Swimming: Beginnings and Endings

I found myself reflecting today on how my swimming career began and ended with largely similar feelings.

1996. I was eleven and lost in a crowd of spectators at the US Southern Zone Swimming Championships. I was at the pool that hosted the Atlanta Olympics, watching the finals of a meet that I barely qualified for. I wasn’t fast enough to make the finals and was largely an afterthought on the North Carolina zone team. I felt so neglected that I’m sure most of the coaching staff forgot I was on that team as well. There were too many point scorers for me to be noticeable.

I was lost in thought watching the finals, thinking about how I wanted to compete and admittedly how I wanted to be adored, as the champions on the pool deck seemed to be. Winning felt like something far off in the distance, about as intangible as high school. Everyone was cheering for the swimmers in the finals, as was I, but my mind was yearning to be something more than a spectator. My ego wanted me to be one of those swimmers being cheered for.

I stood next to a coach for a club team in North Carolina who introduced himself as “Coach Hunt.” I remember him telling me that I’d be in the finals one day. “Your time will come,” he said. I was surprised he even knew I was a North Carolina swimmer.

I won my share of Southern Zone Swimming titles in the five years since that conversation. Admittedly none of those victories satisfied my ego like I expected them to; I just kept chasing higher, and my ascension in sport continued for years. Every victory just led to a meet with still-faster athletes.

In that moment at that 1996 meet, however, I couldn’t think of anything beyond “not being one of the slow people.” It was an experience that left me resentful; it felt like I was at a meet that I didn’t belong in, swimming a few races that no one cared about. I hated that feeling.

2008. Omaha, Nebraska. The US Olympic Swimming Trials were sold out in a stadium that could host an NBA game. My last important race was in a pool as large-scale and magnificent as that 1996 pool.

I finished my final race at the US Olympic Swimming Trials, a semifinals 50 meter freestyle, and knew immediately that I didn’t advance to the finals. My swimming career was over.

The 50 meter freestyle was more of a bonus swim for me. My best chance at making the Olympic team was in either the 100 or 200 meter freestyle events, and those already transpired. I was knocked out in the semifinals of both races. I didn’t have a legitimate chance at a 50 meter freestyle Olympic birth, but I raced it anyways since I had an Olympic Trials qualifying time. It was sort of a “last hurrah,” a final gallop before saying my goodbyes to some longtime friends. It was a cyclist’s equivalent of a final stage at a tour, knowing that a top finish is fully out of reach.

I remember the ending being abrupt and followed by a strange silence that engulfed my mind, in spite of the raucous cheering taking place at the Trials. Most of my University of Texas teammates had already gone home. If we didn’t qualify for the Olympics, we had to return to Austin, Texas following our final swim. I was no different.

I skipped a routine warm down swim. There would be no practice the next week, so what was the point? My coach was busy with some of his other swimmers, so I embarked on a long walk back to a hot tub. I sat in that hot tub for awhile, just breathing and relaxing. It had been a very long time since I just “let myself be comfortable.” I had a difficult year leading to the Trials. I broke my right wrist just nine months prior, and my shoulders had slowly deteriorated through the course of my final NCAA season. None of that mattered anymore.

At one point I chatted with another swimmer, an older Olympian, and we exchanged a few jokes. That swimmer had already qualified for the Olympics. We’d both be packing our bags, but heading in opposite directions. The conversation was a brief moment that I only remember because it immediately followed the last race of my life.

I packed my swimming gear and dressed. There were a lot of coaches and swimmers I’d known for many years, some for over half of my life. I said my goodbyes to some of them and eventually found my own coach, Eddie Reese. I shook his hand and told him thanks for everything.

Then I walked to my hotel alone on a cool summer night in Omaha, Nebraska. The sport of swimming would continue, of course, but my time as a swimmer was over. There was no greater meaning that dawned on me upon that final race, nor was there a sense of closure. It just sort of ended.

The journey ended about like it began: alone, while the competition continued past dusk and the spectators kept cheering, regardless of my presence.

I think it’s a fitting life lesson.

My Authoritah: The Horror!

The human psyche can seem as confounding as the universe itself, if not more so.

The horror genre is very much in vogue right now. Recent film offerings such as M3GAN, Barbarian, and Smile absolutely slayed (no pun intended) the box office. This is at a time when the movie business is supposed to be in a state of slow decay (perhaps on life support thanks to streaming services and social media).

Genre does tend to reflect society. I find it interesting that on the heels of a pandemic, horror is the choice of escapism. Then again, horror is fun (for some). When effectively produced, it activates one’s fight or flight stimulus. It is an adrenaline surge, an exploration of the unknown, and a reminder of the darkness that may lie beyond societal boundaries (and a more secret and more sinister darkness within the self).

I’ve seen all three movies mentioned above. Of the three, I found Barbarian to be the most wildly unpredictable and interesting. Smile was the scariest (it’s relentlessly intense). M3GAN is formulaic but fun.

There’s an upcoming sequel/new installment to the Evil Dead franchise as well: Evil Dead Rise. The previews hint at something macabre, but whether the movie has a sense of fun remains to be seen. I do wonder if it can capture the comic and at times campy bodily horror of the Bruce Campbell-starring originals. The previous Evil Dead revamp had tons of horror, but zero chuckles. I need the modern equivalent of an Evil Dead 2 highlight: Ted Raimi dancing around in a “zombie grandma” costume and spitting profanity. What the Evil Dead originals effectively realized is that horror and comedy are closely intertwined.

The current horror series taking viewers by storm is The Last of Us. My first thought upon viewing episode one was, Damnit, they beat me to the idea of a zombie plague being started by fungi!

However, the series is based on a video game, and the idea of a fungal epidemic has actually been floating around for years. I can’t claim it as my own.

Aside from the idea of a fungus turning people into zombies, it’s a fun zombie show. It’s entertaining enough to keep me watching. It also pales in comparison to the far-superior South Korean zombie series, All of Us are Dead.

I think the series is off to a solid enough start. Pedro Pascal is an immensely talented actor who was a highlight in the Nicolas Cage meta-film Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. It’s no surprise to me that he can carry a franchise.

I think back on horror being an addiction one final time. How is it that nightmares can be so unbearable, but horror films so intoxicating?

Navigation

I was at the bus stop at North Hanley station, where I saw an older blind man navigate a narrow and inclined walkway. The walkway had a sharp 90 degree turn and cement sides. He had nothing but his cane for help.

Yet the blind man somehow managed to navigate this walkway unscathed. At the bottom of the walkway, a woman whom I assumed was his wife waited for him. They hugged, and she led him to their vehicle.

I thought in that moment that regardless of any hardships I’d faced before, they still pale in comparison to the battles that millions of others face. I also thought that life’s too short to engage in these sorts of battles alone.

