Back in the Saddle

I was able to ride a bicycle last weekend. It was the first time in three weeks.

I had to make some minor adjustments. Riding with an ankle brace is not a problem. The only issues rose from switching dominant feet (I am right-footed and my right foot is injured). I usually mount with my right foot and had to do so with the left foot. At stoplights I usually rest on my right forefoot. Similarly, I rested with the left forefoot. These seem like trivial differences but our muscle memory is strong, and we take for granted how many movements are instinctual. Even switching dominant feet can cause cycling to feel foreign.

However, it was nice to be able to ride a bike again.

The more concerning part was the newfound fear from riding. Episode 8, Season 2 of Ted Lasso really struck a chord with me and this newfound fear of mine (and it struck too close to home for comfort). One of the main characters, also a bike commuter, gets hit by a car and struck unconscious.

She tells Ted something along the lines of, “I am worried that I’ll never be able to ride without fear again. The bike was my happy place. I’m scared the world has taken that from me.”

While cycling yesterday, crossing each intersection caused my body to tense and my heart to pound. My arms cringed, my breathing stopped, and my neck tightened, all as if anticipating a car to once again strike me from behind by turning into me. Breathless, where I once fired all pistons and put the pedal to the metal, I suddenly lingered and looked behind me for a boogeymen that may or may not exist.

Our neuromuscular system remembers events, particularly injuries, with sharp precision. When we are kids we can fearlessly fall to the floor or run down a hill at full speed or belly flop from the high dive. Then the body gets hurt, and we stop doing it. Our adult selves look at the same jumps, dives, and runs with trepidation and fear.

That is my main fear right now, that I’ll never be able to ride as fearlessly as I used to; what if what was once my meditative time becomes yet another exercise in chronic overthinking. I am hoping that I can overcome those neuromuscular reactions over time.

Den Standiga Resan

I’ve always been into Opeth (okay, that is an understatement!)… and as much as I enjoy listening to the English versions of the songs, listening to Mikael sing in his native tongue adds another layer of beauty and richness, even when it’s a cover song such as this one (one of my favorite cover songs).

Den Standiga Resan (The Constant Journey)

Translations:

When I think about the constant journey through life

When it always feels like fall

When the wind slowly turns to north

And the flowers die

It's raining in my dreams

I have to travel again, and search for solace

I have to search again after the voice of tenderness

I have to travel again, to the next fall

The constant journey to the next fall

When I walk on the stony road through life

When it feels like I carried a sorrow

Then the sun slowly hides in the clouds

And the word is goodbye

The snow will soon be falling in my dreams

I have to travel again, and search for solace

I have to search again after the voice of tenderness

I have to travel again, to the next fall

The constant journey to the next fall

Oh, the constant journey to the next fall

https://lyricstranslate.com

Torn Asunder: The Weekly Plunder

Fall hits gradually, but winter hits abruptly. Winter imposes itself on the Midwest like a sudden switchback on a long desert highway. It shows abruptly, having long-been hiding behind shimmering mirages.

What I’m doing: In my reenactment of the protagonist’s mission from the Stephen King novel Duma Key, I am attempting to walk a little farther each day (rehabbing a busted ankle=slow and tedious, like your typical Oscar winner, badabing). Today I managed to walk around my apartment building three times, which felt like a minor triumph. On Sunday I’m going to attempt an early morning swim. It’ll be my first swim in about a year.

On the minimalism front I sold a decent weight of clothes this week, not so much in a quest for less as from a standpoint of, “I bought this more out of vanity than for function.” “Stuff” is fine so long as it’s functional. It’s when we get obsessed with upgrades that it becomes dangerous. And of course, an expensive bicycle causes more pain when stolen or crashed than a stripped-down bicycle does. An expensive wardrobe is just more money lost in the event of a flood. The newness of it all stales, like all things. Take things in moderation. Enjoy cool stuff but don’t let materialism sink its fangs into you.

What I’m watching: Movies mostly suck these days but I’ll watch the James Wan film Malignant tonight. Wan directed The Conjuring and Insidious, both of which I found to be effectively suspenseful. Check my Reviews page in the upcoming days for a deep dive.

What I’m reading: Born to Run was a magnificent and inspiring novel. I can’t wait to run again. Now I’m on Full Throttle, a collection of short stories from Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill. Hill is a masterful storyteller in his own right. I’d say it runs in the family but I think it’s more a matter of picking up good habits from one’s immediate surroundings.

What I’m listening to: “The Parchment” by Iron Maiden off their new album Senjutsu. This one showcases the master storytellers at the top of their game. Kick back and let this one take you places.

Velociraptors

The velociraptor seems to universally captivate kids in ways that not even the mighty tyrannosaurus rex cannot.

I think it’s because the velociraptor’s hunting style seems to most closely resemble the hunting techniques of ancient humans. Yet the velociraptors are vastly superior to the human with their massive talons and incredible speed. And worse yet! They’re intelligent to boot.

The velociraptor reminds me of the movie Predator, in which the imperial American soldiers find themselves hunted by a superior alien being… something faster, smarter, and stronger than themselves. The only thing that could scare these military men is a being that’s exactly like them, but more powerful (this is when the hunters become the hunted).

The Tyrannosaurus Rex is pure and raw power, the Goliath to the velociraptor’s David. But unlike David, the Velociraptors come equipped with teeth capable of piercing bone and claws capable of tearing through cinder blocks.

The first soccer team I joined as a kid allowed the team to decide the team name. We unanimously wanted to be called the “Running Raptors”. Unconsciously, we may have been looking to the past, our evolution embedded with our desires to be the greatest possible entity. We humans learned to hunt via the run, after all, and there, the velociraptor, was the greatest of hunters.

A corny team name, but cool!

When I taught in China, I used to talk before and after class with one of the 4th grade boys. His English name was Tony. With his limited English, we focused on discussing the things that mattered in life: dinosaurs. Jurassic Park was his favorite film (it’s on my list too) and he’d use his passion for dinosaurs to communicate why the velociraptor was his favorite.

”They are so smart, fast, and they work together when they hunt.” (Whether they actually worked in packs is subject to debate). So they were us, but better. Could such a thing exist?

I hope Tony didn’t watch Jurassic Park 2. It’s a very crappy film. So is part 3. So are all of them except the first, which managed to accurately capture the park through the eyes of a child and convey that same sense of wonder.

I have this picture that Tony drew me. It’s a reminder that you can still see velociraptors every day. Go outside and look at the birds. You live in Jurassic Park.

It’s also a reminder that you can choose to be happy today. You don’t have to wait for it to hit you.

When Things Fall Apart

It took one hit from a car while I was riding my bike. In addition to my torn up ankle, I lost some things that I valued. Material things, but things I valued nonetheless. Regardless, I somehow managed to emerge with fewer injuries than most would imagine possible.

My favorite sandals were torn to shreds. I realize that I implanted too many human emotions into those sandals, but they were with me for thousands upon thousands of miles (or kilometers). They were strapped to my feet through much of my previous two trips through the Blue Ridge Mountains, over most Saint Louis city streets, through the Shawnee National Forest, through local parks and into countless new neighborhoods and shops. In a flash they were shredded beyond repair. Perhaps because of their minimalist nature, they felt like an extension of me.

