Donations

I donated my single-speed State Bicycle yesterday. Ridding the bike was probably overdue; it was essentially my starter bike. At the time of purchase I figured it was a bike that could get me anywhere, and in a sense it did. I logged hundreds of miles on it, maybe thousands. That’s some serious pedaling on a single-speed bike.

It was a poorly fitting bike. The store employees warned me so when I purchased it. I bought it anyways out of desperation for a bicycle; bikes my size were rare in the pandemic era.

“This isn’t your ideal fit. If we give the fit a letter grade, it would be a B minus or C.”

As my mileage increased over the last year, a nascent lower back pain also spread and worsened. The pain increased to a point last week in which I was barely able to ride after a few minutes of pedaling. And that was in spite of rarely using it (my primary bike is my gravel bike). I found myself constantly having to “stand” on the bike and “stop for stretches.” The pain would linger after the ride. Last week it was severe enough that even sitting upright caused severe pain.

In a nutshell, the bike had to go. Cycling isn’t supposed to be about fighting a crippling back pain. I’ve had enough injuries this year already and spent my share of time in physical therapy!

I decided to donate the bike because it wasn’t that costly in the first place (it’s a State Bicycle 4130 that had already been through a crash, which caused some damage). Plus, someone might need it… who knows. And hopefully it fits that person better than it fit me. I figured I’d find more meaning from giving the bike to someone in need than than I would from selling the bike. So I dropped it off at a donation center and said goodbye.

I can’t say I’ll miss the bicycle, though I’ll remember it was the bike that “started my new journey.” The back pain was too severe for me to miss the bicycle. The crash was too traumatic.

It was the bicycle, after all, that I was riding when I was hit by a car last summer. I’d still get flashbacks when I rode it. I prefer not to think about that moment.

I have a new bicycle, and I had it professionally fitted at the bike shop this time. I do believe now that having a professional give a “thumbs up” on a bike fit and make some detailed adjustments is worth the time and cost. Having a quality bicycle is also worth the cost for someone who is becoming increasingly obsessed with cycling!

The new bike is a Giant Defy Advanced. It seems ready to handle thousands upon thousands of miles in the upcoming years. More details in the future…

Cyclical

I find it fascinating that my indoor plants have an innate understanding of seasons. In spite of their environs’ artificial temperature and a routine watering that’s ambivalent to seasons, they bloom in spring, as if on cue. They operate on a cycle and know the start and stop points of that cycle, even if fully removed from the weather conditions outside the window they sit behind.

It leads me to wonder how much of our own behavior is innate and how much of our own thoughts, feelings, and actions are cyclical. I suspect the unconscious mind dictates more of my own actions and thoughts than I’d care to admit.

How much of me is on autopilot?

This year’s spring has felt delayed. I’m not sure I believe it even started. It was snowing last Friday at a time when I would expect to be out in shorts and a tee shirt. Still, it’s notably greener outside. There is change in the air.

Regarding change, they say we become more bound to our habits as we age. “He’s stuck in his ways” is a popular way to describe it. To be stuck in my ways is my greatest fear. I’d rather be a plant with new flowers each spring.

With each year I find that change requires more discomfort. Change becomes difficult. We want to believe we’ve mastered this thing called life, and therefore being a novice ironically becomes more terrifying. We want to be proven right. We want to be complacent and have nothing more to struggle with. At least I do.

Despite that innate yearning to be done changing, I aim to be a permanent novice. That requires routinely starting with nothing. It requires a lot of winters leaving you with barren branches. Yet that’s what’s required to grow flowers.

I hope the continuous effort to renew myself is worthwhile. I need movement, change, and paradigm shifts. I need to learn from other people. That means I should often be proven wrong and I should often acknowledge that I was proven wrong.

It means looking back on old blogs and cringing, but also acknowledging why I’m cringing and being able to articulate how I’m different now.

Who knows, maybe I’ll gain some wisdom from the whole ordeal.

Degreaser

I had a flat tire in the exact middle a long bike commute last Friday. There was a mix of sleet and freezing rain pattering down on me. I found myself especially fidgety due to being forced to change the tire in a dangerous location.

Changing the tire was a messy affair. My bibs were covered in bike grease by the end of it. Due to my shakiness I severely cut my left thumb and it continued bleeding for more than 24 hours afterwards. When I returned home, the inside of my left glove was wet and syrupy due to all the bleeding through the remainder of the ride.

I washed the bibs several times but it wasn’t enough to remove 100% of the grease. I have to live with the rest.

My thumb will scar; it’s quite a hot mess.

Still, there was a confidence boost from having managed to change the tire in what most would consider miserable conditions. I managed to bike to my destination. After arrival someone remarked, “In this weather? How in the hell!?” Maybe I just like pain too much.

I also have an unhealthy perfectionist in me that I need to eradicate. This side of me finds living with stained bibs, or stained anything for that matter, difficult. At the same time, that’s life, and my own journey at the moment requires that I learn to live with imperfection. I have enough scars that you’d think I’d be over this by now. Our clothes stain. Our skin scars. Everything new degrades with time. Life moves on. Fighting degradation is a losing battle, so you might as well embrace it.

We are perfectly imperfect, as the saying goes. A grease stain is a reminder of where I was, a memory of a unique struggle. Maybe a little grease and a little scar tissue deserve to follow me after the act.

Another Place and Time

I believe that the best songs transport you to another place and time.