In the blind man’s walk from the metro station, I saw not only the value of companionship, but also the benefit of continuing on for someone else, and the potential added boost of motivation that provides. This sort of benefit clearly makes navigating something that would be seemingly impossible, possible.

Speaking of navigation, it’s common in the post-COVID era to see cars roar through red lights, swerve into oncoming traffic to bypass a slower car, or drive recklessly in various other ways. It’s easy to be upset by this sort of behavior, and indeed these sorts of drivers reek of anxiety and manic depression, which probably permeates to other drivers on the road.

However, the universe is playing a cruel joke on them. By attempting to cut corners, they save no time. They risk life and limb, sure, but they are still bound to a system of traffic flows and employment start times. They still sit in a car motionless, and they lose life from the anxiety of their haste. Their work begins and ends at the same hour, and the tasks completed will be the same. Worse yet, nothing kills a body quite like stress. Their intense accelerations further waste higher amounts of fuel, which they must pay.

They are not gaining time, they’re losing it.

They are still white rabbits in the end, rushing for a date, and still therefore slaves to the red queen.

One of the ultimately ironies in life is that those who rush tend to waste the largest amounts of life.

Footprints in the Snow

It has snowed twice in Saint Louis over the past ten days.

The first time, five inches were expected, but the clouds only delivered a light powdering over the streets coupled with some ice. I ordered some Yaktrax that were delivered the day before the storm and wore them for a morning run. The Yaktrax allowed good traction and I was never close to slipping.

As I darted back and forth along the Riverfront Greenway, I noted the tracks that my footprints left behind in the snow. These markers signify that someone ran through the inclement weather, though they’ll also melt and disappear in a day’s time.

Time will eventually erase my footprints, as it does all things.

I had abandoned most, if not all, of the athletic footprints I’ve left behind. As an elite level swimmer I won hundreds of medals and trophies, some of them at the NCAA, national, and international level. I also lost most of them, if not all of them. My reasoning for tossing them is that I never felt it’s healthy to cling to something in the past. I want to constantly be forging ahead, and I aim to direct my thoughts more on what’s next than on archived text.

I’m actually keeping some of my latest running medals though. Last weekend I ran a personal best 15k, and within the race I had a personal best 5k and 10k. Improvement is fun at any age; it’s also possible at any age, though not in any activity.

Now that I’m more than 15 years removed from swimming, I see how memories and times steadily fade. I found myself Googling some of my past accomplishments that I had forgotten. How did I forget that I was voted most valuable swimmer after my freshman year of college? I think I forgot about that within a year of finishing school. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but it’s interesting that it happened. I see now that having a visible signifier of some of these things may keep them in my memory longer, and without memory we have no identity.

I recall visiting my old college coach in 2015. My final record (for an 800 yard freestyle relay) had just been broken; it had stood on a wall of my old collegiate swimming pool for more than seven years. At the time it was an American and NCAA record. He had the record in his office, a long strip of cardboard that was previously affixed to the pool record board. He gave the cardboard strip to me. I’ve since lost it and wish I hadn’t.

The cynic in me may say that a medal is nothing but a chunk of material to be ultimately tossed by someone else when I’m permanently gone. Everything that remains after I’m gone, in fact, would be a heap of donations and disposal for those who are left behind. There is some truth to this.

However, the optimist says that a medal is a footprint left in the snow, and by maintaining it the snow may melt a bit slower. It’s true that the footprint will fade, but I might as well cherish it while it remains. One doesn’t need to obsess over something to cherish it. The trash heap can wait a few more decades.

Our footprints in the snow are nice reminders of great adventures.

Poison

In honor of Alice Cooper’s 75th birthday, Powerwolf released a cover of his hit song “Poison.”

I’m glad the track is more uptempo than the 80’s original. It doesn’t add much more than some additional speed, but I still enjoyed it.

“I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison.” Damned if that isn’t my thought every time I smell fresh-baked cookies or pizza.

Another random thought when I listen to “Poison” regards the wellness industry as it exists today. They say there’s an industry born from every problem posed. This is true in any capitalist society, and companies are inventing problems at breakneck speed. To have their industry thrive, they must convince you that something in your everyday life, which you assumed to be benign, is actually poisonous. It might even be your natural body that must be cured.

These companies really thrive when they’re able to convincingly exaggerate the danger of the problem.

I’ve seen recent advertisements tell me that tap water isn’t safe, and therefore I must buy some egregiously expensive purifiers. But that’s not enough because the purifiers strip water of all minerals. So, I also need to buy minerals to put back in the water. Well what is the point of living in a developed nation if decent water is only for the aristocrats, and must be paid for with subscription?

Likewise you need air purifiers and various scents because you are constantly breathing in poison too.

There are admittedly places where this is true. There are certainly countries where I wouldn’t recommend going outside without a well-filtered mask, nor would I recommend drinking the tap water. And it’s also true that tap water often contains fluoride and chlorine, which when consumed in large quantities can be bad for your health. But how bad?

A multitude of skincare companies tell us about how harmful the sun is. Stay inside, they say! Or if you dare to venture out, buy their cream and lather it all over yourself first! It’s a matter of life and death.

It is true that the sun may induce cancer into the sedentary office individual who dwells under fluorescents all day (and all too eager to fry at the beach for a week’s vacation). But we somehow survived for thousands of years with a fraction of the sun cancer we see now, and I suspect it’s because we absorbed sunlight in more reasonable daily amounts.

How did we ever survive beyond adolescence before these companies existed?

My point to all of this is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to decipher the real poisons from the fake ones. Then again, at the end of the day everything is poison if overdosed on, and it’s also true that modern society is causing a lot of individuals to suffer horribly, especially in their later years.

But still, isn’t a better solution to modern maladies to shift culture instead of to simply buy more products?

I’m still convinced that one can live well in a modern developed country at a reasonable budget… if one can decipher truth from the BS, and if one can engage in a healthy community.

My Authoritah: Changing Seasons

Stranger Things season 3: Complete!

I recently finished watching season 3 of Stranger Things. I have some criticisms about character development, but the final episodes packed an emotional wallop that left me biting my lower lip in order to constrain my emotions.

My criticisms:

1. Mike is essentially a useless character at this point. While he was a driver of the plot in season 1 (and his relationship with Eleven was both sweet and expertly crafted), by this point in the series he is reduced to a bit part in a fairly routine back-and-forth teen drama with Eleven. I found the relationship between Steve and Dustin far more compelling. Steve actually has what I would argue to be the most dramatic character arc of anyone in the series (from shallow bully to selfless savior). I am very much on “Team Steve.”

2. Nancy and Jonathan similarly have some relationship troubles that essentially go nowhere, and as a result their characters fall flat. They bicker for awhile, fight the Mind Flayer together, and make up. There is an emotional farewell in the season finale between them, but that’s the only true high point.