My bicycle got banged up, but I was just informed that the repairs are complete. Both wheels were destroyed, the handlebar tape was ripped from the bars due to the impact with the pavement, and there were some issues with the crankset and drivetrain that I didn’t fully understand. I am lucky that the bike was repairable!

My shirt was ripped up on the backside from the impact of my body hitting the pavement and sliding a bit. It was a shirt made of merino wool, nature’s greatest performance fabric. Merino naturally fights bacteria and regulates body temperature. The merino sheep are cooled by their wool when it’s hot and insulated when it’s cold. Merino is precious, but also delicate. Road abrasion will beat it every time.

My left shoulder was bruised to the point that I could barely lift my arm over shoulder level for three days. However, it has since healed. This was the first point of impact.

My left hip, the second point of impact, was similarly bruised. And similarly, it has healed over the course of the last two weeks.

There are several cuts on my right knee. One of them will scar. To be honest, I never felt pain there. I think it was because all of the pain that I was allowed from the hit went straight to my right ankle.

The right foot has severe sprains. Two weeks in and the bruises on this foot are still visible. There is a particularly nasty bruise on the sole that did not even manifest for several days. I am icing the foot constantly and trying to walk a little farther each day. The doctor estimated it will be about three months before it fully heals. I believe that it will be much less time. I heal quickly; I will be running before October. I am already walking with a much more natural gait, albeit also with the help of a brace.

Things fall apart and it can happen in a flash. It is a reminder of the danger in placing too much value on your stuff. Your stuff has one commonality with you: it won’t last forever.

I am lucky that this time, all of me will heal. Eventually there will just be one tiny scar on the knee to serve as memory of this hit. The body will heal.

There is a cheesy line from the Papa Roach song “Scars”. “The scars remind me that the past is real.” Simple but true, literally and figuratively.

When I flick up my tongue in my mouth, I can feel the scar along my gumline from which a tumor was once pulled out of my head. It is the only evidence that such a mass ever existed. I think there is beauty in scars, as there is beauty in calluses and birthmarks.

The cut on the knee is conveniently next to a scar that I attained when I was about ten. At ten, I loved speed (I still do). That was why I ran: to feel my top speed. So one day I ran down a sand dune in New Mexico at full speed, but tripped near the bottom and went tumbling into the nearby street.

The current cut happened about 25 years later and was a little less exhilarating.

The body may serve as a museum of the past, whereas material things just get tossed in a dumpster. Sandals replace sandals and bike wheels replace bike wheels. I guess there are knee and hip replacements out there, but such a transplant is rare.

As Clive Barker puts it, each person is a book of blood.

In the Rain

The Saint Louis skies quickly turned overcast yesterday afternoon and the apparently sunny day abruptly darkened. The boiling tarmac of the downtown streets cooled and the flags that hung outside a nearby government building flapped wildly in warning.

I had planned to attempt a walk to the nearest Post Office to drop off some outgoing mail. It was not so much about the necessity to send a package out as it was the ambition to walk. Each day I’m attempting to walk, with the aid of an ankle brace, a little farther than the day before. Each day the walk is a little longer and the pain is a little less, though I still need the brace and I still cannot maneuver steps or curbs without significant pain.

I decided to risk the rain, as I wanted to walk more than anything, so I brought my one umbrella, an old relic of an umbrella that was a gift to me when I was living in China. I strapped on my ankle brace and prepared to stagger to the post office. The umbrella has been through many storms now.

I got to the post office before the rain started. Inside, the only customers were me and a young African American boy of about 8 years old who must’ve been dropping something off for his parents. He had a shaved head and the chubby cheeks of youth that I find endearing.

As we stood in line, sheets of rain suddenly slammed into the street outside. Lightning flashed intermittently in the skies and thunder made its familiar peal. The boy’s eyes widened and I noticed he had no umbrella or rain jacket.

We left the store at about the same time and I could tell the boy was nervous; the streets were flooding quickly and it would require only a few seconds of outdoor exposure to get fully soaked.

“I’m going that direction,” I said, pointing across Tucker Boulevard. “Just three blocks ahead is where my stop is.” I didn’t want to seem like a creep, but did want to offer to share my umbrella for those three blocks. It turned out he was going to the same apartment building. So off we went.

So I held the umbrella in front of us, practically using it as a shield against a charging enemy, as the rain hit from a slanted angle and the wind whipped the rain into us. And what an adventure it was! Braving forward, into the belly of the beast, busted ankle or not. The boy was filled with joy and his grin spread ear to ear; he was loving this adventure and he wanted to move faster, to run. I was enjoying the storm too and wanted to charge ahead as fast as my ankle would allow. The umbrella did little to protect from the rain but neither of us gave a damn.

And the boy sped ahead a little, almost at running speed, and I wanted to will my busted ankle to speed up as well, I wanted to run for this fleeting moment, this brief adventure! And I limped forward a little faster, though I couldn’t run. “Forward march!” He proudly declared. And I did what I could to keep pace.

And in the moment I forgot about the other mundane bullshit that I had left behind, the crap that I hoped would die yet still loomed ahead: the Virtual Meetings, the appointments, the Conference calls, the emails, the adult nonsense that people say is important but really isn’t. For that moment the ankle pain subsided, and I moved faster, into a storm, just me and nature getting to know one another! Though I couldn’t run I felt close, very close… it felt tangible again, running… like it was creeping around the corner, the surprise guest at an upcoming party.

The European pirates of the world, those nomads of a world before technology and the Industrial Revolution and our phones and all of the communication toys that distanced us with their conveniences, those pirates must have lived a much more fulfilling life than the cocooned masses of today.

And what a fun crossing of the street that was for me. I felt joy from being soaked in a storm and relief that I didn’t give a damn about it. It was fun to just maneuver over a flooded street while nature inflicted its chaos upon the overly sanitized masses!

We arrived and went our separate ways and I thought about what I wanted to tell the boy but didn’t say: “Don’t listen to others when they tell you money is everything, college is everything, good grades are everything, nice things and educated jobs are what fulfill you. None of it will make you happy. Experience is important! Connection is important! Don’t follow the herd, pave your own path, be your own person, let herds ignore you or follow you as they may, enjoy adventures, enjoy storms, enjoy walking and running and sunshine and rain! To hell with retirement plans! They are spoon fed to the sheep along with the lie that they will live forever, they aim to destroy the moment and cripple your youth, don’t let those crocodiles devour you, as they only feed on your youth! To hell with anyone who tells you that you can’t exercise without a calorie counter, or that you can’t love someone without first showing them a nice car!”

What joy it was to be caught in a storm for that fleeting moment, and how amazing it felt to have that joy erase my ankle pain. The pain did not return with a vengeance as I feared. Conversely, I feel a little better today.

I am thinking of the ending to Stephen King’s It. Bill’s wife is rendered comatose after looking at It, the devourer of children, an immortal entity that I interpreted as a metaphor for the death of childhood. So in an attempt to save his wife, Bill finds his favorite bicycle from his childhood, Silver. He places his wife on the bicycle with him and they ride down a steep hill together. Bill shares with his comatose wife his favorite pastime. And in the adventure it seems that some life returns to his wife, a sign that maybe there is still some life inside of the vegetable that her body became. Perhaps It can be conquered after all.