Your destination upon listening might be the place and time in which you first heard the song. It might awaken what you were thinking, feeling, and experiencing upon first listen. In this sense the song is constantly an automatic time transport back to the first listen. It is an echo of a moment in which you may have seen and felt the world differently.

The song may just capture the feeling of a specific moment, hour, day, or year in your life. The melodies remind you of thoughts and emotions from that era. Maybe it’s a moment you’re nostalgic for. Maybe it’s someone you pined for. Maybe it’s an angry metal song that evokes teenage rebellion.

Today I listened to Helvetesfönster by Ghost and it brought me back to a day in high school. Suddenly I was on a science class field trip to Paramount Carowinds theme park with my classmates. Or was it Bush Gardens? I took trips to both in high school and now have difficulty distinguishing the specifics of each. It was more than twenty years ago. I have a strong memory, but memories do fade.

This was before cell phones and smart devices. It was a time when one only accessed the Internet via a slow dial-up connection, when companies didn’t track us via the gadgets in our pockets.

I was content to sit and stare at the passing wilderness that walled each side of the road. I thought about how there was something special in that moment, sitting and staring, surrounded by peers who also sat and stared. I thought that our youth would end before we knew it, that we’d all move on and many of us would forget about each other, that we’d vie for good jobs and social status, and that ultimately we’d lose what made us genuine, if we were ever genuine to begin with. We’d have families and become consumed by their relevance. We’d have money and be consumed by its investment potential. We’d become what Holden Caulfield called “phonies” if we weren’t phonies already. We’d be fully absorbed by the rush of it all. We’d never again just be glad to sit and stare.

Sitting in absolute silence while a song plays and watching trees whir by a window somehow made the modern world’s anxieties seem trivial.

One of my favorite songs, Like a Stone by Audioslave, played on that bus ride. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the song, but the song was relatively new at the time. It seemed fitting to think about life while listening to a song about death. That was when we were capable of just listening to a song, when songs weren’t a means of multitasking or a drug for numbing our hatred of a moment pressing down on us.

Like a dream within a dream, I was listening to a song within a song, and it felt nice to return to a simpler time.

I wish to turn off the noise and just listen to a song again.

A Return to Running

I successfully completed the St. Patrick’s day run in Saint Louis this morning. The total distance was 5 miles (8 km). This was the first time I participated in an organized run in about 15 years (my last one was in college). It was also my first “long” run since my foot was injured last fall. I only wanted to finish the event, to prove to myself that months of healing and physical therapy for the foot had worked. A leisurely run would be acceptable. I was joined by a few friends, which helped my motivation and mood.

A cold front enveloped the city the night before and the temperature at takeoff was a bone-chilling 17 degrees F (minus 8 degrees C).

Mentally I told myself that I would start at a slow pace and gradually accelerate. However, a burst of adrenaline hit me when the race started and I quickly abandoned that plan.

The city was preparing a parade, after all, and some runners were sporting “Irish themed” garb such as kilts and leprechaun hats to add some fun.

Caught up in the excitement and fun of St. Patricks’s day, I started the run much more aggressively than I had planned. All hopes for a “gradual buildup” in speed went out the window.

I passed the first mile marker (1.6 km) and I heard my time called out: seven minutes and zero seconds.

Shit, I thought. I haven’t started a run within two minutes of that in years. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever started a long-distance run that fast. I wasn’t out of breath, but I was breathing rapidly.

I started the race somewhere in the middle of the crowd, but as I fought to keep pace with some of the more arrogant-looking runners, I gradually neared the front of the pack.

However, my lungs were working at full capacity. What was supposed to be a fun and leisurely event would test my ability.

I turned left onto Market Street and the following mile was mostly uphill. My lungs were already in overdrive, though my injured foot felt fine. My breathing was loud and hoarse.

The second mile passed. 14 minutes. I was starting a 5-mile run at a faster pace than my fastest-ever 3-mile run. I couldn’t believe it. Due to a foot injury, I had only been running for a month following almost six months of only cycling.

After another half mile, my insulated layers of clothes caused my body to overheat. At the halfway mark I had to unzip my jacket and remove the hood, which was difficult to coordinate while running. I also wondered if and when I was going to fade. There is nothing worse than being passed by people at the end.

Mile three passed and the time announced was 21 minutes. My calves were tightening and my system was experiencing a unique cardiovascular strain that I hadn’t felt in at least ten years.

Hell, I thought. I just ran the fastest 5k of my life, and there’s still two miles to go.

I decided the time must have been incorrect. I am 36 years old and I just picked up jogging again in January following a car crash last August that almost caused permanent damage to my right foot.

The final two miles were on a road that I often cycle on. I know the road like the back of my hand, every every nook and cranny of it. From that three-mile marker, there is a long gradual descent for a mile, followed by a brief and steep incline, and finally a flat run to the finish. I figured I’d recover my energy on the descent and then sprint the uphill climb.

I hit 4 miles and regained a little vigor from the mostly-downhill jog. 28 minutes. A flat 7 minutes per mile and just over 4 minutes per kilometer. Personal uncharted territory. In college my best 10k running time was 56 minutes. I was always a swimmer, not a runner.

This meant that I was running almost 25% faster than my fastest pace from my college years, 15 years later, following a year of almost no running at all.

I could barely enjoy the festivities on the side of the road because I needed all of my energy to finish the run at my current pace. I gave a guy with a giant green foam hand a “high five” as I rounded a corner, but I could barely even muster that. I needed to save every breath I could.

