Tag: canadian athlete

peacekeepers

“After all, tossed in the salad with the other personal virtues such as love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control; it would seem that ‘not war-mongering’ is an easy one, so I’d place a hefty wager that ‘peace’ had more to do with the state of one’s internal battles since it was so carefully placed among other personal strengths, rather than political ones.”

After 41 years of walking around and interacting with people in general; many of which have navigated multiple global pandemics, several financially motivated wars, one or more housing crises, poorly managed adolescence, and a countless array of other traumas and triggers – I can say emphatically that the word ‘peace’ means something completely different than it did when I was a little kid in Sunday School.

What once brought about a ubiquitous definition; a thought of people I don’t know choosing not to end the lives of other people I don’t know in some war torn desert city – though, to be clear, I would like those people to stop killing each other – is not the image that comes to mind when I hear the word ‘peace‘ anymore.

Peace is a much more tangible and personal quest for me now.

I’m speculating, of course, but I’d like to imaging that the once-popular prophetic young Asiatic man who upheld the ‘fruit of the spirit’ and the ‘beatitudes’ may have had a more personalized definition when he spoke of peace. After all, tossed in the salad with the other personal virtues such as love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control; it would seem that ‘not war-mongering‘ is an easy one, so I’d place a hefty wager that ‘peace’ had more to do with the state of one’s internal battles since it was so carefully placed among other personal strengths, rather than political ones.

All that said, when it comes to the idea of ‘inner-peace’ which is really what I’m getting at, there are a number of other things that ‘peace’ doesn’t mean. In fact, when it comes to defining our terms, it’s likely easier to institute a process of elimination of the things I don’t mean… but I’ll try to stay pointed in a solitary direction.

Peaceful doesn’t mean complacent. You’re not dead, and you haven’t been neutralized. If anything, it’s the opposite. My own experience has brought me to realize that it’s a daily pursuit in balancing the self and the ego. Since the ego can’t survive without the self (and vice versa), the goal is not to embrace contentment anymore than it is to embrace chaos. We are always moving forward, always growing, and always renewing. Finding peace is finding the center. The balance point.

To become centered in meditation, we engage in a practice where we focus on a solitary notion – such as our own breath. When we are new or out of practice, our thoughts drift and our attention is stolen – but the purpose of meditation is to regain focus faster and faster to the point that we are not ignoring everything around us so much as we are centering ourselves in it. So to be in a meditative state is to be aware of everything that’s going on around us, though other people’s perceptions are the opposite. People with a strong meditative practice are actually more aware of their surroundings than those who are newer to their practice.

This meditative practice, much like the pursuit of inner-peace, takes a life-time. Maybe that’s the real reason why we say our deceased friends and family are ‘at peace’ but in the case of we who are still living, we can count on the fact that life will continue to throw thing at us, thereby knocking us off of our center – but we can choose how to handle it, either with frustration, or with calm demeanor.

There will always be a balance to find between the ego and the self.
There will always be peace.

As an aside, I feel compelled to mention that one of the things that brought the most peace into my life was the decision to stop eating animals or any products that come from animals. I literally felt the ‘animosity’ leave my body as I became a completely different, more well-rounded, methodical, and spiritual person. I’ve since reclaimed my health and my personal aspirations.

It’s been amazing, and one of the finer decisions I’ve ever made.

the boomer narrative

“If we believe it’s bleak, then were right – but the fact of the matter is that it’s not as bleak as we’ve been told. Truthfully, every day for the past 25 years we could have had a TV news reporter broadcast a story stating “less people are living in poverty today than yesterday” and it would have been 100% true every single one of those 9125 days.”

Hey all. Welcome home.

A couple months back I listened to a podcast episode on the Rich Roll Podcast – one of the few I listen to with great regularity – where Rich Roll interviewed Seth Godin. I highly recommend anyone who’s creatively inclined check this one out for a great number of reasons. One of the several nuggets that was mentioned that really stuck out to me was around the boomer narrative (and I’m already paraphrasing, btw). It was a quick part of the conversation, but I’d like to expand on it here.

Since the beginning of anything that any of us can remember, a specific generation of people have been controlling the narrative of the entire planet, and this is the baby boomer generation. I’ll assume everyone reading this knows what that is, but for the kids at the back of the class: The Baby Boom Generation is that age demographic of people who were born between 1946 and 1964, aptly named for the influx of pregnancies that resulted from people coming home at the end of World War 2 and starting families.

From that time on, the narrative of western civilization has been told from the voice of that generation, and despite the fact that this generation is reaching their end of life and/or their end of their working years (it’s an 18-year span) – they are still driving the narrative of pretty much everything.

Now, don’t @-me because I don’t have a dog in this fight, and don’t get all hashtag-not-all-boomers on me either, because of course there are individual exceptions to the rule. I acknowledge that the individual is smart, nuanced, and capable of change but in higher numbers, humans have a tendency to adopt a ‘mob mentality’ which serves no one.