I also thought of my grandfather on that Florida beach, many years ago, when he supposedly couldn’t walk, yet somehow managed to run in order to throw a football with the grandkids. What a strange thing the human body is.

Sometimes you just have to embrace the rain.

Healing with Water

It is believed that we came from the ocean. After an ancient molten earth cooled and solidified, oxygen was born. Our newly physical planet then withstood the battering of meteor showers, which pocked the earth but did not destroy it, the original acne scars. From the chaos of meteor crashes, surface solidification, and a newly emergent sun, more chemical compounds emerged, and eventually seas were born. And within the seas, single-cell organisms eventually became multicellular.

Millions of years later, some fish emerged from the seas, the original mermaids, and they dared to crawl on land.

Perhaps it can be argued that this first fish to venture to land was the original Eve, the first organism to yearn for a new world, the first pilgrim to eat the forbidden apple. Look at a fish closely the next time you see one. It is your ancestor.

We came from water. Though we departed from it, we still need it. It comprises most of our body, including our mind. It transports our blood to the necessary extremities that interact with the world around us. It transports our wastes out of us. It sustains our life, which is at its core a constant cycle of renewal and depletion. Physically, there is no element more powerful than water.

Water cleanses metaphorically too. Baptisms require water to expel our sinful nature from our souls. Hot baths relax the mind and body. They say that as water crystallizes, its formation can vary depending on external stimuli. Play heavy metal music as the water crystallizes, and the shape of the crystal will appear different than it would had one played classical music.

Despite all of our cleaning products infused with chemicals, the simple fact is that warm water kills more than 99% of harmful bacteria. What remains is the bacteria that our body can accept, or could before the Western obsession with sanitization. Yet we shower with a million products.

Water is the line in the middle of the yin/yang symbol. It is a unique chemical compound in its natural state, literally existing between two worlds, between solid and gas. Too cold or too hot and it transforms to one or the other.

It seems fitting that for now, while walking is a bit of a struggle, I should turn back to swimming. I enjoy running; we learn to run before we learn to read. However, it will be awhile before I can run again.

Swimming was our original activity, if you trace our evolution to our most ancient ancestors.

I’ve heard that it’s useful to pray to water, that water is malleable enough and amorphous enough to absorb the prayer and manifest it into something tangible. If water can transmute itself, perhaps it can similarly shape intention. If so, the next time I take a swim, I’ll pray to be absolved of not only my foot pain, but my own drive to consume more. We were not born with a thirst for more; we learned it. I hope that the next time I swim, I will realize that I already have enough.

36 Random Thoughts for 36 Years

Since I turn 36 today, I’ll share 36 random thoughts. Don’t take these for advice! They are only my thoughts.

1. Anger is useless. I’m not angry at the driver who hit me last week and proceeded to drive away. It’s the past, and anger won’t change history. I’ll focus on today.

2. Fashion is the anathema of freedom. To follow fashion is to accept that you aren’t enough as you are. Fashion renders you an eternal purchaser, a runner in a marathon that leads nowhere and accomplishes nothing. Fashion raises prices beyond their material worth. It renders products dead before the end of their actual lifecycle.

3. I’ll need to return to the water soon. It’s been awhile since I swam. I think the last time was in the Bahamas last year. The time before that was in China, two years prior. Swimming is the ultimate low-impact activity. I think my ankle will be able to handle swimming long before it can handle running.

4. Movies are total crap these days. Some artists are interesting; Nicolas Cage is one of them. A few others are crafting good stories outside the studio system. For the most part, it’s drivel.

5. Critics are bought and sold. RottenTomatoes is just a hype machine that showcases Twitter blurbs and teases looming brilliance that never arrives.

6. An industry is bred from every remedy. And most of the industries are scams. Even the barefoot shoe industry is beginning to look suspicious to me. The whole idea behind it is that we don’t need cushioned shoes. So what do these companies do? They make a million types of “barefoot style” shoes that you need instead. I guess if they only sold sandals, they couldn’t make as much money.

7. Revenge, jealousy, and envy are useless. I used to want to “punish” people for their ill intent towards me. This is the worst sort of mindset; it gives your enemy power over you. It renders you beneath them. And it makes the world a worse place. It stems from the lowliest of positions. It’s better to forget than it is to envy, but it is important to always be on guard. A scorpion doesn’t dwell on those it’d like to strike, but it does strike those who trespass, and it strikes without hesitation.

8. The library is one of the most sacred of places.

9. Nothing heals better than water. It’s where we all came from. It’s what we’re made of. It’s what heals our wounds and baptizes our young.

10. There is beauty in every nook and cranny of the world if we are willing to look at it with the eyes of the young and the naive.

11. There is more earth to explore than a lifetime of exploration would allow; pigeonholing ourselves in one small area seems tragic. If you don’t see something, you’ll die having never seen it.

12. Camels really like me. I don’t know why.

13. There’s a great scene in the Nicolas Cage starring film Pig where the protagonist, a former master chef, confronts an old student of his, who sold his soul to make food he doesn’t actually care for. “None of this is real,” Nicolas Cage declares (I’m paraphrasing). “The critics, the audience, this restaurant. None of it is real.” And his student proceeds to have an emotional breakdown. What is real to me? What is real to you?

14. Cells are constantly dying and regenerating. Therefore, parts of us are constantly dying and being reborn. A part of you died, just now, and a new “you” took it’s place. The eyes with which we view the world change, as does the mind that sets our priorities. What skin have we shed lately?

15. Sometimes I miss Chinese food. I never thought I’d say that. There was a spicy pork dish I especially liked. There was also a sweet fried chicken dish, “Guo Bao Rou”, that I ordered pretty consistently. Their dumplings with pork and soured vegetables were also pretty awesome.

16. Flying is overrated. Have you been in an airport restroom? It is proof that the Westernized diet is terrible. Flying is more stress than adventure, more waiting than doing. Flying is waiting in line, and the wait is overpriced. There are a million great things that you can do locally. There are a million great places you can get to with a bicycle, or a car if necessary. Airports suck.

17. Smartphones are the modern version of the succubus. They tease you with their pretty images and their useful tools and their gateways into the lives of pretty people (or people who manufacture themselves for perfection). Then the phone bleeds you dry, and drains your mind into a desiccated and withered thing that once had useful thoughts.

18. Who did the sound mixing on the latest Iron Maiden album? The new singles have TERRIBLE sound mixing. Bruce Dickinson’s voice sounds muffled. The production value just isn’t there. They are the biggest metal band in the WORLD, but the songs sound cheaply mixed. The mixer should be ashamed! Maiden deserves better.

19. I don’t write short stories often, but I have two on the way that I’m pretty excited about sharing. They’re dark, of course! Very dark. If they haunt you, they’ve fulfilled their purpose.

20. Reddit is a pretty cool online community. I’ve made a lot of friends via Reddit; many of them I share a strong connection with. One of them collaborated with me on getting some state-of-the-art winter cycling jackets reduced in price (we bought two together for a discount on each). Then he shipped the second jacket to me. I’m gonna be warm this winter!