I crossed the finish line at 35 minutes, which is far faster than any run of that distance I’ve ever taken. I also know that I can eventually run much, much faster. That was just my first run of the year, and my first 5-mile completion since last August.

In the moment I felt pretty damn triumphant. Not bad for an ex-swimmer who spends most of his free time cycling (and sometimes skateboarding).

Not to mention that the night before I drank a hefty portion of wine and ate a box of pizza.

Today was an excellent starting point for my return to running. The experience was also fitting for St. Patrick’s day because I am part Irish. After the run, my friends and I had a beer to celebrate. We stayed out in the cold for as long as it felt comfortable (which was awhile because of how much the run heated us).

Now I’m propped up on the couch. I’ll be sore tomorrow, but this day is mine!

I’m the tall one. Beer has never tasted better.

The Burden of King Sisyphus

Greek mythology tells us that the Gods punished King Sisyphus for his vanity.

For all of eternity he must heave a heavy boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down, so that he must repeat the task. His existence is an eternal loop of a burdensome action.

According to Wikipedia, modern tasks that are both laborious and futile are considered Sisyphean.

What is the modern Sisyphean fate?

I wake up and manically check my phone for urgent emails and urgent messages. Rinse and repeat. Urgency ends with a funeral.

I lie in bed and watch TikTok or YouTube or SnapShit, late at night, the glowing screen frying my brain. I lack sleep but I am up-to-date. I can’t miss the latest, I can’t miss anything, the dopamine is so lovely! I must constantly check. I must constantly unlock the phone. Rinse and repeat.

I will compare myself to my social media network. They’re traveling where!? How did they find the money? I need better photos to keep up with the Joneses. I need better statements to show my social value, to be up to par again, to have “likes.” To have the most “likes” when I’m dead… will that have left behind a legacy? Will I have made my mark?

Our media and mundane tasks can deliver us a Sisyphean fate if we are not careful.

The Sisyphean fate ensnares the victim in a reactive state. One reacts to a boulder too heavy to manage. The boulder taunts with weight and gravity and the lifter cries eternally, determined to try again and again. To post again, to work again. I’m so close to having enough. Lifting gives dopamine. “I moved it a little and it felt good.” The lifter is merely a programmed response mechanism, constantly lifting, constantly checking the boulder, constantly exasperated that the hill is just too damn high.

How does one escape the Sisyphean fate?

Seems easy to me: stop trying to lift the boulder and own your own time!

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.

Reversion to the Mean

“Reversion to the mean” is chiefly a stock market theory. It postulates that stock index growth has a long-term average; wild deviations from this average eventually revert the other direction in order to maintain the average.

If the historic market average is 10% and one has been riding gains upwards of 20% for several years, the likelihood of upcoming losses will be greatly increased.

Those who constantly seek to outperform the market average via enhanced risk are therefore punished more severely in difficult times. “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.” Those who play the market too conservatively end up underperforming in prosperous times. “Without risk there is no reward.”

Those willing to ride the average while incurring the most minimal brokerage fees reap the largest rewards over the long-term. Ironically, the greatest gains come from those least likely to “seek performance.”

I suspect that “reversion to the mean” applies to the human psyche as well.

We each have a base level of happiness. We may think that a vast accumulation of wealth will significantly elevate this base level. It will for a time, but eventually the effect will peter off. We will eventually return to our base level, having become accustomed to our expanded manors. We will find new things to need and new reasons why we are lacking. We will obsess over the same clothing stains that we once paid no mind to. We will invent new problems for ourselves, new anxieties, and new chases. We once never thought of owning “the best suit or dress at the wedding.” Suddenly we are comparing our garments to those around us.

Nomads do not escape their problems by moving to new places (their problems follow them). Similarly, we often do not escape ourselves by elevating our own economic class.

We think that a significant loss will permanently lower our base level of happiness, and it will for a time. Eventually, though, the loss will normalize, and we will become accustomed to living with what we lack.

There is a quote by LaFargue that bring to my mind this idea and our penchant for reverting to our mean:

“The working man, enduring hardships from childhood and knocking about the street and the shops, is accustomed to enduring the troubles of life; the intellectual, brought up in a hot-house, has the life bleached out of him by the shadow of the college walls, his nervous system is over-developed and takes on an unhealthy impression ability. What the working man endures thoughtlessly is to him a painful shock.”

Applying this “reversion to the mean” theory to zen philosophy, it seems apparent that those who are apt to feel their spirits skyrocket from the simplest material pleasure are also apt to crash from the slightest pain. Those who most eagerly crave wealth therefore have some of the weakest spirits, and are the most susceptible to pain. These are the types who are often the most easily corruptible; their souls can be bought cheap because they are eternally fretful of their losses. There is good reason why religions de-emphasize the importance of wealth (and some classify wealth as a sin).

It is for these reasons that I do not wish to race “higher” or “lower,” but rather to ride my own “average” with a smile, and accept my own natural ebb and flow.

A Walk

On Monday I took an afternoon walk under a pale and soothing winter sun. It was random and directionless—traits of the best walks.

Near the end of my walk I loitered in the Saint Louis Citygarden, a sculpture park just a few blocks from the arch. I sat on a stone bench as the afternoon sun warmed my left cheek. I listened as a steady wind rustled the remaining leaves that hung from the skeletal tree branches around me. The rustling sound was indistinguishable from the sound of water crashing into a pool, which emanated from a nearby artificial waterfall.