Ok. When rock & roll and hot rods and teenage rebellion came about, it was a narrative driven by the boomers – of course it was. This carried over through the 1960s up until the Vietnam war happened. At this point the narrative became all about the draft and how the war was pointless. As the 70s & 80s the narrative became all about arena rock, the corporate ladder and property ownership which brought about construction booms and fuel shortages.

As the world came barreling through the 90s and into the new millennium, things like punk rock and pepsi-cola became synonymous; not because of the quote-unquote Pepsi Generation but because the boomer generation was packaging and selling the next generation’s own version of teenage rebellion back to them. Music, TV and Film were largely handed down from the boomers to their children under the guise of being ‘indie’ even though marketing budgets were huge, and the companies were top-heavy. This was all endorsed by a since-falsely proven theory of trickle down economics perpetuated by – you guessed it.

Environmental concerns started to materialize as GenX and the Millennials started to take note, but it was the Boomers who were finessing and dictating how that story was going to be told and they did a very self-serving job of it right up into the 21st century when the bottom fell out of the market that the boomer generation had been using, profiting from, and bleeding dry for decades. Thereafter the pensions and nest eggs that many boomers had been working for to enjoy their retirement were essentially stolen by other, richer boomers.

Now we have a – and this is where I start to get to the point of writing all of this – ongoing narrative surrounding the idea of a dystopian hellscape future not unlike the boomer-made films ‘Mad Max’ and the ‘Terminator’ franchise in amongst the Church-going God-fearing belief that the End Of Days is upon us. And why do we have this? We have this because ultimately, the boomers are afraid of death – so the narrative is death.

Even though their time is up, and 2 other generations are set to inherit this planet, we’re still using their guiding light into a bleak future.

I am personally tired of this. If we believe it’s bleak, then were right – but the fact of the matter is that it’s not as bleak as we’ve been told. Truthfully, every day for the past 25 years we could have had a TV news reporter broadcast a story stating “less people are living in poverty today than yesterday” and it would have been 100% true every single one of those 9125 days. But… that’s not sensational, so it doesn’t happen.

I’ve spoken before about how ‘realism‘ has been incorrectly pair with ‘fatalism‘ falsely, and that optimism is far more realistic. I’d love it if you dug in on my ramblings about that right here. The principle holds true and generationally speaking, we need to decide consciously how we want to move forward as a planet and as a species… because not making a choice is still a choice, and choosing not to choose is a weak option.

We’re going to need to take an active role in our own future, and it starts in our daily lives with what we buy, what we eat, and what we throw out. We can all do a little better, and I don’t even need to tell you how.
There are changes you want to make in your life.
There are changes I want to make in my life.

Why wait?

in this moment… in this shitty moment.

It’s been a back-to-basics kind of week for me. I won’t get into the events, times, and places of what caused my otherwise positive outlook to have it’s foundations shaken other than to say that; yes, my positive foundations were shaken a little bit recently.

I don’t feel helpless because I am not helpless, nor do I feel like I am alone, because I am not alone. The truth I find myself repeating is that the undisclosed shitty situation that is happening is not happening TO me. If anything it’s happening FOR me and the people involved – especially the person at the center of the mess.

We cannot change the events that have taken place. I cannot live in a place of “what-if’s” or “if I had known’s” because that time has passed. I also cannot live in the future “when all of this is behind us” where “time heals all wounds” because that is all a fantasy if I am (we are, respectively) not digging in and doing the work that needs to be done now.

The time now is to address things head-on, and set up the practice, the discipline, the frame work for success. If you want your plants to grow, they need the proper food and water, care and attention and grooming – but they also need to be planted in the right sized pot until growth has made a larger pot necessary.

So this is what’s next – framework for success.

I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again and again and again and again. It’s 100% worth the struggle and I am to show the people closest to me exactly how to set yourself up for success. The right fuel, the right amount of sleep, the right kind of directed work, and – the right kind of rest.

But right now; here in this shitty moment, I fully realize that this shitty moment deserves the same level of respect that it’s it’s jubilant, solemn, meditative, optimistic, and frivolous siblings deserve. My entire life has led me here, even though I know this is not where my entire life ends.

It’s fucking terrible.
But it will be amazing… and it’s already better than it was.

the outliers

“I’m not suppressing emotion when I say this, but I can successfully tune out a lot of the negative criticism. I can do this because I am resonating at a higher frequency than ever before, and I know in my heart that I am right where I am supposed to be – in the moment – in this life – in this time and place, and I learned earlier this year that “you will never find a hater that works harder than you.” “

This lifestyle is surprisingly polarizing. I’ve regularly been misunderstood by my peers and certain members of my family, so it’s not particularly alarming that I still am, to a large degree. I’ve come to accept it, and I’ve come to accept the people who misunderstand me. At this point; however, if anything is alarming it’s people’s reactions to my healthy lifestyle.