    Sometimes you have to go out on a whim and give a stranger some trust. Not always, but sometimes, it pays off. We evolved from ancient “barter and trade” based cultures. Therefore it’s barter and trade that strikes the truest friendships.

21. I started reading Born to Run. I’m looking forward to digesting this book. My own journey in learning to run without the need for cushioned shoes has been a very fulfilling one.

22. I just read Love People, Use Things. It’s the latest book by “The Minimalists.” I poured through it quickly and thought that they had some good insights on life and relationships. I sold a lot of my clothes as well (but not my favorites… only those that could be construed as fashion items). By doing so, I was enlightened as to what I actually desired and what I was manipulated into thinking that I desired.

23. Colors can be beautiful, but they can also deceive us. Colors in nature can be appreciated. Colors in material things are another means to convince us that we “need” something. It is the color scheme of our phone screens that sends our brains signals of pleasure and comfort. Remove the color and ask yourself again: “Do I need to purchase this?” If everything in your wardrobe was black, what would you like to wear?

    Colors in a wardrobe are another thing to stress over. “What color goes with this top!?” We ask ourselves each morning. You are only allowed so many choices in a day. Liberating yourself of wardrobe choices allows room for more important decisions.

    I like color but I try to minimize it these days. Most of my jackets and shoes are black for this reason. Most of my pants are in earth tones or black, and likewise with shorts. I do keep colorful shirts. This makes pairing colors easy, as it means my colored shirts go with pretty much everything.

24. We shouldn’t be more productive as a group, we should be less productive. But we should output with more vigor and intensity when it is time to be productive, for the things that actually matter. The life of the idler is ironically more meaningful than the life of the industrious worker. One could argue that the lion and the crocodile are two of the greatest idlers that have graced the planet.

25. Grocery stores are mostly scams. Going through the food aisles, all the food is cancer-breeding crap. I should start going to places that sell locally grown food.

26. Sleep is underrated. I used to think there was value in rising early. One always reads stories of famous people who “wake up at 4 am and output work with intensity”! No! Their brains are mush by noon. Sleep in! I am learning to sleep in. It’s a work in progress. My mind can be a little overactive at times (this is an understatement).

27. Naps are a gift of the Gods. “Powering through” lunch hangovers is annoying and taxing. It’s also unnatural. Watch a lion. It’s one of the greatest predators to walk the earth. It slumbers and toils on its side through much of the day. It stores its energy. Then, when it needs to attack, it does so with unbridled ferocity.

28. Truth is a difficult thing to discover. It tends to be the opposite of what we are told it should be. Or at least, the opposite of a presumption may lead us to something closer to the truth. Snakes are often among the gentlest of animals to interact with. Dolphins are among the most vicious and barbaric. Gyms can make us fatter. Cushioned shoes and beds can make our bodies weaker. Beware what you assume. The word “assume” begins with “ass” for a reason!

29. People who are competitive at work are annoying. I think of a nice quote from Tom Hodgkinson: “The competitive principle applied to work means that your success is achieved at the cost of someone else’s failure. Big companies are hotbeds of intrigue and plotting for this reason.”

30. I was telling someone that practically all of our modern inventions are a waste of time, particularly “career-oriented living” and social media. “But we need them if we are to move forward!” Was a response when I stated that social media is a waste. To that I say, moving forward for the sake of moving forward is as pointless as moving backward for the sake of moving backward. And more often than not, this thoughtless version of forward movement… is metaphorically backward. Another Tom Hodgkinson quote:

    “Progress is a tyrant. Freeing yourself from a career-based model of working means freeing yourself from other people’s expectations.” 

31. There is little worse than a watch, but I do know one thing worse: a “smart watch”. If the watch was a handcuff that binds you to someone else’s rules and schedule, the smart watch additionally binds you to their advertisements, manipulation, and emotional control (“Read this alarming headline! Don’t you feel offended!?”).

32. Most people don’t know how to listen to music. They blare music via earbuds while they exercise, but that’s just music as medication for their boring routine. If the activity was fun, they wouldn’t need music to drown out its blandness. Sit back, breathe! If you go to the gym you see lines of people with earbuds, endlessly running on treadmills yet literally going nowhere fast. This is not “listening to music!” Nor is it empowering. It encourages banality and a lack of spirit.

    In the modern world, music is mostly medication. It distracts from crap jobs and crap exercises and a lack of personal inspiration. Play! Is the civilized adult truly capable of such a verb? Let the world’s ambience be your music. Then when you get home, sit on the couch, idle, and put on some music. Sip wine and let it stir the mind. Yes, you have time!

33. Being able to say “No” is one of the greatest strengths an individual can ever have. If you do not learn to say “No”, the masses will trample you. One must say “Yes” very selectively.

    Say “Yes” to opportunity, say “Yes” to adventure, say “Yes” to live music shoes, say “Yes” to laughter with friends. Say “No” to the herd and their tricks to belabor you and drain you of your wallet.

34. I have four plants. I learn a lot just by watching them. Their life is a lesson in the power of moderation. I think it was Aristotle who said that there is a balance to everything. The gluttonous and the ascetic receive misery in equal doses… even an abundance of moderation can cause issues. Just enjoy the light and the dark as they hit naturally.

    Too much water and the plants drown in it. Not enough water and they wilt. It is the same with our own earthly pleasures.

35. If you write for critics, you aren’t writing. If you write for money, you aren’t writing. Writing for me is primarily an exorcism. I don’t aim to make a penny with this blog.

36. 37 is not a guarantee, it is a gift. So 36 should be spent intentionally.

Today’s Injuries and Tomorrow’s Healing Process

I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle today. It was the second time in my life that a car hit me while I rode a bicycle. The first time was in college, about 16 years ago.

I had a long streak of days without an injury, and was beginning to think again that I was invincible. This is usually how the universe gets notice that you’re overdue for a little pain. The universe can only stand so much pride before it says, “Okay Virgo dude, enough with the cockiness!”

I had a nightmare the night before that had eerie parallels to my collision today, though I was driving a car in the nightmare instead of riding a bicycle. In the dream I had pulled to the side of an Interstate to answer a phone call. When I drove back into the Interstate lane, another car roared out of nowhere and hit me at an intensity that sent my car tumbling over the edge of the Interstate, which was about a hundred feet above ground.

As my car crashed into the grassland below, I realized that I had a “Rewind” button for time itself. It was sort of like the remote in the Adam Sandler film Click, but it could backtrack time when necessary (how wonderful if we could all have such a remote for the things we say and do!). I aimed to rewind my life in hopes that I could do so before my death. Maybe I could backtrack an hour and re-route my drive home.

However, I accidentally hit the “Pause” button on my time remote, not the “Rewind” button, and I did so too late. I hit “Pause” at the very instant the collision eradicated me from existence. So there I was, trapped in eternal darkness, a millisecond before my final demise, too weak to hit rewind. Time itself paused and trapped me in that instant. I was in a crouched position and completely immobile. I couldn’t move and all I could see was darkness. I was in a purgatory, stuck between life and death, between free fall and collision. It was not the first time I’ve had a night terror involving purgatory.

I woke up from the dream screaming. It was a legitimate night terror that had convinced me that I was in hell.