On a granite wall, kids climbed and danced; their movements were random and unrehearsed. A few families walked through the winding paths in the park and I found myself calmed enough to consider not returning to my apartment until nightfall.

Loitering is one of the best acts one can do, I think. Just sit and look. Time immediately slows. Nervous tics eventually halt. Anxiety plummets.

Since when is it a sin to be still, but a virtue to rush? Note that both Jesus and Buddha taught the opposite.

Some of my best memories of life in China involved simple wandering, either with company or alone.

Today, I hope we stray from the beaten path and get lost on a walk.

Fork in the Road

I find that my most joyful time on a bike ride is when I stray from my plan. It is when I ignore the voice in my head that whispers to exhaust myself, to burn the maximum amount of calories, and to “pedal at full speed.” The further I stray from this voice, the more at peace I am.

This morning I found myself at such a metaphorical fork in the road, ten miles north, along the Mississippi River. I was four miles shy of my “planned route,” which is typically the Chain of Rocks bridge, but a flock of geese was feeding in the moist grass to my left, and there was a balmy scent in the air that strengthened as I pedaled farther away from the city.

Rather than “maximize my workout,” I shunned this inner competitor and stopped. I parked my bike against a tree and watched the geese, without any particular plan to resume my ride or turn back. I did not have a watch or a phone with me and I realized just what a brutally manufactured device the clock is for so many who live and die by its limitations and permissions.

Suddenly moments passed more slowly and with gratitude I stopped activity and absorbed my surroundings. As I breathed, my own anxieties over tomorrow calmed and the diabolical planner within me died, and I felt better for it. Let my inner planner die: he lived too long already!

It is a modern mantra, I think, that an idle mind is a wasting one, but in fact the opposite is true. An active mind festers and an idle mind blossoms. The less I try to do, the more I am able to think and the more I am able to be at peace with my own existence.

How few have the courage to stop all duty and appreciate the stillness of nature. Those at work say time flies by, and this is true for anyone in a constant chase for tomorrow and a constant bracing for “the next step,” heeding for “the next thing needed for fulfillment.”

Life is brutally diluted under this mindset. What was organic becomes a construction, a ladder to climb that is in a constant state of lengthening, and when one reaches the end of the lifespan, there is nothing to do but look up and realize that the ladder still extends out of sight. Then the mind will cry in anguish, “But I had so much higher to climb!” But who’s version of fulfillment do you climb for?

If we grant ourselves permission to halt our inner urges for progress, time ceases to rush as well, and ironically, I believe, the years graciously slow.

You deserve to own each day, and therefore make it distinct, even in your chores. You deserve to spend your hours freely and merrily, to sleep and dream, to be outside, to have a picnic that lasts for hours instead of the brief office lunch in which employees tragically cram their food in haste, often at their work desks, under artificial lights, breathing artificial air.

A “year” spent in leisure is infinitely better than a year spent in labor so long as the stopwatch, and the compulsion to plan, are removed from its borders.

A Last Time for Everything

As the first gray hairs settle in just above my ears and my ankle heals, it dawns on me that I may be approaching the midpoint of my lifespan. Who’s to say with certainty? We have no control over the future, but if considering the median age of a male life, I’m nearing the midway marker.

The car hit last year struck me more mentally than physically (and that’s saying something because it struck me with pretty good force). By this I mean it spurred a number of realizations about mortality. The chief realization among them that is on my mind today is that there will be a last time for everything.

I was fairly certain upon feeling my foot bend the wrong direction against the road that I had ran for the last time. That was it, and suddenly it was gone like the rabbit in a magic show’s disappearing act. I was lucky enough that it wasn’t the case. Nonetheless, that day will eventually arrive, and I must accept this.

If that day did mark my final run, I did not get to wish my running days goodbye. There would be no “festive final run” or “emotional farewell to the act.” It’s simply there one day and gone the next. I suspect that most final acts end the same way and that most of us in the west do not realize this.

One day, there will be a last hike. There will be a last dream, a last bike ride, and a last beach trip. There will be a last glass of wine, a last kiss, and a last act of love. There will be a last dessert and a last witnessed sunrise. There will be a last hug. Mothers will see their babies become adults for the last time. Fathers will play catch with their kids for the last time. I will see a last colored hair fall from my face and see this city for the last time. I will write a final blog and a final story. I will read a final book. I will share a final joke. And of course, there will be a last breath of oxygen.

I suspect these moments happen, they pass, and we often take them for granted. We don’t expect the end of any to be near, but each day likely presents the final time we will ever do, or feel, or think something. Every day is in some way a final act.

In the daily rush that modern culture attempts to sweep me into I find that the act of “hurrying to what’s next” makes these final acts even less apparent. They are hidden by the greatest magician of them all: industry. In the chase for something better, for fewer problems, and for perhaps a glimpse at immortality, we lose something important today and are unaware that we ever lost it.

I don’t think this to put myself in a gloomy or nihilistic mood, but to note that it’s worthwhile to pause and appreciate what I have, and what I’m doing, at this moment. And to appreciate what I’ve done and where I’ve been.

Neglect Devours

I’ve heard it argued that our dreams are trying to tell us something important about ourselves. I’ve also heard it argued that dreams are nothing but a random assemblage of memories and thoughts, broken shards of glass that are glued back together into a meaningless pattern with no design or intention.

I suspect that the truth, like many truths, is a little of both.

I had a dream last night in which I owned a large pet snake that I had long-neglected to feed. I had put off its feeding for other activities, though a part of me knew the snake was badly starved. Finally I decided to feed the snake.