3. Detective Hopper spends the first 6 episodes essentially being a caricature of his previous self. The season 1 Hopper was a detective with layers: tormented by the loss of a child and prone to self-abuse, but still retaining a heart of gold. He’s left with little to do in this season but act grumpy and yell at people, and I never fully believe that his chemistry with Mrs. Byers is authentic until the final episode. The season somewhat redeems itself with the character by giving him an incredibly emotional sendoff.

In spite of these flaws, which I consider to be minor, the series is still highly entertaining. I love the subtle nods to 80s cinema such as the Terminator lookalike hired to kill Detective Hopper (although he is Russian and not Austrian). The series also has clever plays on 80s materialism at the apex of the Reagan era. The mall worship is very apparent.

The Mind Flayer is an imaginative and horrifying opponent for the protagonists. I’m not sure how one thinks of such a thing. It seems like an amalgam of every night terror I’ve ever had.

FInally, the Billy character has a vital moment of redemption in the final episode that stuck with me. In episode one he is among the most loathsome individuals I’ve ever seen a series. Steadily though, the season sprinkles depth to his backstory. By the finale, he comes full circle and in his final moment, fully redeems himself. That’s screenwriting at its finest.

Servant season 4: say wha?

I truly do not know why critics are fawning over season 4 of Servant. To me it’s a routine retread of past seasons, and a nonsensical one at that.

What arrested us in the first place was the mystery of a doll that has the ability to turn into a woman’s baby, which is eerie because the baby supposedly died in a horrible accident. That mystery is gone now and in its place is a tiring “war” between a religious cult and a nanny with some strange mystical powers. I can’t help but yawn because I’ve seen it all before.

I’m still watching, but not because I’m compelled. I just want to see what the resolution is.

This season is the most poorly-written of all of them. My criticism is similar to my remarks on Stranger Things. Sean is now a one-dimensional imitation of his character from past seasons. Naive, overly submissive, and constantly moping around, there seems to be nowhere for the character to go. He’s in a perpetual state of sadness, which would be gripping if there were any hints of potential change in him.

The saving grace for me is Rupert Grint. He’s a true scene-stealer and brings more complexity to his character than the rest of the cast combined. Hopefully he’s recognized for this performance.

Slipknot

Slipknot released a surprise single called “Bone Church.” The instrumentals are interesting and certainly take me to a certain melancholy time and place in my life. It’s not the sort of song with a strong hook or an upbeat melody. It plays more like a dirge. I’m not sure what to think of it yet.

I do wonder if Slipknot is tired of their own commercial success. Free of their label, they seem more keen to experiment. Maybe that’s for the best. They don’t need to release metal songs with blast beats anymore, and with their members entering their 50s, it might not be reasonable to expect.

Let’s see what they have in store…

On Plant-Based Eating

I have no doubt that plants have a capability of healing the spirit that borders on mystical.

Add a few plants to a living room and you’ll probably find your own blood pressure lowering. It could be their mere presence doing the healing. Numerous studies have documented this. Run in an area with trees and you’ll find what anxiety you have will slowly diminish as the minutes tick by. Hiking is often seen as a therapeutic exercise not because it involves a lot of walking, but because it involves a lot of nature.

To this date there has been nothing made by humans that matches the healing capabilities of plants.

I mention this because I’m writing about something that I’ve told almost no one: I’ve been focusing on a plant-based diet. I can’t help but wonder: if the presence of plants soothes the mind, does favoring plant consumption heal the body?

I mostly keep my dietary habits private because diets tend to emit strong emotional reactions from people. At some point in recent history, diet became an ideology. The idea of “arguing about diet” with other people does not appeal to me. I’d rather just share my thoughts and experiences.

I do think that there are numerous moral justifications for striving towards veganism. One of the top reasons for me personally is that the American diet tends to be heavy on animals that I consider to be both highly intelligent and woefully mistreated. Industry commits some pretty horrific acts on these animals.

Urban American dog parents, for example, find the idea of eating dogs to be diabolical if not purely savage, yet are frequently eager for their bacon and sausage. Why, other than cultural norms? There is nothing to classify a dog as morally superior to a pig. Both are intelligent and highly affectionate species of animals.

My switch this year was not a sudden shift in belief. I planned to switch to either vegetarianism or veganism a long time ago. When I turned 21, I promised myself that I would switch to a plant-based diet before age 40. This year I’m turning 38.

My initial desire to eat plant-based food was a mostly selfish one: the potential for longevity. I’m too aware of the rates of heart disease in America, and to put bluntly, I want to live. I aimed to switch before 40 because I figured the body would only become more susceptible to disease in middle age.

I never planned to switch to veganism for the sake of athletic performance, but I can safely write that so far, my results as they pertain to running are bettering my expectations. I’ve heard arguments both for and against veganism as it relates to athletic performance. To that I respond, athletic performance is pretty secondary to me at this stage of my life. I was already an athlete with a full collegiate career and retirement, so I’m not “chasing” marginal gains.

A vegan diet can be broad in food intake, and I should emphasize that I focus on plant-based whole foods. I’m not munching on “vegan cookies” all day. I am fully aware that being “vegan” does not necessarily make one “healthy.”

I find myself feeling better by the week. I’m convinced that I’m healing. My aches, pains, and stresses are minimal, and at the same time I’m running more miles per week than I ever have in my life. I’m recovering from intense exercise well and sleeping steadily better. By every metric I am more fit now than I was before I broke my collarbone (I started experimenting with vegetarianism a few months before my collarbone break, and have been attempting veganism through 2023). Obviously time will tell how this diet transfers to running and cycling events, but I don’t see a plant-based diet as a detriment to my exercise. So far, I’d say it’s boosting my performance.

Sustaining veganism practically requires the ability to cook ones own food, in my opinion. Don’t just quit eating meat and looking around for microwaveable meatless foods. It helps to have the ability (or learn the ability) to cook meals with all-natural, plant-based ingredients that you enjoy. Otherwise it can be an act of masochism.

I find that eating until I’m full is key, and that requires eating what can visibly appear to be larger portions (the food is less calorie dense). On a diet without meat, it can take a very, very full plate, or several plates, to fill the stomach. But enjoying what you eat is the only way to make it sustainable.

I’ve been mostly enjoying the recipes in Dan Buettner’s book, The Blue Zones Kitchen. My own dinner staples have been mostly from the book: herbal minestrone, tofu stir fry, and corn hash. I like to supplement those with buffalo cauliflower or air fried kale chips. I bring this up to emphasize again that a consistently hungry vegan will probably not be a vegan for long.