But there I was, awake. Wow was I glad to be alive. Fast forward a few hours.

I was riding my bicycle home from the UPS store a few minutes before noon. I stayed within the bicycle lane and wore a helmet. It seemed like it all happened at once. A car swerved in front of me, only yards ahead of me, and then maneuvered to turn right onto a side street. The car decelerated suddenly for the turn, too suddenly for me to use my brakes. The driver was likely texting and driving and had no idea I existed.

I crashed into the side of the car, hitting it with my left ribs. I ricocheted backwards and hit the road with my right ankle first, then the rest of my body. My ankle collided and twisted against the road at an unnatural angle, and I knew immediately that it would be a pretty significant injury. My bicycle then crashed on top of me.

An agonizing pain immediately swept through my ankle. I waited there, sprawled on the road, expecting the car to stop and return to where I was and perhaps call for help.

The car drove off.

I knew my ankle was in bad shape because I’ve had some significant injuries, including bone breaks, before.

I was about to give up on humanity, but I heard voices calling me, asking me if I was okay. A family (a father, wife, and daughter) rushed to my aid. I told them that I was fine, as I hadn’t hit my head, the most important of my body (Virgo, remember?). Thanks in large part to the adrenaline, I slowly managed to stand up and limp off the street.

The family asked to drive me to the medic. No, I said, I’m fine. I think I can walk home. Don’t mind the scrapes. They’re just flesh wounds.

We didn’t manage to get the license plate of the car that hit me. That was unfortunate. But people who didn’t know me tried to help me. I’ll remember that. It just takes one. We aren’t all rotten.

My shoes got destroyed from the collision. That was unfortunate too. My bike wheels got bent out of shape and will need replacement. That too is unfortunate. My shirt got torn to shreds from when my back scraped the road. Hey, like the other things I mentioned, that’s unfortunate. I liked the shirt, shoes, and bike wheels. But they are things. Things can be rebuilt.

I was mostly worried about the ankle. Walking is everything to me. Walking is life. Movement is life. I use the word “love” selectively, but I love being mobile, navigating, and thinking while on my feet.

With the adrenaline surging through me, I somehow managed to limp three blocks back to my apartment. I can walk, I thought. And thank God for that.

The ankle swelled up over the next few hours and I lost all mobility in the foot. It was not long before the adrenaline wore off and the pain flooded in. Any pressure on the foot caused agonizing pain. I decided a visit to Total Access Urgent Care was warranted.

I got some X-Rays. The muscle ligaments in the foot and ankle are severely sprained on both sides. It might take a few months to fully heal. But my foot isn’t broken.

It could’ve been so much worse.

Some time with an ankle brace is a blessing. I am fortunate. All in all, I’m in good spirits.

It sucks that it happened just before my birthday, and it sucks that I’ll probably be sitting on my ass for the next few days.

But my bike will get repaired. My foot will heal. I’ll walk and run again. I’m glad for that. I don’t know what I’d do if those abilities were removed from me.

The foot seems like a nice metaphor for life and growing up, and what it takes to maintain integrity and goodness and go out into the world and just be you in spite of those who will despise who you are to the core.

Sprained, but not broken. Swollen, but not torn. Willing to stand up when others are willing to run you down with a much bigger machine than the one you own.

I’m relieved that by chance things did not go worse than they did. I landed at what I’d consider a pretty lucky angle. I’m also grateful that my partner was willing to drive me to the doctor and look after me when it wasn’t at all necessary.

I’ll remember this birthday for awhile.

I’ve got a nice foot brace. Good news: it fits within my sandals!

A Tribute to My Grandfather

This morning I found out that my grandfather passed away the day before. He was the last of my grandparents still alive, and he fought for life far longer than anyone would have ever given him credit for.

I had a dream not long ago in which I visited Hank. In reality, I had not seen him in years. I am not sure that I could withstand what dementia and age did to him, had I attempted a visit.

I’m not one to believe in fate or in dreams portending reality, but it seemed fitting that I was allowed one final visit in my dream, and that my dream allowed me to see the old Hank, the incisive and witty grandfather whom I knew from childhood. I was able to wish that version of him goodbye. I don’t usually thank the higher powers that be, but I am thankful for that one final encounter. And I’m grateful that in our final meeting, he proved his doubters wrong with a dance and a joke.

My grandpa loved me. I’ll always remember that. I remember the joy he had in making breakfast pancakes for my brothers and me. Damn were they delicious! I also remember his mastery of crossword puzzles and his rapid rate of reading. I remember him reading several books each week; he was a sponge for knowledge. I also remember his fascination with my hobbies, and with my brothers’ hobbies. He was genuinely interested in the shows we watched, the books we read, and the video games we played. He was happy to just watch us doing something that captivated us.

My best memory, one that I’ll always be thankful for, was from a childhood day on a Florida beach. It was decades ago, so the name of the beach escapes me, though I’m pretty sure it was Daytona. I was with my brothers and several cousins. We were playing catch with a football, racing back and forth on the warm sand, sending the football sailing into the air. My grandpa was already rapidly weakening at that time; this was not long before he lost the ability to walk.

He watched us play and I could tell that he wanted to join us more than anything in the world. Finally he got up from his lounge chair and he walked toward us, though the other adults cautioned him to take it slow. “Are you sure you can do this, Hank?” I heard them ask. Yet he shirked them off, he walked forward, and then, to my greatest shock, he ran a little! And he ran towards the football that had recently fallen on the beach.

He bent down and picked up the football, and he threw it towards the kids!

The football did not go far, but the disbelief that I, my brothers, and my cousins had in that moment was incredible. We did not know he could ever do such a thing, but we knew he did it because he wanted to share our fun.

I also had the dark realization that I had just watched him throw the last football he would ever throw, and potentially run for the last time that he would ever run. I have no way of confirming this, but I suspect it’s true. And he did it to have fun with us. I’ll always remember that. There’s something extraordinary in seeing someone perform what we assume to be an everyday action for the last time.

He was always great at surprising people. Even his longevity was a surprise. He was supposed to be the first of the grandparents to go. He loved scotch and he never exercised, after all. His diet wasn’t the best either (to understate his diet).

95 years is an incredible span, and many of those years blessed everyone around him. Whomever you are, my anonymous reader, I wish you could have met him, back when he was healthy. You would’ve liked him. He could’ve told you about more books than you ever knew existed, and he probably would’ve made you laugh more than a few times.

I remember a joke he told me in my teenage years, moments after I went “Number 2” at his house (following a large dinner). I told him that I had just taken a particularly huge dump and he retorted, “I know. Your eyes just turned from brown to blue!”

I’d say he’s in a better place, but I’m not certain that’s true. The concept of an afterlife is a relatively dubious thing. It seems more likely that we return to the place from which we began, which is nothing. But perhaps nothing is a better place, as it is a place still residing completely outside of decrepitude.

Death is not easy, and for Hank, sadly, it was slow and torturous. I suspect if I live for 95 years, my death will be the same. And likely your death will be the same as well, my anonymous reader, should you live long enough. And that’s okay. It’s an unspoken brutality of life, but I find it preferable that we accept it as a natural consequence of age.