I opened the snake’s cage and it lunged at my right hand. It gaped its jaws wide and swallowed the hand, and attempted to continue devouring the arm affixed to that hand. I can’t believe it thinks it can eat me, I thought.

I screamed for help, but everyone was distracted by their phones. My left hand, my good hand, went numb.

I believe the message is clear: we (I) can be devoured by the things we neglect. The snake is a metaphor for anything we value but fail to nourish. The neglected thing starves, and any starving organic thing is capable of becoming monstrous. Put off the nourishment for too long and any attempt to feed the snake is futile.

The snake can be substituted for practically anything, but I think it holds truest when substituted for a relationship, a possession, or your own health.

And what greater distraction to duty exists today than the smartphone? And still, the dream’s phone distraction can be a metaphor for anything capable of instant gratification but little lasting pleasure. By focusing on these things, we allow the pet we value to starve and eventually become something hideous.

Nourishing anything of value requires work.

Plants whither when they aren’t watered.

Kids join gangs when they have no other sense of belonging.

Neglect your own body and it becomes fertile soil for budding diseases.

Giving the things we value the proper attention means often saying “no” to the world’s army of distractions.

I must not neglect the metaphorical starving snake in the other room.

Weekly Plunder: Week 21 - Romanticizing Nature

That which you romanticize will eat you alive. In the case of nature it often happens quite literally. I am thinking specifically of the documentary Grizzly Man, in which a man sets out to live with Alaskan grizzly bears only to eventually be devoured by one. In the epic battle of nature and civilization there isn’t necessarily a salvation in one or the other; there are merely consequences that one must be aware of when choosing to settle in either.

This thought brings back a memory from 2020. My first sight of the Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas (Exhuma) enraptured me. The water was a sapphire and translucent blue that one cannot fathom from the polluted shorelines of a heavily populated nation.

I hurried to the nearest docks, threw my shirt off, and jumped into the ocean. A powerful ocean current pushed me sideways, as if attempting to sweep me along the coast. I swam against it, enjoying the challenge. This must be heaven, I thought.

Then I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. At first I thought that I had been stabbed by a sharp end of barnacle clinging to the dock. I looked into the water, though, which was nearly transparent, and saw what must have been the king of the island’s jellyfish, floating inches from my body.

The skin around my stomach quickly reddened and my bowels weakened. I climbed out of the ocean, knowing that this injury would linger for a few weeks. It did. It scabbed, it caused giant red welts to form over my entire midsection, and it felt like a second degree burn that lasted for days. It was a freakin’ doozy I tell ya.

It’s estimated that up to 100 people die per year of jellyfish stings. I wasn’t close to death, or at least I assume that I wasn’t, but I can attest that the sting hurt a hell of a lot more than a wasp sting. It hurt a hell of a lot more than any sting I’ve experienced, for that matter.

I quickly returned to the ocean—fun always has risk, after all—but that is a story for another blog.

Nature is lovely, but the lumberjacks and hunters of the world have a far more intimate relationship with it than the urban poets who venture to the woods for a respite.

What I’m watching: All of us are Dead, a new Korean zombie series on Netflix. This is supposed to be bonkers. Anything labeled as “bonkers” has my attention.

What I’m reading: Four Thousand Weeks. It’s a book about time. Four thousand weeks is how long it’s estimated that you will live, and even that is not a guarantee. The human lifespan is short: spend your time wisely.

What I’m listening to: “Call Me Little Sunshine” by Ghost. I’m seeing Ghost live next month and I believe they’ve mastered the art of the double entendre. Songs can be both tongue-in-cheek and cerebral, which is a difficult duality to pull off.

What I’m doing: Each week I’m running a little longer. This week I mixed a few random sprints into my routine. The “bad” foot typically feels raw and sore after a run, but the feeling dissipates over the course of two days. My physical therapist told me this feeling happens because the foot’s muscles are still stiff and severely inflamed. The muscle tears are repaired, but the foot still has some work to do before it gets “back to 100%”. However, it’s getting there, bit by bit.

Thoughts on the Trail

Early morning. A smattering of snow drifts down and coats the landscape with a thin white crust. The river isn’t frozen but I certainly wouldn’t want to swim in it. I feel like I’m gliding as I pedal north, mile after mile, with relative ease. I imagine myself continuing beyond my usual distance, crossing the Missouri border and the Chain of Rocks Bridge, then heading directly east towards whatever lies beyond the Mississippi. That bridge feels like the demarcation between the living and the dead. Across it is the unknown. I pedal over the bridge and I imagine myself pedaling forever. What is my limit?

I eventually turn around and suddenly the wind lashes me (the wind raced north with me, but counters me directly as I return south). The icy precipitation smacks my eyes. I am fully aware in this moment, cognizant of my environs, of the crevices in the trail, of the whitening underbrush to my left, of the glossy Mississippi River beyond that. The river looks like glass at this hour.

I think of my phone. I left it behind. If I were to crash out here, I’d have a long and lonely journey home. If I’m injured, I’ll be fending for myself.

A random thought hits me: I am lucky because still, for the majority of my life, I didn’t own a smartphone. I’m 36 and I acquired one at 22. I imagine my life before smartphones. Life was slower. I had time to create. I had time to invent my own games rather than succumb to someone else’s.

People say I need a smartphone. Do I? Did we need smartphones for the previous 250,000 years or so of human existence?

I read of the rising rates of depression and anxiety, and their parabolic rise upon the advent of the smartphone.