I observe that there are a lot of sick people in the US right now, which is one of the reasons I want to mention veganism’s potential. A lot of sickness can be remedied through food choice. That’s especially difficult when grocery stores are plagued with 90% processed crap and when fast food tends to be the most affordable option. Affordable veganism is possible and can be relatively easy to prepare. A primary problem, in my opinion, is that it’s not a common part of our culture; those who need it most are often unaware of its existence.

So if you’re reading this and had floated the idea of veganism before, I say give it a try.

Welcome to the Hustle

PC powered on immediately upon returning from a morning run. VPN connected. An onslaught of unanswered emails. Microsoft Teams messages requesting answers to urgent questions. Everything is pressing, everything is dire. The careerists will rest when they’re dead, and if their sleep is any indication, that may sadly happen sooner than they’d like.

I prepare a smoothie and a coffee. In those minutes spent preparing breakfast, the emails continue piling. Performance is on the line. Schedules must be finalized. People must have answers.

I sip my coffee slowly and read a little Orwell. I mute the abrasive Microsoft Teams sounds. Peace is my preference.

The screens glow, but it is nothing like the soft and soothing incandescence of a firefly at night. It is an intrusive glow, a glow that disrupts rest and shortens breath, a glow that sends the blood pressure steadily up. It is an artificial light from an artificial app, rife with artificial messages that are plagued with artificial pleasantries.

There is no empathy for my own personal interests in this screen-plagued environment. I am a cog in the wheel. Should I break, another cog will quickly replace me. I am one bullet point in a list, somewhere in a section within a procedure. My replacement would likely be bought at a cheaper price. If I exercise routinely or eat well, the other cogs scoff; they are content to just sit, log in, turn the wheel, and be careerists. They don’t prioritize movement, long meals, sunshine, or conversation. They prioritize work.

Health is nothing in the eyes of the false idol that is careerism. This false idol demands you sit, obey, and devote yourself at the altar of the corporate ladder. If you are not a team member, by golly you must be selfish.

The adherents to careerism answer emails well into the evening hours. They do not read a bible before bed; they check emails. They do not take a walk through the park unless they can multitask it with conference calls. They do not see meals as festivities; they seem them as necessary acts of binging that could potentially impede productivity.

I ignore my messages for a few minutes and take a walk outside; it’s 9:00 am. Patience is not a virtue in this place; it’s an interference. You need goals, I’m told. I have a goal though: to enjoy my day. The sun still shines outside. Microsoft Teams will be obsoleted long before the sun collapses. A mere hundred years from now, most career roles will be obsoleted and their participants likely buried. Yet trees will still grow at that time. Birds will still lay nests. The earth will continue its revolutions around the sun, and careerism will have not even managed a blip on the radar of the universe.

I salute you, quiet quitters.

Ice Cold

The Saint Louis air was frigid and dry on Sunday morning. I exited my apartment just before dawn broke and I exhaled a visible plume. I quickly wrapped my arms around my torso and shivered.

The run was through Simpson park, my first run in the area. I noted a river glinting silver to one side of me. The desiccated and barren trees made it seem like something crucial in the park was missing.

I was on a group run but somehow still lost in thought. My mind traced back to a night terror I had several nights prior.

In the dream I was swimming in a mysterious river’s dark waters, against current. Storm clouds gathered suddenly and my stroke rate accelerated, eager to escape the river. Eventually I made it to some shore, where a group of parents stood vigilant.

“Where are the kids?” One of them asked me.

And suddenly in the dream I was a coach, and I was supposed to be leading a team upstream as part of a workout.

The rain pelted everything. Thunder roared. Shadows stretched. Panicked, I jumped back in the river in search of the athletes. One by one, I started to find them. I woke up wracked with guilt.

I don’t know what the dream meant, if anything, but I find it interesting that I’ve had several memorable dreams about rivers over the past few weeks.

I finished the group run feeling fresh, which was a surprise. The day before was the longest run I’d ever completed: 16.9 miles (27 km). The fresh feeling in my legs was a good signifier that I’m adapting to longer distances.

Looking ahead, I am signed up for a running event on Saturday, a 15k run. I have it in me to run faster than I ever have before if I choose to push myself, and that’s exciting; improvement usually is. I’m not sure, however, that it’s competition that engages me with running. I think I’m running because it has been some sort of act of self-healing. I’m feeling steadily more rejuvenated. Through the act of running I see potential longevity.

There is something about the imperfection of an outdoor run that makes it perfect. It’s always too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy, or includes too many hills. I realize through outdoor endurance exercise how little control I have over the universe. My lack of control is somehow freeing. A surfer can’t catch anything good by fighting against the current, but rather has to take what is given, even if it’s almost nothing. Similarly I can’t have a good run by exerting beyond my limits, and I can only fight snow and ice so much. It’s a game of patience. There’s a brief period of time in the day for some runs, and then a whole lot of waiting between the gaps.

Life happens between those gaps.

Random Thoughts: Form and Function

I think for any artist, it is a mistake to think that improving form will automatically improve function.

Consider the career trajectory of a rock musician. The upstart rocker is young, raw, and still developing technical skills on his or her instrument. Sometimes a band will release an album that “takes the world by storm” before its members can read a line of music. What most fans will consider their best album is often an album created from what the band members profess as “little knowledge of what they’re doing.”

An aged rock musician may say, “My skills have improved drastically since my first album.” Though the technical skills may improve, the quality of the music diminishes. The earlier albums had a rawness that lacked sound form, but walloped with effective function. Resonant art requires feeling. A fast solo does nothing without emotion embedding it.

I’m sure the band members of Metallica can play circles around their past selves. They can hit every old solo blindfolded. That does not mean that modern Metallica music is better, however. If anything, the music has objectively staled (almost no one would argue that Death Magnetic is a superior album to Ride the Lightning). Where rock music counterpart Megadeth has an advantage is their continued sense of urgency. Every song is still imbued with feeling. The fifty-year-old has the same attitude as his 18-year-old self. There is still pain, triumph, and loss behind the song structure. The quest continues, and therefore, so does the art.

The issue is similar for a writer. A writer’s prose may improve over the years, but that says nothing of the story he or she may wish to tell. A writer may edit a sentence a hundred times, but each successive edit does not necessarily improve the sentence. The master of syntax is by no means the master storyteller. That first drafted sentence, the impulsive one, may be grammatically worse, but it also may pack more punch. Even if embarrassingly poor in structure, it probably impacts the reader more than the hundredth edit. By the hundredth edit, can it even be said that the writer still maintains the intention of the original sentence? After all, the first sentence was probably written on feeling. The hundredth sentence is often written to impress an audience. Something was lost along the way.

My point is that effective art requires work, but it is a mistake to believe that function requires perfect form. This should be good news to any aspiring artist because it gives him or her permission to be imperfect, so long as they have something to say and a fiery means of saying it. It should also illuminate why a guitar virtuoso is often not the writer of a hit single.