Like Hank did so many times, we still have the potential to make something of ourselves today, and to make something special of the occasion, to run when everyone expects us to only crawl, and to throw a football when everyone expects us to hide in the shade and watch from a safe distance.

Hopefully I can meet you one more time, somewhere out there in the cosmos, Hank. If there’s a heaven, it smells like fresh and syrupy pancakes right now.

Minimalism: the Perfect Number of Possessions

“The best thing is to possess pleasures without being their slave; not to be devoid of pleasures.” Aristippus, 435-356 BC

What is the perfect number of pants for a minimalist to own? I read this question on forums a lot. I’ve even typed it in the Google search engine a few times. Surely whatever I own now cannot be the ideal number.

Chasing is ingrained in us. If we are not racing to a pinnacle, it seems we are racing to a valley.

By searching for this question, I read accounts of several triumphant minimalists who manage to live with only one pair of pants.

I compared myself to these minimalists. “I have several pairs while they are fine with one… how do I declutter? Do I have too much, or too little?”

The problem for me was not that I owned too many pants, but that I felt the need to compare my belongings and standards to another’s. That I felt the need to move one direction or another to fix my relationship with things.

Ironically, such a mindset stems from the same source as maximalism. It involves a chase, and it presumes that one’s current state of being cannot be satisfactory.

A chase for less is as pointless as a chase for more if the parasite that is the consumerist mindset is not removed from the host. Because ironically, chasing places one’s thoughts on the very thing that shouldn’t be prioritized: stuff.

What is the perfect number of pants to own? The answer is what I have now, unless what I have now is causing legitimate life issues. Maybe what I have isn’t sufficient for work, or isn’t acceptable for my social gatherings, or simply doesn’t fit anymore. Then it’s time for a replacement. And the replacement should be affordable, and intentional, and used to the bitter end.

I consider myself “maximal” only in that I like to enjoy ”stuff”. I have summer pants that are breezy and winter pants that are cozy. I have loose pants and slim fitting pants. I have pants for winter running and cycling. I’ve used every pair. At the end of the day, it’s just fabric.

The perfect number of pants will be different for each person. The nomad living from a backpack may answer, “one”. I’ve been that nomad. The banker with a wardrobe of business suits may answer, “fifteen”. The point is the function, not the quantity. I’ve been closer to that lifestyle as well.

My purchases are intentional enough, so I don’t think about the number of things in my closet. I am not an ascetic, nor do I find asceticism alluring in any way. It is true that the things we own can enslave us if we let them, but they can also enhance us if their primary use is to help us go places.

The key, for me, is a shift in mindset away from a common “minimalist” branding that focuses on quantity (“check out my empty room, is yours this empty?”) and more towards an objective mindset that focuses on efficiency. If “stuff” serves a purpose, let it serve. I’d rather be served than serve another; serving something material sounds like hell.

Of note is that one’s base level of happiness does not seem to increase from the act of being served, or from the peacocking of one’s own status. It is a dopamine rush, an injection of heroin, and it does feel good for a moment. But the drug depletes quickly, and the depletion rate accelerates over time. In contrast, being enslaved, or in service, or indebted, will always exacerbate one’s base level of misery.

Base happiness seems to grow more like a tree, requiring carefully planted seeds, a steady yet moderate amount of water, and a lot of time.

At some point, we will think about our stuff. Maybe we have to consider our possessions in order to resolve a deeper issue within ourselves. In considering our possessions we ask ourselves, are we actually using our purchases or letting them collect dust? If a coating of dust forms on our shirts, if moths eat away at our sweaters, then our purchases were obviously not intentional. Why? What part of advertisements was it that sucked us in? Are we chasing a pinnacle or enjoying a process?

The key, for me, is to avoid a chase, whether it be up or down, left or right, forward or backward. Stay put, enjoy what’s here.

“The white rabbit is a slave to the queen.” - Tom Hodgkinson

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)

Car-Free Life: Replacing the Car with a Bicycle

There are a million what-ifs and doubts that may race through your mind before saying goodbye to car ownership. You’ll never have them all covered, but that’s part of the fun. There’s also a long list of reasons why car ownership sucks. You only live once. Why not brave the unknown?

Don’t worry about the unknown: the best artists know that beautiful art will stem from getting lost or wandering off the beaten path and having a journey to find your way back home.

A Random Dream

My grandfather has been suffering dementia for over two decades. He’s in his mid-90s now, and as of this writing he’s still alive.

I haven’t visited him in years, but I’ve heard him described as a shell of his former self. I imagine a frail husk of a person, withered and weak, wizened and pale, moving here and there but not fully aware, wheelchair bound and incapable of much else besides weak breaths.

I had a dream the other night that I visited my grandfather. Before the visit my family members warned me: “You’re going to be shocked and horrified by his appearance. The person in that nursing room is not your grandfather. He won’t know you or remember you.” My grandmother, who is now dead, was also in the dream, warning me that the encounter would be a painful experience.

I opened the door to my grandpa’s nursing room and was greeted by a version of my grandpa that existed 30 years ago. He was mentally sharp, still possessing color in his hair, and he stood up on his own two legs. He joked with me and shook my hand. Behind me, my family was silent.

It seemed he had hoodwinked everyone, I thought, like Willy Wonka’s introduction in that old 70’s film!

“Don’t be fooled, he might look okay right now, but he’s in terrible shape and has no mind left,” someone whispered to me, convinced that what we just witnessed was only a momentary flash of acuity.

“Don’t listen to them!” My grandpa declared. “I’m fine, see?” And he shimmied a dance move, grinned, laughed, and took a sip of scotch from a nearby glass. “What a joke I pulled on everyone, huh!?”

Baffled, I proudly shouted, “See, he’s fine! He’s in even better shape than all of us!”

I woke up and thought about death, how grueling it is. Like a leech devours blood, age will drain someone of their identity slowly, over many years. If we live long enough, we will inevitably watch someone close to us die horribly.

I often suspect there is no soul or afterlife. Our minds contain our full identities and ability for self consciousness. Our concept of ourselves is therefore as fleeting as a shooting star, a flash in a sky filled with glittering lights that’s gone and easily forgotten. Blink and you’ll miss it. With the passing of the mind, a vessel remains with lungs that expand and contract, and a heart that weakly pumps blood through arteries. It is still something organic, like a tree, but tragically little more.

Identity is therefore fleeting, so it’s important to have a strong grasp of it while I can. It’s a valuable commodity for any person, more precious than any metal or money, because without it we are not fully alive. There’s no rule on how long self consciousness can last, but it tends to be shorter than one wants.

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.

Mimetic Desires and the Art of Being Scrappy

For most of my life, I have been what I consider “scrappy.” I did have one relatively brief flirtation with the pursuit of material things. It lasted about a year and a half, and was born from a number of events that are another story entirely. For the most part, however, I have not followed the normal trajectory of pursuing “stuff”. Stuff does not usually interest me unless it enhances the things I can do. Experiences therefore reign supreme.

“We move from a teeming college dorm to an apartment to a house, and if we’re really wealthy, to an estate. We think we’re moving up, but really we’re walling ourselves off.” - Eric Weiner

The chase for more is born from mimetic desires. We form our desires by studying the desires of other people. It is only natural because we are social creatures. It is what salesmen and influencers prey on.