I lack a phone out here, in the cold, under the snowy sky. And I feel pretty good.

Can I toss my phone away?

Maps

The temp is 5 F (-15 C). I’m on mile 20 of a morning bike ride (32 km). My fingers have been numb for the past 30 minutes and my toes are in the process of joining them in their transformation from body extremities to icicles. My nose runs like an ever-flowing fountain. The tendrils of snot cling to my merino wool gaiter and then freeze, hindering my breathing. I have to lower the gaiter and when I do the biting winter wind absolutely punishes my face.

About ten miles ago I passed a flock of geese. There was an albino goose amidst the flock that stood our like a lone star in a night sky. I find a part of me wondering if the other geese can detect its genetic difference. Birds can pair bond, so can they also judge?

Five miles ago, the sun broke to my left. It slants down and brushes my left cheek but offers little comfort. Above me there is a stark demarcation of clear sky and clouds ahead.

I am alone on the trail again and I find myself also thinking that I’m on a bike ride this morning to escape the artificiality of the city. In this pain I cannot delude myself into thinking that nature is something offering constant peace and solace. If I were to sleep out here the elements might take me, as they’ve taken many of those not gifted with air conditioning.

Death is harsh in nature. Some of the geese may be slowly devoured over many minutes by a predator. Others, if they reach old age, may slowly starve to death due to their slowed reflexes. Or the elements may slowly overtake them as their weakening bones fail to fend off the cold.

Nature is harsh, but through it we may find a part of us, and the darker elements, the harsher elements, give us a realer view of our role in the universe. In the city we do not think of death. We delude ourselves into thinking it doesn’t exist, and therefore ironically find ourselves dissatisfied with our actions in the present moment. We refuse to believe that it can be a moment away.

On my final mile the verse to Ghost’s song “Pro Memoria” echoes through my mind. The Roman generals ride to war with their slaves, who whisper reminders in their ear that they will also die. This paradoxically gives them both peace and cunning.

And it isn’t just these Romans who have a more intimate relationship with death. Many Buddhist cultures also are more apt to contemplate it, and ironically measure “happier” than American culture.

It is almost uniquely in the west that we delude ourselves into thinking death can be avoided, that not everything has to end, that a future purchase may bring eternal salvation, and therefore the solution to life is a simple checklist. And this leads us to a life imbued with dissatisfaction.

“Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.”

In the distance I see the silhouette of a wildcat maneuver through the underbrush. A prey animal may be on its last legs.

I cannot predict when I will be that prey animal.

Nerve-Shaken

“Nerve-shaken, over-civilized people really are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains for life.” - John Muir, 1901

Morning cycling temp: 6 degrees F (-14 C). -8 F windchill (-21 C).

Just me and the wild turkey and geese that haunt the Mississippi this morning. No living homo sapien is near. The path is strewn with bird crap because only the birds dare tread over this trail at these temps. The birds dominate the cold and they show it by crapping over everything and everyone.

The cold is absolutely blistering. My hands go numb within 30 minutes and my feet follow about 30 minutes later. I keep pedaling forward. The sun’s about to break to my right, a little solace. To my left, a near-full moon’s lambent glow haunts a navy sky.

“Push through pain,” I keep thinking. “Comfort is your enemy.”

I return home and the warm shower water seems to scathe my toes. My feet are beet red, with small patches of blue and black here and there. Ouch. After about an hour that discoloration fades. It’s not frostbite at least.

Gazing out my window, I see someone chowing down on a burger in his car while waiting at a stoplight.

No one else in this city of over one million was able to bike this morning (maybe someone else was, but no one in my vicinity; I basically had the world to myself). Only a select few dare the winter. This thought gives me fuel.

In the wilderness your senses heighten. My ride got me closer to the wild, but admittedly not fully there. You feel every rise and drop of temperature. You hear the prey animals in hiding and the mating calls of the birds that nest above. Far away, as dawn hits, people are snapping photos of their corporatized lattes.

That ride was certainly a misogi.

All Candles Burn to the Ground Eventually

“All candles burn to the ground eventually.”

This was oddly my first thought upon waking this morning. Shortly after, as my dreams dissolved into a bittersweet nothing, I completed my final physical therapy session. My jumps and hops felt pretty good, as did a brief jog. I hadn’t jumped in five months. I was just happy to be jumping.

I have an at-home therapy plan to work out the last of the joint stiffness/ache/lack of mobility. But for all intents and purposes the ankle is healed. I’m ready for full activity.

Sometimes we all need a little help. I wanted to heal my foot on my own and stubbornly tried. Realizing after months of futility that it wouldn’t happen, I sought a doctor, and later a physical therapist. Healing took a lot out of me. It took time, money, and resources. I am lucky. I realize that.

I think about the potential alternative a lot. When I first felt my body hit the road and felt my ankle twist backwards and then quickly rip sideways, my first thought was that my walking days were over.

My foot doctor said the same: “When I first saw your foot, I thought it was done for, that we’d find bone fragments everywhere and ruptured tendons far out of place. I can’t believe the scans showed it stayed intact.” I’ve had a few low points in life, and the act of dragging myself and my bicycle off the road to a nearby sidewalk was certainly among the lowest. There’s a scar by my knee that gives me chills every time I glance at it.

So I lucked out. I’m back to normal, only five months later, and I don’t take that for granted.