Healing Bones

I had my followup visit to the Orthopedic this week. I’m in what I would consider the “later stages” of healing a broken collarbone.

I was told that the bone is about 80% healed. The x-rays still show some hairline fractures that need to close, but the actual break is callused and together. There is some pain, and still some range of motion to restore, but the trajectory is positive.

I’m continuing with another six weeks of physical therapy (two times per week, one hour per session). I’ll also continue with my at-home exercises. I anticipate feeling near 100% within a few weeks.

I’ve realized over the past two months one brutality of civilization: it doesn’t wait for a broken bone to heal. The work doesn’t stop, nor do the chores or daily obligations. The journey towards reclaiming your health can be a lonely one: no one fully understands your battle as you do.

I may participate in a group run, for example, but no one else would realize that a cold gust of wind can penetrate my bone and cause deep pain. Nor would they know that I spent the previous 8 weeks just trying to make my right arm operational.

It is the same with the little struggles I’ve had. It was more than a month before I could physically tie my own shoes, drive a car, and lift an object over my head. Putting on clothes was a struggle, as was showering. It’s amazing just how much you can lose when just one bone breaks.

That’s how it should be though. That’s life. We have things to shoulder and always will. If everyone and everything around me stopped because I was in pain, there would be no obstacle to overcome, and therefore no triumphant feeling when the journey out of pain is finally complete.

Sometimes the only option is to embrace the maelstrom.

The Healing Properties of Food

One of the more drastic changes I’ve made to my lifestyle over the past two years is my rate of cooking.

I’ve learned, in steady increments, a pretty diverse array of dishes. I’m by no means an expert chef, but I am finally seeing the value in cooking natural foods. I am also seeing meals less as acts of shoving food down the throat for the sake of “good feeling,” and more as calming social and artistic rituals.

Through the act of cooking I am also gaining more awareness of the healing properties of various foods (and conversely, the inflammatory properties of most modern processed foods).

On Tuesday I made a Sardinian-style herbal minestrone for dinner and woke the next day with noticeably little fatigue. The aches and tightness I often feel from a week of heavy running were minimized. I felt fresh and significantly more mobile. I had what ended up being the fastest run of my life.

My journey to nutritional health began with an experiment several years ago. I wanted to see what would happen if I ate steel-cut oatmeal every day for lunch (mixed with granola and blueberries), for a period of several months. What happened was remarkable: my health improved by a considerable magnitude in almost every category. My blood pressure, for example, is now the best of my life. My LDL cholesterol dropped from more than 190 mg/dL to somewhere around 50 mg/dL. In short, it went from “higher than healthy” to “very healthy.”

I’ll avoid getting into detail of my current diet here. I will note though that my great epiphany has been that health is nearly impossible for the individual who can’t cook his or her own food (or who doesn’t live with someone who can). Without this ability, you are beholden to industry and its pre-packaged shipped goods. Just as bad, the non-cook forsakes a valuable social ritual in favor of timeliness. Cooking is a physical and mental act; it is an art. It’s also a connection to be made with other people, like writing or painting. A writer needs a reader just as a chef needs a diner. To abandon the ritual surrounding cooking is a great loss.

As I think about my recent affinity for cooking, I also find myself increasingly nervous from how my own path seems to be diverging further from hustle culture and what I’ve seen deemed as the “hedonic treadmill.” I can’t deny that the modern, office-oriented sedentary lifestyle is becoming increasingly less appealing.

The silver lining of the COVID pandemic, if there was one for me, was that remaining at home illuminated the poisons that hustle culture may induce into its unaware victims. There is a race, but most of the participants don’t know what actually waits at the finish line: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, anxiety, neurodegenerative disease, and excess materialism.

Now that I realize how little I want to participate in the material hustle, I can’t help but wonder: what’s next?

The Pain Debate

A few days ago I watched a runner struggle to complete an 8-mile run due to what appeared to be severe knee injuries. As a result of her injuries she ran nearly straight-legged, as though her legs were stilts. Watching this run made me wince. I still don’t know how it’s even possible to run without bending your knees at all.

It is often a mistake, I think, to label “pushing through injury” a virtue. For many, though, pushing through pain is not only a virtue, it is a badge of honor. I do wonder if it is linked to the post-Industrial quest for something better in the distance, a quest that requires an eternal struggle for more.

Pushing forward in spite of injury rarely if ever improves anything. Doing so is often the equivalent of jogging on a high-speed treadmill, or jogging underwater in the midst of a powerful ocean current. Any attempt to move forward will just throw you back more violently.

I think of a story that I read in the book The Way of the Ultrarunner. A Kenyan runner was brought to England in order to run, and hopefully win, an ultramarathon event. At the event he was comfortably in the lead with over half of the race complete when he suddenly stopped. He grinned and didn’t appear to be in pain. When asked why he stopped he replied, “I hurt my toe.”

His sponsors could barely contain their fury. Hurt his toe? Of all the things elite athletes have powered through over the years… why would an established marathon runner stop for a sore toe? Yet his fellow Kenyan runners praised him. They saw the good in prioritizing and cherishing his body.

In the debate between which is better, I lean towards the Kenyan runner’s approach. I think back to two incidents from my adolescence:

In the first incident I was at a high school swimming practice. In the middle of a long swim I developed what felt like a severe stitch in my side. It was piercing to the point that I struggled to breathe. I stopped swimming and climbed out of the pool. An assistant coach was running the practice and quickly barked at me to resume the workout. I left the pool anyways. I trusted my instinct, which told me that something was wrong.

“Just get in the water, it’s nothing you can’t toughen out,” he kept saying.

Though he was furious, I felt that I did the right thing. It can be difficult when a figure of authority has a conflicting opinion to your own, especially when you’re young. Yet life is short and health is shorter still. What if the issue was catastrophic? Is finishing a boring swim practice worth permanent injury?

In the second incident I was a bit older. During a high school flag football game, I took a nasty fall on my elbow while sprinting. A golfball-sized swelling developed on the elbow and I could not bend it for several days. I do recall seeing a doctor for it. Eventually, after the swelling eased a little, I was pressured to compete at a swim meet, though the elbow had not fully healed. It still didn’t bend without pain. Yet I felt immense pressure to compete from all sides; in fact, I don’t think there was a single voice in my ear telling me not to compete.

I did reluctantly compete through the injury, and in retrospect I regret doing so. The elbow healed, but the muscle healed a bit oddly around the bone, and now there is a popping sensation, albeit a painless one, each time I bend the arm. It was not until recently that I visited an Orthopedic who assured me that although the injury healed a bit oddly, it would never cause an issue (just a harmless “pop”).

And what if the injury did not heal well? How much would I have regretted giving into social pressure and competing through my injury then?