On a materialistic level, we pursue the homes, cars, clothes, shoes, gadgets, devices, and screens that everyone is in a chase to own. The race makes us frenzied dogs foaming at the mouth for more. We believe we need “it”, whatever “it” is. A model flaunts it in a chic location, under a perfect lighting scheme. It sheens on a corporate VP’s wrist, and the diamonds tantalize! It is everywhere, omnipresent, hovering around us like God, whispering to us that we lack it, but that perhaps if we swipe our credit cards it will bring us salvation. Salvation, of course, is constantly just out of our grasp.

I try to remember: there are some races that are impossible to win.

I have never felt much mimetic desire for things. Only when mistakenly engaging myself in a social competition do they arise. Only for one brief period did I give in to the race. For the most part, however, I was never even on the track.

I lived in a garage during my last year in Los Angeles. I followed that with three years of living with my parents, in my old bedroom, while I worked full time.

For my first major foray into work, I bought one pair of twenty dollar shoes at Wal-Mart and wore them until the soles were completely removed from the uppers.

I drove the first college vehicle I bought until I moved to China, and owning one vehicle felt like owning one too many. I sold it when I knew I was China-bound.

I lived in the cheapest apartment in Chapel Hill with a roommate shortly after moving out of my parents’ house, with approximately 700 total square feet of space to share. I rented it because it was the cheapest apartment I’d ever heard of.

I moved to China for two years. Most of my first year was spent in a dormitory with little heating and no A/C. I spent the summers sweating and the winters sleeping in my winter gloves, jacket, and scarf. I spent most of my second year in an apartment bedroom smaller than most closets. It had a severe roach infestation that I battled until my return to the United States.

My homes, my clothes, my shoes, my cars, were often the worst, and I never cared. I never cared because it meant avoiding debt.

Harsh conditions do not trouble me, nor do people with nice things.

I returned to America at age 33 and it is probably no surprise that scrappiness is now engrained in me. My current apartment is 800 square feet and that feels like way too much. I bought a car fully with cash in 2019 and it also felt like too much, so I sold it in 2020.

I am scrappy by nature. I prefer to sweat. I enjoy wiping dead bugs off my brow and legs after a long summer bike ride.

My mind goes to day 2 of my recent bikepacking adventure. I’m somewhere outside the north entrance to Skyline Drive, at a camp site pretty far removed from what most would call “civilization.”

Next to our tent is a trailer, and outside the trailer is a shirtless man, living alone, drinking a beer and watching the sunset. He’s smiling, but it isn’t the simple urban smile of someone posing for a selfie in front of a cappuccino. Out by the Blue Ridge Mountains, he has nothing he needs to buy. He’s smiling because the mountains are enough.

Remove exposure to those who desire things, and you remove the desires for those same things.

This means removing the people who pursue “more” from your close proximity, but it also means removing exposure to the gadgets that bring them within close proximity.

This is no easy task. How badly do you want to leave behind your longing for more?

Too Many Gurus, Not Enough Students

“I adhere to a guru-free philosophy, I don’t claim to have all the answers.” - Chris Guillebeau

Social media is inundated with gurus. Beneath the facade of most wisdom-givers is a product to sell, or a subscription, or a “like” button. If you do not pay the gurus with money, which you usually do, you pay them with your time. Interspersed with the time you spend reading or listening to them are advertisements that remind you of the core of the guru’s wisdom. Your current life is lacking, and this product is the key to improvement.

“Time is money,” Benjamin Franklin claimed. I do not wholly agree because I see time as a more valuable commodity than money. Franklin measured time as a cost in dollars per hour when in fact one cannot put such a number on something so intangible. Money can only satisfy the flesh, whereas time can satisfy the soul. We have too precious little time to spend and our sense of time accelerates as we age. Giving our time to fake gurus, or to anyone in a wasteful manner, is a higher cost, in my opinion, than adding credit card debt to our bank accounts. Time has been sold to them, and if the guru succeeds, credit card debt will accumulate anyways. Adding credit card debt, by the way, can be very damaging to the human spirit.

It seems like these days it is the gurus themselves that are often the commodities. Companies buy them in exchange for the act of flaunting their products on YouTube or Instagram or whereever the hell they taut their grandeur. Gurus are often nothing more than vessels for selling things to people. They are interchangeable in the eyes of a corporation. They are bodies for t-shirts, mouths for online programs. They are essentially McDonald’s stores, and we, the readers and viewers, are often sitting in the drive-through lines, “engaged” with social media, for something that earns someone else profit.

It is a fine line when blogging between giving advice and sharing things I’ve learned. Sometimes I have to catch myself and backtrack. The last thing I want to be is a guru, and the last thing I want as a measurement of a writer’s success is an engagement metric. To me it’s more about finding things that go well or wrong in your life and thinking, “If this is resonating with me, maybe it will with someone else too,” and then putting those thoughts to words.

Life is about connection, not subscription.

The Nothing

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” - Socrates

I had a fun conversation this week with a colleague about the 80’s film The Neverending Story. In the days that followed I found myself thinking about the evil that threatened to destroy the magical world of Fantasia, “The Nothing.”

The Nothing was tied to the human world. In the film it resembled a black hole that swallowed and essentially deleted from existence all of the mystical lands and creatures of Fantasia. It was directly correlated with the adult lack of imagination and failure to dream or read books.

With the film having been released decades ago and the book it’s based on long before that, I wonder if The Nothing would have easily triumphed over Fantasia in today’s world. I suspect it would.

I recalled a friend of mine’s toddler who sat in the back seat while we drove to a museum, the toddler’s eyes glued to her tablet screen. How will such a toddler, always enveloped by dopamine-inducing stimulus, ever have time to imagine? It is through boredom that creativity grows. It seems that The Nothing now swallows many of us before we are even old enough to read in the first place.

The Nothing makes us busy, and in its clutter it makes us barren. With more websites to browse, more things to buy, more emails to answer, more shows to watch, more tasks to complete, The Nothing envelopes us in inadequacy. And at the core of this inadequacy is money. Therefore, money is at the core of The Nothing.

The toddler therefore abandons nature in favor of WiFi.

On the other end of the age spectrum is the retiree. Consumed with planning, the 65-year-old retiree is concerned almost entirely with projections. Projections of lifespan, projections of benefits, projections of health. All of these projections gravitate around money.

Whereas they once fretted for their job security and bonuses, retirees soon fret for health security. The primary question of the consumerist model does not fully disappear: Do I have enough?

Gone are simple days spent being. With money having consumed the retiree’s every thought, every worry, and every bit of motivation, for years upon years, the modern consumerist model has completely devoured the retiree’s spirit. Wholly dependent on the system for what the retiree now values most, which is predictability and stability, the retiree no longer focuses so much on what he or she deems trivial: things like creation and meditation. What money, what insurance, after all, are supplied by creativity? Instead, the retiree’s focus is on wills, on healthcare, and on potential future nursing homes.

Burn me at the stake, I say, before sending me to a damned nursing home!

Free from the shackles of work, the retiree is shackled to insurance and rife with anxiety over pension plans. “Will I get my promotion” is quickly placed with, “But will it get me through?”