I have mixed opinions on the act of praying. I think it’s somewhat selfish and delusional to think that one vessel is entitled to a personal relationship with a universal creator. Suffering is far too indiscriminate for that and the universe is far too vast to expect attention to a petty problem (or, sadly, even a significant problem). Selfish prayers have contributed to idiots praying for football game wins.

On the other hand there is something meditative about searching inside for what one is seeking, and connecting to a “higher self” (or higher calling) to realize one’s own need for change. That, I think, can contribute to evolution. I see use in that.

I don’t know if it’s a prayer so much as a glance up into the sky and a silent “thank you” echoing through my mind. Endings tend to be anticlimactic and often brutal, but damn that would’ve haunted me if my runnings days ended bloodied and sprawled on the side of a road by a tire store.

My candle will burn out eventually, but today is not that day.

Misogi

6:30 am on Monday and I’m starting physical therapy. I only have two sessions remaining, assuming my evaluation on Wednesday goes well.

I start with a few laps of leg movement drills, followed by a few ladder exercises (a rope ladder is spread over the ground and I hop/skip/step over the ladder rungs in a variety of movement patterns). This is followed by inclined foot stretching, both with legs straight and with knees bent.

I take a ten-minute jog in which I can feel some stiffness in the ankle and inflammation on the bottom of the foot, but both pains subside with each passing minute. I stand on the edge of a step and complete some toe raise exercises, first with both feet acting together and then using only the injured foot. I complete squats while standing on the flat side of a 1/2 balance ball. More stepping exercises. I’m breezing through the routine and gaining confidence. The foot’s feeling stable and I’m almost healed.

“What will you do with your healed foot?” My physical therapist asked me.

I recently read about “misogi,” a concept that originated from two ancient Japanese Shinto gods. The Japanese god Izanagi was madly in love with the Shinto creator goddess Izanami. She dies and goes to a hellish underworld. Forlorn and determined to bring her back, Izanagi ventures into this hell and fends off a variety of horrifying creatures. He’s unable to retrieve Izanami and retreats back to our world, but his flesh is scarred and tainted from the creatures he fends off. He eventually purifies himself of his tainted flesh in a body of water. This cleansing, or purification, of impure flesh and soul is called “misogi” (apologies for all incorrect interpretations).

Misogi is therefore an act of cleansing the impurities or toxicities of one’s life (in Shinto, often with a body of water). The act of misogi as detailed in the book The Comfort Crisis is more of a purification from the detriments of modern, urban living.

One accomplishes this misogi through an intense risk that has a high probability of failure. It has to be outside one’s comfort zone and preferably outside of the comforts and luxuries of the city.

There is an interesting paradox associated with urban living. It’s supposed to be a euphoria of conveniences. Yet every study I’ve read suggests that human misery increases as a place becomes more urban.

I think misogis can be applied daily. They don’t have to be a “once per year” event. They can be the consistent and constant disruptor of certainty, the embracing of risk. The bike ride through harsh winter trails. Skateboarding down steeper ramps. Running outside on new trails, in harsh rain. Opting out of phone browsing in favor of sitting on the ground, in the grass, outside, staring… and daring to do nothing, and to be bored.

I can apply a yearly misogi to my life too. A swimming with sharks in the Bahamas. A bikepacking trip thousands of feet up into the Blue Ridge mountains. Hiking off-trail in a national forest. Those might be some of my recent misogis. I’m thinking about what it will be this year. It has to delve into the unknown, whatever it is.

I’m thinking of misogis. That’s what I’ll do with my healed foot: as many of them as possible.

Killing Comfort

Comfort kills.

So many people only experience the weather in brief stints. For these people, the weather is often just a nuisance during a brief 30-second jaunt to the car, which then transports them to work in an office with a chair and a desk. The day is therefore spent sitting in a car with air conditioning, followed by sitting in a chair under air conditioning, followed by sitting in a car with air conditioning again. All environs provide optimized comfort and entertainment. Maybe, at some point, the day involves easy movement in a gym, again with air conditioning, as well as rows of tv screens to combat the boredom.

Even the sun, the very thing that allowed for creation in the first place, is seen as a threat to the body (and industry provides sunscreens to lather over the body as a “fix” to the problem). The sun causes squinting, or sweat, or potential sunburns. Homo sapiens have existed for give or take 250,000 years, and only in the last 100 years has the sun been classified as “dangerous.” Since this odd diagnosis of sun as bad, an industry of “sun protective creams” has emerged.

Living life in a vacuum, the modern body feels plush cushions on the derrière and back while sleeping, cushions while eyes are glued to the television, cushions while eyes are glued to the phone, and cushions while engorging the stomach in a never-ending paroxysm of gluttony (true hunger is rare in the Western world).

The modern brain isn’t bored while browsing the phone for “stimulation”. Boredom should not exist in the modern world because boredom is another potential discomfort. Silence should not exist because silence runs risk or boredom. So kids and adults sit on their asses and TikTok or whatever the hell is the trend of the year.

“But the modern lifespan is longer,” I’m told as a counterpoint. And to that I say, how many of those extra years are actually spent living? Heart disease kills by the millions annually. By 2028 the long-term US nursing home care industry is expected to reach 1.7 trillion US dollars, provided an annual growth of 7.1% (Grand View Research, Inc.).

1/3 of Americans are either diabetic of pre-diabetic. Almost half of Americans struggle to climb a single flight of stairs (studyfinds.org). Even our conveniences become more difficult: the stairs were once invented to make climbing easier. Now the body needs something more automated than stairs to transport it vertically. The modern concept of being alive seems eerily close to the undead version of life in any zombie film.