You often walk a fine line when deciding whether to exercise through pain. You can feel immense pressure from both peers and from time itself. Maybe there is a marathon in two months and you suddenly develop an ache in your right knee. Do you run through it? Do you find a method of strength training to address what might be a physical deficiency causing the injury? Do you make a change to your technique that potentially minimizes the chance of the injury worsening?

Whatever you do, I believe there is virtue in erring on the side of caution. There is a time to maximize effort, and it’s not when you’re injured. You cannot opt to return to a routine that caused your pain in the first place. It is pointless to resume the activity that caused your injury without at least first evaluating whether you can make an adjustment that may prevent recurrence.

I admittedly find caution to be difficult. I often want to challenge myself. I often have a little voice inside my head saying, “If you can just overcome that pain in that one little part of your body, you can make it.” Admittedly, I’ve also had instances where I pushed through an injury that was fairly severe (and paid for it for months afterwards).

My own history has shown me that caution rewards more than risk when it comes to injury. Hopefully I can find the courage to stop myself on a run in the event of a hurt toe.

Range of Motion

With each passing day I find myself regaining a little more range of motion in my right arm. Recovering from a collarbone break is a long process that requires patience, but patience is not a skill I naturally have. I’d like to snap my fingers and poof, find myself magically at 100% health. Healing is not always measurable in days, however.

I heard an interesting metaphor for the process of aging: you are essentially stuck in quicksand, and at some point you will fully sink. The most you can ask for is a few tools to shovel the sand away temporarily. Some of these “tools” include diet, exercise, and sleep. Without them, you’ll sink faster.

“Just keep moving” tends to be my own mantra. Or as the bone break taught me, “Use it or lose it.” Four weeks in a sling cost me a great deal of mobility that will take awhile to regain.

To think that I was set back so far from just a month in a sling is eye opening. A life of inertia is surely crippling to one’s range of motion. I see it often in the office: the typical office employee could never dream of running one mile, nonetheless 26 miles. Heck, I’m not sure most can jog 400 meters comfortably. Can the typical employee even kick up his or her feet? It seems doubtful unless supplemented with some sort of cocaine-like stimulant beforehand. Granted, many do not care, as money and career are supposedly the priority, which culture does preach. I also note though that most are oblivious to the gravity of what they’ve lost. I’ll choose mobility any day.

A 40-year-old sedentary type and a 40-year-old routine exerciser are not biologically the same age range. This I’ve seen visibly. Their vitality and appearance are vastly different, almost as though they are not both Homo sapiens.

At running events, for example, it is common to see a 50-year-old capable of running fast speeds for hours at a time. It barely seems possible when first introduced to such feats. I remember running the mile as a child, for example, and winning by default simply because most of the kids couldn’t run the whole thing. Yet it is easy when swept in the excitement of such an event to believe that the norm is to cover vast distances, often at a quick base, with just your feet, and to do so well into your later years. An office will remind you that it is not the norm in America. The norm is a struggle up a flight of stairs. The norm is a pained shuffle from the car to the desk. The norm is a drive-thru food order, or these days, a phone app food delivery service.

As I write I realize the magnitude of my own desire to “just keep going”. Above I mentioned quicksand. Most nightmares I’ve ironically had since childhood involve running, but feeling slowed, or sinking in quicksand. In nightmares that involve swimming, the pool is often too dark for me to see and I quickly find myself lost. Or maybe my goggles leaked water to blind me. This doesn’t surprise me because nothing scares me more than stopping. I don’t necessarily mean stopping a daily exercise routine either. I mean stopping movement. Stopping the bikepacking adventures, the runs, the ocean swims, and the occasional game.

If given the choice, I’ll choose motion every time. Give me a shovel and I’ll see how long I can stay above the quicksand.

Die to Live

Yesterday evening I cleaned one of my two bicycles. The endeavor was painful because one of my arms is both weak and injured. I live in an apartment and use Muc-Off products to make the bike shine and glisten. I then topped off the tires with sealant (I ride tubeless) and oiled the chain with dry lube.

I am preparing myself mentally to ride the bike again, though I am still far from fully healing after my collarbone break.

I woke early this morning and ran for about an hour and fifteen minutes at an easy pace. I then did an hour of strength training with resistance bands (mostly lower body excercises such as banded squats) and foam rolled to promote mobility.

By the end of all these activities I found myself pretty languished, and my work day hadn’t started. Dawn barely broke. I find myself pushing forward regardless. I am preparing for a marathon.

Why do we endurance athlete types push ourselves to such long distances, day in and day out? Well, I have a theory: over the course of our lives, we accumulate a hefty weight of baggage, which we have to carry around with us in our daily affairs. The added weight worsens the already-debilitating effects of gravity. Some of us have accumulated so much baggage that we barely know what resides beneath the layers.

So we find a challenging activity like running or cycling, and in the back of our mind we want to see “just how far we can go.” Fatigue accumulates, mile by mile, and the layers of baggage seem to fall off, chunk by chunk. And maybe what’s left on the long run is who we truly are. Or maybe what lies beneath is the answer to a question we didn’t realize needed asking.

The question is, “What do I need to do?”

And the answer is, “Live.”

And in a nutshell, it’s our way of dying a little to live a little.

Happiness, Pain, and Destruction

We’re on the cusp of the curtain call for 2022.

I spent last night reading some of George Orwell’s old journals and letters (he was a prolific writer even outside of his novels). In one entry he wrote of the inevitability of experiencing happiness, pain, and destruction in one’s life.

2022 was, personally, a great year that certainly included a plethora of happiness, a cocktail of pain, and glimpses of destruction.

Happiness:

1. Hiking through Yellowstone and exploring mountain ranges outside Bozeman, Montana.

2. Attending weddings in Ohio and North Caroline, for a cousin and a friend, respectively.

3. Bikepacking along the east coast of the United States for hundreds of miles and camping in nature.

4. Exploring the San Diego, California beaches and city.

5. Completing my first (and second) half-marathon.

6. Visiting family in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and observing the insanely large numbers of iguanas in the area.

7. Exploring Northern California, particularly Sonoma County and San Francisco, seeing the various geographies including valleys, forests, and beaches, and drinking some of the best wines I’ve ever tasted.

8. Hiking through Shawnee National Forest and lodging in a cabin nicely tucked away from civilization.

9. Celebrating three years of a relationship.

Whew! All that in one year!?

I had one pain that was more obvious than all others, and it was physical. I began 2022 the same way I ended it: in physical therapy. In January I was finishing physical therapy for a damaged foot after being hit by a car in 2021.

Then, in early November I broke my collarbone in a cycling crash. I’m therefore closing 2022 in physical therapy as well (but this time I have already returned to running and most activities). I do not want this to be an annual December activity!