The what ifs of the working world subside, and the what ifs of the healthcare world infect.

It is no wonder then that so many retirees struggle to find purpose, when in fact there is a thousand years’ worth of purpose in a single ray of sunshine. The retiree’s sole focus for so many decades was on “finally having security” that the act of retirement only breeds more insecurity: a lack of passion, a renewed anxiety over wellbeing, and a focus solely on money.

The retiree, consumed by being busy, struggles to breathe. He or she will therefore often find new things to be busy over, and there is great risk in these things being too superficial to live long for.

The focus for so many decades was on having enough money that money can become the retiree’s primary value. It will not simply dissipate because one is retired. It will instead shapeshift into forms more sinister. The Nothing will prevail.

And in between the toddler that is introduced to a consumerist model of screens, and the retiree fully consumed by the consumerist model of funeral planning and pension spending, are those lost in between, navigating the unknown, figuring out what is truly valuable to them.

Will The Nothing finish them off, or will they learn to read again?

It is easy to be rendered cynical by the hoard, but it is still relatively easy to defeat The Nothing.

Take a moment to breathe. Do nothing, just stare and breathe. Let your mind wander where it may. Don’t look at any screens or the wasteful notifications that blink from them. Don’t prepare anything or mark anything or clean anything or throw anything away. Was it easy? Then do the same, but for ten minutes. Then try an hour. Look at a plant, or an animal. Let your mind wander. Then when you’re done, pick up a book and read a few pages.

The Nothing just shrank a bit.

Rule: Don’t Chase

Being told I have to obey rules can give me an ill feeling, maybe because I usually associate rules with school. The modern school system is more focused on molding and shaping thoughts than enhancing them. It’s also more driven to produce perfect workers than to produce modern intellects and abstract thinkers.

Rules, however, can add value to our lives. Rules are required for any civil contract to form between people. Without civil contracts, we devolve into a form of Darwinian savagery. The constraint brought forth by rules can allow for liberation; rules can focus us on what matters while blocking what doesn’t.

Give a film a time limit and the story can be told concisely.

Tell a classroom of students to listen and respect one another, and each individual’s thoughts can be expressed freely, and contribute to the search for a greater meaning.

Tell an employee not to work on weekends and this person’s wellbeing will be extended.

Sometimes, but not always, rules should be unmalleable. The Ten Commandments provide moral tenets that universally prevent the inner destruction of a culture. It is the absolutism of them that has brought forth much of modern civilization. Some rules, therefore, must be permanent.

If an individual does not set forth personal rules and boundaries, that person invites others to set rules and boundaries for him or her. And these rules will likely not be to the benefit of the individual. Therefore, by neglecting rules, one invites tyranny into his or her life.

I have a rule for myself, a primary rule, based on my own experiences and struggles. Maybe it can or should be a rule for you. It is not a rule I have always obeyed. In fact, it’s a rule I’ve often neglected, and when I’ve neglected it I’ve paid severe consequences.

Rule: Do not chase unless it’s for fun.

• Do not chase material things, because even ownership is ephemeral. At some point in the future, a time you cannot possibly determine, you will die, and a loved one will be forced to either rid your belongings, take them, or sell them to someone else.

• Do not chase material things because the chase will carve a hole in you, and the hole will only widen as the chase continues. To chase a thing means to assume that ownership of said thing will fix something broken in you. After a time, you will realize that you are no better or worse off with your newly aqcuired object, and you will chase another. The chase will drain you of time, money, and individuality. The objects you purchase will not relieve you of any burden, but rather will add new burdens. You will fret over them breaking and degrading, and you will scramble to find places to put them.

• Do not chase status, because to do so assumes that status brings you self-worth. It assumes that your current status is not worthy of being. Because there is always a higher status than your own, this chase cannot possibly satisfy you. Social media presents the epitome of this danger. One can never have enough likes, and there are illimitable people to compare yourself to, if you choose to compare yourself to others.

• Do not chase the validation or approval of people because you subject yourself to their judgment. The basis of this mentality is that your own wellbeing is dependent on the whims of another’s opinion of you. There is nothing more dangerous than giving someone else this sort of power over your health. If you chase a job promotion to the extent that you subject your sanity to the whims of a boss, you enslave yourself to that boss. If you chase a lover to the extent that you place your livelihood on the whims of their approval of you, you invalidate your own self-worth.

Games are another matter entirely. To chase for fun is to enjoy a moment and accept a potential thrill. What, then, is it okay to chase? Some examples:

• Chase the queen on a chess board.

• Watch a child chase butterflies and rabbits. Can you do the same?

• Chase green lights while cycling through a city.

• Chase your dog if it won’t give up a ball in a game of fetch.

• Play tag, or baseball, or basketball. All involve a chase of some sort.

To ease the sense of lack in your life requires you to stop chasing material things. Chase something if it’s fun. Be brave enough to let others chase the rest.

Some Fails

1. I was cycling on what must have been a Saturday because it was later in the day than my usual bike rides are. The sun was out but I opted not to wear sunglasses, as the sun only occasionally peaked from behind a cluster of clouds. The true price you pay when not wearing sunglasses during a bike ride in summer has nothing to do with squinting. About twenty minutes into the ride a mosquito landed in my left eye and died there. I tried to rub its remnants out of my eye while still cycling, but all that did was spread its bodyparts through my eye more. It was another hour before I arrived at my apartment and was able to wash the last of the mosquito out of my eye.

   About three days later I went for an early morning bike ride. I was half asleep when I embarked and didn’t realize until ten minutes in that I didn’t bring sunglasses yet again. About ten seconds after I realized my fail, another mosquito landed in my left eye and died there. Way to learn from my mistakes. Doah!

2. I road my bike to work on Friday. It was the first time riding in the (almost) summer. I was naive enough to think that my backpack could contain both my sealed coffee mug and my work clothes. I arrived at work with coffee flavored damp work clothes. Luckily my pants were linen and dried quickly. Also lucky was that almost no one was at the office thanks to COVID rules leaving most at home. They might not have approved of wet coffee flavored work clothes. Doah!

3. I ate too many fried cheese curds at my favorite winery in Hermann, MO this past Saturday. I felt fine after the first wine tasting, but the cheese curds completely incapacitated me. I overdid it. It seemed like there was a hundred of them and I gulped them all down. I ended the day in a humid hotel room that lacked a functional air conditioning, my body sweaty and stomach roiling. Death by cheese curds. Doah!

4. Several years ago I attended a work seminar. There was a task where we were supposed to write a set of positive and negative elements to our department processes. We were to write each item on a “Post-it Note” and then stick our notes on a whiteboard, one by one, and tell the group what we wrote.

   I wanted to impress everyone by having the most Post-it Notes and wrote furiously on note after note. When it was my turn, I proudly marched to the front of the room. I did not realize that I wrote on the wrong side, the sticky side, of the Post-It notes. When I pressed the first Post-it Note to the board, I watched in horror as it didn’t stick and then slowly floated to the floor. I attempted a second Post-it Note, then a third. They all fell to the floor. Trembling, I looked around the room and everyone was trying their best to contain their laughter.

   Doah! Death by Post-it Notes.