There is a universal law that nothing is created without having both intended and unintended consequences. The unintended consequences of industry and the drive for growth are simple: an overly-medicated and largely miserable population that cannot process or experience discomfort.

The modern Western human, often addicted to these comforts and the obsession with the elimination of all danger, cannot accept pain, cannot accept suffering, and often cannot accept danger as a necessary component to a meaningful life. Every sickness must have a cure that can be paid for. Erasing all threats is a matter of a savvy Google search.

I imagine myself living thousands of years ago, a persistence hunter, preparing for a hunt via a long run. My body evolved with the capacity to run and breathe with stunning efficiency. My tribe can hunt a deer (or its predecessor) not with speed, but with endurance. There are risks involved with the hunt. We don’t need trendy shoes with arch support or technical gym shorts: we just run. We compete with other predators, and other predators decide whether we humans would also make a decent meal. There are real threats, not the modern vain “what if my car gets a dent or my sweater gets a stain” type threats. My belly is often hungry. My legs are often tired. But ironically, I do not feel any form of depression, not in the modern sense. I focus on my feet hitting rock and sand as the heat pummels me and my thirst for water increases. The deer will collapse soon and hunger will be sated.

This morning I thought about comfort, my biggest existential threat, as I embarked on a bike ride. The temperature was 19 F (minus 7 C). With the wind chill it was 5 F (minus 15 C). The wind lashed me with its ice-coated whips of air as I pedaled toward Grant Farm. The Gravois Greenway was mottled with ice patches that my gravel bike often slid over. One bad fall and my right foot, I knew, would be done for. I slowed a little as I crossed each ice patch. The trail took me over icy bridges, through white-sheeted forest, and alongside bleak highways. Sunlight filtered through the dead tree branches and brushed my cheeks. I pedaled as my heartbeat raced, mile after mile, hour after hour, and I felt life in pain. Time slowed. Two hours on the bike felt infinitely longer. Silence enveloped me, though there was certainly plenty of ambient sound.

I live in the same weather as more than one million other people in the city, but many of them do not understand the full magnificence of the weather. That to me is a great tragedy.

I am finding that as my foot heals, my competitive tenacity is also returning. It is ruthless, the sort that punished competitors as severely as possible years ago and has long-since hibernated, but still lurks within. My inner “Terry Silver”. The type that, as a swimmer, grabbed ankles and twisted them when lapping people at practice. This inner warrior knows that a successful hunt requires ruthlessness and resolve.

I feel cynicism when I think of how the quest for comfort can lead so many into a black hole of materialism that sucks the essence out of the soul. Give me the dragon. Give me the struggle. I have one fear, my greatest fear: an end in a nursing home. Let me be devoured by the dragon instead of a devourer of comfort.

Better to fight the dragon and lose convincingly.

Weekly Plunder: Week 19 - On the Edge

Late afternoon at rush hour and there was a faint mist in the air. Standing in a still but frigid air, I waited for the signal to walk cross Tucker Boulevard. Tucker Boulevard is arguably the most dangerous street in downtown St Louis. I’ve seen a lot of brutal wrecks on Tucker and it’s a typical week when one reads in the news about a Tucker Boulevard death or two. Cars can drive recklessly and downright maniacally.

From the other side of the street, a man indifferently crossed toward me while the “Do Not Walk” sign clearly glowed. Cars seemed to bullet at him, first from the left and from the right when he crossed the median. I waited for the sound of metal breaking bone but never heard it. A bus sharply swerved into another lane to avoid hitting him and the bus also barely evaded the car to its side. Honks sounded from everywhere. I was pleasantly surprised when the man made it to my sidewalk still in one piece.

When the man crossed he looked into my eyes and grinned. “Sometimes you just gotta say enough’s enough and live on the edge.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said the only thing on my mind: “That was pretty damn gnarly dude.” And then he walked off. I agree with his mantra, but I also know that my own risk tolerance has its limits. Still, there is a point to safety preventing us from experiencing the full potential of exhilaration.

The one-off encounters we often have with strangers…

What I’m watching: Cobra Kai season 4. A continuation of the characters from the Karate Kid films as they deal with middle age. I loved season 1. Season 4 is often silly but also addicting. I find Terry Silver to be the best character, maybe because I see a lot of him in myself (at least in the early episodes). A former martial arts master living an aristocratic life in Malibu, he is content to retire in comfort and luxury. He was a sensei and an extremely dangerous martial artist. His former partner brings him back into the world of karate by warning him of the emptiness in dying in comfort and fine dining. “Come back to the struggle instead of fading into nothing,” his old partner seems to say. In doing so he reawakens both Terry’s killer instinct, which is downright ruthless, and his talent. I have a lot of Terry Silver in me, which is why I’ve long-avoided competition. But there might be a return.

What I’m listening to: “Carry Me Away” by John Mayer. He’s really at a creative peak (he arguably always has been).

What I’m reading: The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. It’s one of those books that articulates well what I often think about and want to put into words myself.

What I’m doing: I’m aggressively rehabbing my foot with several physical therapy sessions each week, as well as rehab exercises I’m performing twice daily. And I’m back to both cycling AND running. Next week is my final week of physical therapy. The ankle feels better by the day and it’s very close to healed. The journey to heal the ankle was one I’d rather not do again, but it was also a purposeful one. Sometimes we find meaning in struggle. Building a foot from nothing to something has been a project that has inspired me to use the foot far more than I had in the past.