It’s a shame that both injuries occurred on a bicycle, but it’s a reality that I must accept. Your pain is a lonely endeavor, and the relationship between you and your pain is perfectly monogamous. Pain devotes itself solely to you, and like any relationship, only you can grasp the entirety of its severity.

I’d write that the good thing about pain is that it inevitably goes away, but this would be a lie. Various pains linger on, and some pains only gradually worsen. Orwell, for example, contracted tuberculosis, and his final years alive were spent in gradually worsening pain.

My point from writing this is not to horrify, but to note that pain shouldn’t be feared, but rather accepted as inevitable.

And what about destruction? One of my uncles passed away, which was another reminder of my own mortality. We tend to put the “ass” in “assume” by assuming that our lives will be long, but the sad fact is that many of us go too soon. What awaits on the other side I won’t delve into here. I will only note that we have no choice but to pass eventually.

If we fear the future it breeds anxiety. We should just accept it so that we can focus on today.

And that quick summary of some happiness, pain, and destruction closes 2022, dear reader. I’ve kept my online journal going for more than two years and intend to continue in 2023.

Hopefully next year brings a plethora of happiness and a minimal amount of pain and destruction for the both of us! On to the next adventure…

A Case for Taking Back Mornings

One of the great casualties of the Protestant work ethic is the loss of one’s right to a leisurely morning.

Hustle culture has committed this atrocity, this butchering of a peaceful and idle morning, for the sake of what it calls “progress.”

Therefore, the virtue of doing little is replaced with the anxiety of cramming too much into a limited number of hours. Ironically, the more tasks one attempts to cram, the less significant the morning becomes.

The tea drinker of old is virtually extinct in the United States. Making a good tea requires patience, quietude, care, and time. Leisure time is unacceptable for the modern careerist that dominates the material west. The careerist sees only a future to sprint towards and a coffee to chug along the way. This is somewhat mandatory in the eyes of many, as there is always a bill to pay and a material to purchase.

It is this rush forward that ironically strips the careerist of time. It is common for the office executive or sales representative to say, “I don’t know where my years went.” Meanwhile the present moment stands still for the idler because he or she is capable of enjoying time itself.

Whose ideal morning actually involves an alarm clock? Alarm clocks should be thought of as the original sin, since they are the first sin to introduce themselves in the day. The ideal morning begins after dawn, without the strident sound of an alarm clock, when final dreams peacefully transition the mind to a waking state, and then subsequently fade from memory. Maybe some of these dreams are written down. Others are recalled as strange or beautiful, but quickly forgotten.

The idler then shuffles out of bed and if there is a rush, it is only to the couch, where repose continues. Or better yet, the idler stays in bed! There he or she reads for awhile, and maybe journals. If feeling tired, perhaps there is another attempt made at sleep.

Once rest is deemed sufficient, the ideal morning consists of tea or coffee. However, this should be a ritual, not a rush! Coffee should not come from those awful K-cups or automated machines, but rather from a French press or pour-over method. One should appreciate and detect the flavors of the roasted beans. The coffee should be sipped slowly and enjoyed while listening to music or engaging in pleasant conversation. It should not be delivered via drive-through or slurped in a car.

Drinking a cup of coffee or tea should have no time limit. If it takes the entirety of a morning, so be it.

And what of exercise? I journal my own extensive running and cycling miles, after all. And admittedly, most of my exercises are performed at an early hour.

But they shouldn’t need to be an early morning masochism! An exercise in the modern west is nothing more than an obligatory chore, a mandatory movement that’s only required because work is so sedentary. Therefore, exercise in the modern west is a hustle in itself. This should be changed.

Let’s assume one decides to exercise in the morning. Exercise should, ideally, be an adventure. It should be a game, a way of life. Racing is often fun. Getting faster is both fulfilling and painful, but one does not need to commit routine self-destruction or follow a miserable routine just to get faster. Exercise should include places to explore and people to meet. It can be a blend of suffering and joy rather than pure suffering. Life itself is a blend of joy and suffering, so it makes sense that the ideal exercise mimics life itself. Exercise should allow one the opportunity to see the world through new and unique perspectives via the gift of movement. One does not require complete body breakdown to adequately exercise.

Exercise should not be viewed as a quest for more self-inflicted pain. This is how the Protestant-minded careerists view exercise because they see the body only as something to punish in the pursuit of “improvement.” Why, I often wonder, does one commit so much self-destruction via work, only to further the harm with terrible means of exercise?

So yes, I value exercise, but I also challenge the notion that it should be a “pre-dawn task.” I also believe that ideal exercise is done outside. Maybe it’s a bike ride after tea or coffee and a bite to eat, and maybe it can wait until the afternoon. Exercise can be a fun routine when it isn’t rendered overly mechanical.

Exercise, like tea, is a process to enjoy, not an obligation to hurry through.

Can much else be accomplished in this fictitious-but-ideal morning? Sure. One can laugh, love, write, paint, compose, or whatever craft that involves both mind and matter.

However, mornings have been devoured by e-mails, rush-hour traffic, fast food, and long work hours. If we hypothetically managed to take all of these out of our mornings, I argue that we would not have the alarmingly high rates of depression we currently see in western civilization. In fact, we’d be fairly content.

Although I know this ideal morning is probably impossible in modern culture, I nonetheless think it’s worth imagining. The quest for “less” is probably futile in a world forever bound to craving more, but one can wish…

Braving the Cold

Much of the United States had a record cold temperature this week and a blizzard to compliment it. It was a rare “white Christmas”, one of the few that I’ve experienced.

I embarked on long runs on both Christmas Eve and Christmas in spite of brutally cold temperatures and icy conditions. The ground was coated with ice and powdery snow, and the winds were harsh, but I ran regardless.

To many this probably seems reckless. My broken collarbone is still healing, and the cold seems to dig into the bone itself. The slightest gust of wind triggered pain where the break once was. It was an uncomfortable sensation that I hope isn’t permanent.

I risked falling again because I find myself needing the movement. I was cautious though; I ran at a slower pace than usual and slowed to a near-halt when the ground looked slick. I didn’t fall, though on a few turned corners I slid a little.

I continue with my physical therapy. If all goes well, I only have three more weeks. My physical therapist was shocked yesterday at my fast rate of healing. Of course there are still issues, but for only having been seven weeks since the collarbone break, my arm is doing well. I’m raising the arm over my head comfortably now, lifting light objects, and opening heavy doors without fear. I’ll be back on the bicycle very soon.

We can only change so much. I was the sort of kid that saw a hill and mostly wondered how fast I could sprint down it, and the attempt often involved a fall. If I am being honest, when I see hills I still think the same way. Whether on a run or a bike ride, there is a need for speed that I can rarely tame.

