy Hollywood sequels (common consensus is the new Matrix movie sucks), bike tire upgrades, and aging.

The store owner’s dog was adopted; I was told its previous owners brutally beat and starved it, nearly to death. It was nearly dead when found, reduced to being a skeleton wrapped in torn-up skin and containing a host of internal issues.

The dog cannot keep the owner out of his peripheral version. He constantly rested his head on the owner’s lap and gazed into the owner’s eyes, as if thinking, “my love for you will never end, and I’ll show you this devotion for every moment of my being.” The dog has a gentle demeanor. It’s as though because he realizes the full extent of pain’s possibilities and the horrors accompanying true suffering, he aims to make everything and everyone around him as comfortable as possible.

As the owner told me, “I had to build the dog from the bottom up, from a starved heap of bones to a living thing. Now he knows what the alternative feels like, and he loves what he has with every ounce of himself.”

And with that, my last relevant lesson of 2021: the darkest depths of fear and suffering give us the fullest appreciation for love and life. Further, we can’t fully appreciate health unless we’ve fully experienced a lack of it.

I couldn’t help but think of my foot when I think of the dog. “Building from the bottom up” describes what I’ve been doing with an injured foot for the final months of 2021. A new appreciation for walking is what I’m ending the year with.

Every walk is a gift. I was given a glimpse of the alternative to being bipedal. Therefore, I finished 2021 with a blessing: every painless step now feels like magic.

My friend told me, “God realized He couldn’t give you COVID this year, so he decided to hit you with a freakin’ car instead. Because that’s the equivalent challenge for the Manimal.”

And as I think about the reconstruction of my foot, I also think about the countless adventures from this year. Adventures are great, and if you are lucky enough to experience them with someone else, all the better.

A few highlights (many photos captures in Sights section):

• Lots of important weddings, one of them (my brother’s wedding) giving me a trip to Puerto Rico. And what a lovely week that was!

• A bikepacking trip through the Blue Ridge mountains!

• Key West, Florida, and the Hemingway house cats!

• Hiking Turkey Run in Indiana!

• Megadeth show!

• Hiking Elephant Rock and the forest and bluffs around it, and reaching the highest point of elevation in the state of Missouri!

• Trips to Missouri/Illinois wine country and the imbibing that ensued (Hermann, Augusta, St. Genevieve, Grafton, among others)

• Hiking through Shawnee National Forest (and drinking wine along the Shawnee Wine Trail on top of it).

• A trip down memory lane in North Carolina to see places, people, and things that were a relevant part of my life before my China days.

• Befriending Grant’s Farm goats and camels!

• Incredible Christmas light shows in Saint Louis

And now, on to the next adventure. Don’t spend too much time waxing nostalgic, my constant reader, or you’ll miss your next great opportunity. After all, the only constant is change…

China Memories - BBQ with Friends

Through my final months spent in China, one of my best friends was someone who’s name I never fully learned. I guess that’s not entirely shocking when living in a country that speaks a language you don’t understand.

His name existed only as a series of symbols in my “WeChat” application (the main social media app in the country) that at one point I vaguely understood, though I could never remember it. And of course, I’ve since forgotten his name.

He owned a dumpling shop that I often stopped by after work. “Jiaozi” is the Chinese word for dumplings, and “zhū ròu” (if you don’t understand pinyin this might not mean anything) is the word for pork.

I ordered the pork dumplings (with soured vegetables) from him on an almost daily basis, to the point that he started to deem my predictability laughable. “My dumplings seduce you so thoroughly, or is it me?” He’d often joke through our phone apps.

“Zhū ròu jiaozi, suancai? (Pork dumplings with sauerkraut?)

“Yǒu.” (I’ll have)

I typically ate alone at his dumpling store during my final winter months in China. The store was essentially a food stand, amidst a maze of food stands, within the first-floor supermarket of a tall and decrepit business building.

If the customer line wasn’t too long, we’d have an extended conversation. He couldn’t speak a word of English and my Chinese was shaky at best, so we communicated almost entirely through our phone apps.

We talked about life, work, the daily grind, and the daily pressure of putting food on a family’s table. He asked me about culture in America, and I asked him about culture in China.