Lemme know if this sounds familiar:
– I’ve been not-invited to gatherings because of my dietary regimen.
– I’ve had my sanity questioned by my peers.
– I’ve had people refuse to try things I’ve offered them.
– I’ve had people tell me that what I’m doing goes against human biology.
– I’ve had people tell me what I am doing is not sustainable.
– I’ve been handed all kids of labels from ‘crazy’ to ‘rigid’ to ‘overdoing it’ to ‘exceptional’
– I’ve had people tell me I must be super healthy and protein deficient – almost in the same breath.

None of that bothers me anymore, but I will say that to be openly criticized for what I’m doing, but to turn the question around on the person asking it somehow makes me hypersensitive and insecure. For example, “Where do you get your protein?” is a question I can answer, but when I answer and follow up with “how much protein do YOU get?” – I’m being rude.

I’ve learned how to let all that go, and honestly the fact that I’m seeing results from what I am doing is a big help in avoiding these polarizing questions, but it doesn’t make me any less of an outlier. Vegan as I might be, I’m not super connected to a community of vegans in any tangible sense, nor am I connected to a community of athletes. I’m part of a community of musicians and performers, and I’m a bit of an outlier there, too (though there seems to be a bit of a sobriety movement going on and I’m here for it).

I’m not suppressing emotion when I say this, but I can successfully tune out a lot of the negative criticism. I can do this because I am resonating at a higher frequency than ever before, and I know in my heart that I am right where I am supposed to be – in the moment – in this life – in this time and place, and I learned earlier this year from David Goggins that “you will never find a hater that works harder than you.“

These words alone keep me blissfully uninvolved both as a defender of what I’m doing, and as a potential critic of what someone else is doing – because I very much CAN find myself looking around at the gym from time to time, or on the running trail, assessing my surroundings. That said – the people around you are not to be ignored. Seeing what someone is doing and wanting to work towards it is part of our human nature. It’s bred into us to assess our surroundings and be aware of whether or not we’re safe or in danger – just don’t put yourself in danger of sinking to a lower level of gossip and criticism.

This is an exercise in mental toughness, and like any exercise – you have to start with light weight and build up. Don’t expect sainthood from yourself on day 1, just do a little better, and then do a little better than that.

what is real

“this is mainly to illustrate the point that we actually don’t know what’s real – not when there are still hundreds of millions of people who believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election and had it stolen from him”

A side effect of my lifestyle is that I spend a certain quotient of my time in hotel rooms, and I; like most people, am ultimately at the mercy of commercial-laden movie channels featuring 20+ year old films featuring the likes of George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, and Jim Carrey for a way to pass time between performances, meals, and whatever writing and work I can get done through the day.

Since commercials are usually a thing I can skip past, watching them has been a total trip, and I can’t help but notice a pattern. Be it cheap shampoo or frozen chicken wings, the recurring linguistic exchange seems to circle around the concept of what is real. It’s not hard to point out the fact that nothing is real, especially in commercials, from the captions that say ‘real people, not actors’ to the idea that the individual consumer than determine what is ‘the real thing’ vs the competitors alternatives. Proclamations of real taste, real feel, real sound, real look, and real smell coupled with the appeal to the consumer’s ego that they can differentiate what is real vs what is fake seem to be the perfect equation for successful sales.

Real coffee, real music, real pickup trucks… it’s truly dizzying.

The problem here is that what is real is not the point. The point is to drill the subliminal belief that you know what is real and that this subliminal implantation can be called upon when standing in the frozen foods section or… wherever.

This is what advertising is. By author and entrepreneur Seth Godin’s account, advertising is a company having the money to interrupt you so they can make enough money to interrupt you again.

Advertisers have rules they have to operate within, and that their slogans stay with you your entire life – so much so that the idea that ‘milk does a body good’ is still a strong belief that people have despite the fact that (a) milk does more harm than good and that’s a fact, (b) this is an advertising slogan, not a scientific study, (c) that the calcium you get from dairy can also come from spinach, whereas the spinach doesn’t carry the addictive and cancer causing components of dairy – but it does have fibre, which you need, (d) there are alternatives that are more flavorful and less pus-laden than animal-based dairy, and (e) the dairy industry has lobbyists, whereas the spinach industry doesn’t.

I could go on drilling this comparison into the ground, but this is mainly to illustrate the point that we actually don’t know what’s real – not when there are still hundreds of millions of people who believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election and had it stolen from him.

So then, what is real?

The spiritual connection I feel to my environment, my family, my dog are real. The sense of purpose I feel when I strap on a guitar and holler out into a dimly lit room full of people is real. Running through the river valley is real. The healing and nutritive properties of plant foods is real. Fellowship, and exchanging ideas is real.