I have three prominent new scars from the last bike crash. The most severe scar is on the right shoulder; it will never vanish completely. That crash saw me land on the right shoulder, which is what caused the collarbone to snap. I will start putting vitamin E oil on the scar to minimize the appearance. The other scars are on my right hip and leg. It was initially fearful that I broke three bones: my collarbone, hip, and right femur. However, only the collarbone actually broke. The other bones were severely bruised but stayed intact.

A colleague once told me that I was insane for cycling in cold weather. Exercising in the cold, however, is laughably easy if you have the right apparel. I had to bite my lower lip to prevent a harsh response. I think it’s insane to let the body languish without movement and natural sunlight “because it’s a little cold outside.” It’s even more insane to avoid doing something that you enjoy. Cold is just discomfort; there’s nothing crazy about being willing to experience discomfort. Without discomfort there is no adaptation, and an organism that refuses to adapt will perish under the slightest of disturbances.

Intentional discomfort is not the norm in modern culture. The norm is office cookies, heated car seats, social media grandstanding, and fake pleasantries. Some of these things may be harmless in small doses, but all are crippling as “norms.” None of these strengthen you (maybe cookies if you are preparing for hibernation).

I ran a total of 18 miles (29 km) between Christmas Even and Christmas alone. It isn’t the most I’ve ever run in two days, but considering the harsh weather we’ve had, I think it’s enough. I built up my mileage a little too quickly, which caused a shin splint in my right leg about two weeks ago, but fortunately this splint seems to be subsiding now. I am pretty well acquainted with pain at this point. A splint is the least of my worries.

“Swimming would be very good for your collarbone and shoulder when you’re ready,” my physical therapist told me. “It will help you get your strength and range of motion back.”

I haven’t swam much the last few years, but I do think it will help me regain my range of motion.

In the meantime, I’ll continue running in the cold.

Loss Aversion

We hate what we lose more than we love what we win.

This generalization of the human mind has been proven on a neurological level. Through evolution, our neurotransmitters have become wired so that the hatred of losing outweighs the love of winning. This was pivotal thousands of years ago in preserving our species. If dwelling in a cave, you must protect your very finite resources, which is far more important than risking limbs for another banana.

I find myself spending upwards of one hour each day rehabilitating my broken collarbone. I have physical therapy twice each week. Whatever exercises are assigned to me to complete at home are completed both in the morning and at night. I find myself obsessed with getting something back that I once had. The thought of losing complete mobility is unacceptable.

I do not think it’s the thought of winning anything that motivates me. I think it’s the fear of losing the complete mobility I once had in my right arm. I do feel confident that at some point, the mobility will return.

On my first day of physical therapy, my arm could not rise to a 90 degree angle. Currently it is comfortably rising to 145 degrees. So, it’s getting better. The difference isn’t tangible in days, but it is in weeks.

In truth, “100%” is a constantly changing target, which makes it difficult to gauge in the first place. Regardless of how well things heal, my 100% at age 37 will be different from my 100% at age 16. Biologically, I am different. My 100% at age 60 will likewise be different. It may not be better or worse: it will just yield different results.

A blizzard is creeping towards Saint Louis. With it, the temperature will be 0 F (-17 C). Winds will lash city concrete, brick, mortar, and metal at upwards of 30 mph (48 mph). With the windchill, it will be as cold as -25 F (-32 C).

My logical brain tells me to stay inside and avoid frostbite. My risk appetite makes me want to brave the streets and to take the risk, in order to prevent a loss of running fitness. The solution, maybe, is somewhere in the middle of two extremes.

Losing hurts, and I’ve lost many times in 37 years. I think of those losses still, though I don’t obsess over them. The past is already written after all, whereas the future is a blank page. For example, I almost won the NCAAs in 2008 in the 200 yard freestyle, but I was passed in the final yards. For many it was my defining race, something to cherish; after all, I was faster than American-record pace at the halfway mark. When my mind replays this race, though, it doesn’t think back on it as fondly: it searches for ways that I could have won. Loss aversion even affects memories. The blessing here is that I have always had a motivating memory to keep me moving.

I will continue to lose: it is a part of life. Losing is not dying though, as my continued existence has proven. Maybe it’s just a lesson to value what we still have and enjoy it. Maybe it’s a motivational tool to just keep going after a difficult loss. Losing often propels us forward.

If we don’t finish our first attempt at a marathon, for example, we’ll need something to get back up and reattempt the run. The hatred of having failed must be enough to make us want to try again.

And it’s always worthwhile to get back up.

We Lived Much Early

I had a random conversation with an old swimming teammate at the University of Texas today. I hadn’t chatted with him in at least 15 years, though I often think about him. He was an Olympic gold medalist whom I was intimidated by upon first meeting him. Over years, though, I found myself becoming close friends with him.

“We lived much early,” he told me as we reflected on our pasts. “So much so that it sometimes feels that life is not so short after all. But time does pass.”

I thought about that era of my life and realized that yes, we did live much early. We were on swimming national teams and enjoyed all the privileges that come with this. In a four-year span I traveled to Singapore, Thailand, Montreal, Sidney, and all over the United States. In that time I was part of an American-record setting relay and another World Championship winning relay. I competed at two Olympic Trials and finally retired from competition… all by age 22.

After the curtain call of my competition days, I moved to California for three years, tried in vain to enter Hollywood, moved back to North Carolina in defeat, worked in the corporate world, randomly embarked on a two-year stint of teaching English in China, returned to the US, and now live and work in Saint Louis. In my Saint Louis years I’ve embarked on two multi-day bikepacking trips, swam with sharks in the Bahamas, hiked through Yellowstone National Park in Montana, hiked through Shawnee National Forest in Illinois, and visited Puerto Rico, Mexico, Northern California, and Indiana. And I’m still leaving a lot out for the sake of brevity.

“We lived much early.”

I have blogged previously of my stubborn refusal to succumb to time; of how the fight is ultimately a losing battle, but one I’d prefer to lose while standing on my feet (or riding downhill on a bike) over a submission to the modern-day version of retirement.

Though I lived much early, as I reflect on the past two years, I think that I’m living even more now. And yes, it does still feel as though life is long. At some point I will have to accept that it isn’t.

And though I’ve had some close calls over the years, including a head tumor (the surgery was successful), getting hit by a car and tearing my foot, and breaking my collarbone in another cycling crash… time, which is symbolized by a dragon for me, and as a crocodile for Captain Hook… has not devoured me just yet.

More adventures remain ahead. I am healing from the latest wound. I gaze out at an endless ocean on Hook’s ship but do not yet hear the ticking clock, which rests in the stomach of a crocodile that still swims far from here.

I lick my wounds and get back up. I see no other option, though the collarbone aches today. Tomorrow is another day, and with it I’ll find another mountain to climb, and another good bottle of wine to imbibe.

The aim, of course, is to live much late.