We made jokes about how easily the Russians in the area were mistaken by Chinese locals to be American.

After a few weeks of pleasant lunch conversations, we started having dinner and drinks together. “You have to experience Chinese food beyond my dumplings, after all!” He’d joke. His wife worked with him and she often joined us in our gluttony (and we truly feasted). Chinese bbq was typically our favorite meal.

This was one of our favorite bbq spots. These photos were taken three years ago to this day. It brought back a smile to see my old friend again.

I’d since deleted my WeChat profile, and I often regret it. There is a pang of nostalgia and a wish to send him a message to catch up on life; I can only guess that his store is doing well (they were excellent dumplings after all!).

Minimalist Chronicles: Part 1 - Detaching from Things

I began my massive declutter in August, shortly before my 36th birthday. There was no single particular impetus for change. I just looked around my residence and perused my belongings and concluded that almost none of them were purchased out of necessity. Practically all of them were purchased from a variety of external factors:

• The fear of missing out (“athleisure” is the newest trend, don’t mind out on what everyone else is wearing!)

• Vanity/the need to impress (buy a car and show the world you’re worth something)

• The fear of being incomplete (marketing tools used to tell you that your life will be worse without it and you’re just one purchase away from being complete)

Shortly before I began my declutter, I imagined my death. That’s a dark thing to imagine. I imagined it nonetheless and thought of what I was leaving behind. What did I see in this vision? Material things, acquisitions, and a mess of stuff for friends and family and loved ones to sort through. But what are the things, compared to the person? What is stuff compared to memory? I had read Everything That Remains by the Minimalists before, but the book’s message was just now being absorbed into my skin. Maybe it’s a lesson I needed to experience to learn.

What do I really want to leave behind? Hopefully a lot of nice memories (and some memories that are just “memorable”) and some undiscovered stories. Said stories would be well-hidden, but some soul may find them, hand-written and locked in a cellar, or drifting in a bottle somewhere out at sea, or by accident by finding this blog, written by some anonymous person, somewhere out there in the universe.

Clothes I have sold in the last two months:

• 13 pairs of pants

• 12 tee shirts

• 4 button-up shirts

• 3 jackets

• 8 pairs of shorts

I do not miss any of them, nor do I feel guilt or shame for having bought them in the first place. At some point in time I made a purchase because I felt a certain fear-based way. I later realized that I made a mistake. You live and you learn. Onward march. Life’s too short to dwell. Cells are constantly dying and being born. People can change at any time of any day of any year.

The closet is much lighter, and I have no intention of replacing the things I sold.

What do I want to get out of this?

I want to re-shift the focus of my thoughts. We only have so much time to think. I want my thoughts to be maneuvered away from buying and towards experiences and connections. There is a lot of world to explore and a lot of things to do. A lot of risks to take. Connection and experience deserve much more time than consumption.

Things are just things. They do not think, feel, or validate. There is never enough of them, and there is rarely a deficiency of them. We don’t need to buy much. Go down the rabbit hole, and you’ll realize that you don’t need to buy anything.

The closet is lighter. Let’s see what’s next.

Onebag Travel with Mission Workshop Rhake VX

I recently had a 3.5 day work trip to North Carolina. I decided to only pack my everyday backpack for the trip (I’ve used it as my onebag for several trips already), my Mission Workshop Rhake VX.

Our things weigh us down and the physical/mental weight of our possessions is especially apparent when traveling. The extra heft taxes your body and slows you down. It’s incredible to pass through an airport with just a comfortable backpack while everyone else rolls their heavy luggage and congregates at baggage claim.

If you are into apparel, I wore the Outlier Injected Linen Pants (amazingly cool in summer heat), Outlier Ramielust Cut One Shirt (also breezy and very cool in humid weather), the Outlier Ramienorth Short Sleeve (a business casual shirt in natural ramie fabric that’s great for summer weather), and the Xero Shoes Z-Trail sandals (my go-to all-purpose sandals)

Along Mountain Roads: Bikepacking Trip 1

First bikepacking trip complete! It was grueling, but worth it. The only lingering injury was a pinched nerve in my left hand, which I got on day 1 from gripping the handlebars too tight while riding uphill for long periods of time.