I put forward that we need not worry about what is real so much as what makes us feel alive – What gives us purpose? What clears the cobwebs from our periphery and connects us to the universe?

If we can’t answer these questions, then maybe we’re a little too distracted by what products we can buy that are the most ‘real’ and we have changes to make.

You can change if you want to.
I mean, change is hard, but I argue that not changing is harder – especially once you find what makes you feel alive.

So… find that.

changing of the guard

“This is not a lesson about hanging in there and hoping for the best. If anything it’s a 2-fold lesson about not compromising what you want, and aligning yourself with your purpose.”

I don’t know if there’s any wisdom to share so much as there are some observations I’m making about myself from the 10,000 ft. view of my life… but then again, maybe that’s what I do here every week.

For about the last year or so, I have been recoiling from my job – essentially all of 2022, maybe a little further back then that. I went down to 4 days a week and gave up a few perks that full-time employees enjoy in order to do so. I’d originally asked for some fluidity in my schedule that the company wasn’t willing to offer me due to my position here.

That is, until my supervisor decided to retire. I threw my name in the hat for his job and I got it, thereby regaining the perks I’d forgone previously and attained the flexibility I’d been craving. What I needed was a change and I got it. It’s kind of amazing as I take a step back… y’know, once upon a time this company rolled the dice on making me the shipper/receiver. I’m now the regional accounts supervisor for the Canadian prairies.

This is not a lesson about hanging in there and hoping for the best. If anything it’s a 2-fold lesson about not compromising what you want, and aligning yourself with your purpose. I have a good job that allows me to do things I need to do for my soul; both inside and outside the confines of my employment. Truth be told, I have a number of skills that would serve me well in several different working scenarios, but I have had the good fortune of having the company I work for see the potential in me based on my previous role in the company… yes, that role I was backing away from and doing part time.

This is a testament to living in the moment. When I was at work, I was at work, and I kept on task. When I was away from work, it was because I had other important things on the go – family, performing, writing… and those things had my attention as best I could give it, because those things needed to be firmed up.

Now as I take on this new role, there are other things I need to firm up, namely a work/life balance that; again, is going to be much more doable having made these changes.

It’s a matter of being present, and when you’re entirely present – in the right here / right now – there is no fear, or impatience. Fear comes from paying too much attention to the past, and impatience comes from looking too far forward.

It’s only here and now that we can do our best work.

day 101 – the marathon monks

“We’re fortunate our options go beyond ‘finish or die trying’ in any of our chosen paths, but at some point we all have a day 101 – where we must choose to commit, or choose to quit – but a choice must be made. On that day, there should be no doubt what needs to happen.”

There is both a book and a documentary about the “Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei.” Both are nearing 20 years old and are ultimately the kind of documentaries you might have seen being made even before then. In other words – a little dry. Documentary making has taken many turns for the better and more interesting in more recent years, and the artistic direction behind them is of great benefit. This documentary is not that.

It’s not without it’s merits, however. You might not be able to make that documentary now because you might not find a Tendai Monk that’s in the right place in their path to make the journey.

The journey; of course, being 1000 marathons in 1000 days, known regionally as The Kaihogyo. Now, these are not consecutive days, but that’s not really the point. The point is the path to enlightenment – to essentially become a living saint. The 7 year journey breaks down like this:

Year 1: run 30 km per day for 100 straight days. *During this time, the monk can quit, but after day 101, there is no quitting. He completes the Kaihogyo or he dies trying.
Year 2: run 30 km per day for 100 straight days.
Year 3: run 30 km per day for 100 straight days.
Year 4: run 30 km per day. This time for 200 straight days.
Year 5: run 30 km per day for 200 straight days. After completing the fifth year of running, the monk must go 9 consecutive days without food, water, or rest (known as the Doiri). Two monks stand beside him at all times to ensure that he does not fall asleep.
Year 6: the monk must run 60 km per day for 100 straight days.
Year 7: the monk must run 84 km per day for 100 straight days. Then, he must run 30 km per day for the final 100 days.

Fueling is a whole other thing – these monks traditionally eat between 1000 and 2000 calories per day, exclusively rice, miso soup, and green tea – when they’re not eating nothing, of course.

There’s a myriad of lessons to be learned from the Tendai Monks, many of which are related to commitment – never giving up no matter how hard it gets or how long it takes, because If We Commit To Nothing, We’ll Be Distracted By Everything – and never complaining about the struggles we’ve chosen to conquer, because we’ve chosen them.

We’re fortunate our options go beyond ‘finish or die trying‘ in any of our chosen paths, but at some point we all have a day 101 – where we must choose to commit, or choose to quit – but a choice must be made. On that day, there should be no doubt what needs to happen.