Tag: run

just lucky

I’m aware of my privilege… more and more all the time. In the past few years I’ve managed to reach the age where this whole fragile and flawed system by which we live is set up for me to succeed – at least as much as is possible in the wake of unsustainable financial devastation left for us by our boomer ancestors.

I live in a nice little house in an up-&-coming area of town, I have a partner I scarcely deserve for a myriad of reasons, and a well-mannered and intelligent teenage kid who is turning into a very thoughtful and smart adult. I drive a good vehicle. I have a vintage hobby car and a stable full of excellent guitars. I write rock & roll songs and I record and perform them with some very talented musicians, and I get paid more handsomely than ever before to do that. Sure, I have a day job, but it’s a very good one, where I am treated well and have influence. I supervise some very cool people, and we make each other’s lives easier whenever possible. Things will continue to get better and better.

I guess this is optimism.

As this gets posted, I’m actually in the middle of a 3-day mini-tour of Southern Alberta. We played Calgary on Thursday, and Castle Mountain Ski Resort last night, and today we’re en route to Lethbridge before heading home on Sunday. We’ll be heading home with money in our pockets, and we’ll begin making a new record when we get there.

Once upon a time I fantasized about this life. A recent phone conversation with an old friend reminded me of that… which reminds me, I should call him again.

I’m truly grateful for what I have and where it’s going.
If everything halted in it’s tracks and this is exactly what my life was until I died, I would be content. This is what it is to be happy, I think. I once heard someone say “the only joy you find on the summit of Mount Everest is the joy you bring with you” and I believe this to be true.

To illustrate that point, I deal with a ton of bullshit every day at work, every time I turn around I feel like I’m handing someone else hundreds of dollars, my personal time is precious and fleeting at best. Corporations and family members alike are bleeding me dry and I don’t sleep enough. When something comes up, my early morning routine and my finely tuned diet are the first things to go, which results in me feeling fat and unhealthy during times when I need the opposite to be true. I spend too much time in hotel rooms. I work long hours…

… you get the picture. This is called realism.

Even so, I’m so aware of the great things happening in my life that none of those complaints hold any real weight. I realize this is a choice I’ve made. Happiness is a choice, and reminding ourselves of the positive perspective that we’re allowed to have is a choice.

Realism & Optimism. Why do we think about these words in contrast? Why is the ‘realistic’ view such a negative way of looking at things when the great things we have in our lives can easily be identified as ‘real’?

I don’t think we need to be all pollyanna about everything, necessarily, but the notion that ‘where your treasure is, your heart will also be‘ becomes a pretty strong statement when people constantly dwell on the negative. Our treasure is our focus – so if we focus on the darkness, we can expect our hearts to go dark as well. It’s for this reason that goal-oriented people tend to be magnetic and inspiring.

The time for hibernation and doom-scrolling will be over soon.
We’ll be able to go outside and feel the sun again.

discomfort

I don’t know if it’s been a particularly trying time, or if it’s been business as usual and I’m dwelling on things that need not have that level of attention. As I take a step back, it’s business as usual, but what’s unique to this time is the vehicular challenges I’ve been facing.

My faithful Ford Ranger (read: capital R, lower-case ‘anger’) pickup truck died on me a few weeks ago, and through some combination of stubborness and mental and emotional fortitude, I have still not sought the help of any professionals in this field. It’s a problem I want to solve on my own, and I have the skills to do it, but what I lack is the time… so as my neighbors quietly judge me (maybe), I continue to try things, test things, replace things, and audibly swear. For those who care, there’s no spark, and I’m close to having tested and/or replaced the entire ignition system, so I must be close.

The insult that’s been added to that injury is that someone thought it might be a good idea to drill a hole in my gas tank and steal the ingredients. They likely made off with about $20 of my full tank, allowing an additional $75 worth to drain into a nearby manhole, and if my impending gas tank patch job doesn’t work, a $1000 part to order and install. I’d rather they’d have taken my catalytic converter, as is the Edmonton tradition. That’s a problem I can solve on my own.

So in the meantime, I’ve been driving my 1962 Ford Fairlane 500. An absolute gem of a car that I love dearly, but it is a project car, and it’s age is showing in some regards so I’d rather not be leaning on it as hard as I have been lately. It’s my love for that car that has taken time away from fixing my truck.

The icing on the cake is that my mountain bike also needs parts… it’s functional, and a lot of fun to ride, so not really a concern… but still, literally every vehicle I own is in a state of disrepair.

The lesson here is probably patience. Most lessons tend to have patience as; at very least, and undertone. Really, I’m finding that I am too busy and my life is too full to really take the time required to solve required problems. This is something I aim to remedy. My girlfriend and I are making a conscious effort to stop & smell the roses, and really enjoy the summer while it’s here. I’ve certainly earned a lovely tan while running in the early morning sun and working on my old-ass house, my old-ass car, and my truck that is getting older & older-ass as we go, here.

At any rate, if all goes well, I’ll be driving my choice of selections from this small fleet of vehicles by the time this blog entry gets posted. In the midst of it all, I still managed to write an absolute banger of a honky-tonk rock & roll song called ‘one problem at a time‘ which maybe you’ll get to hear sometime next year.

Until next time…

mindful action

I recently heard a comedian talk about ‘mindfulness’ and the buzz around that word in the context of being aged in a tech-forward time. He’d stated that the notion of being mindful wasn’t a thing 30 years ago because if you had to ride the bus somewhere, all you really had to entertain you was the other people on the bus or the view out the window, and if when you got where you were going – say, a movie or something – and the person you were meeting got there 20 minutes later than you, your only option was to wait.

You might have had a portable music player but they were so horribly inefficient at that time that you might get 4 hours of cassette play out of a set of batteries, and that carrying around what would eventually be a dead walkman was actually a hassle.

So you were forcibly “in the moment” more often than not.

Now, we have mass distraction whenever we want it. We have a casino, weed shop, strip club, 24-hour sports channel, and tabloid in our pockets at all times and we can constantly see what other people are doing, or even spend an incredible amount of time planning and uploading a selfie.

We have the option to never be in the moment again, as our brains can constantly be elsewhere.

This is why art is so important to me.
When I’m writing this, it’s all I’m doing.
When I’m playing guitar – for people or not – it’s all I’m doing.
When I’m running – it’s all I’m doing.

I’ve long time been a proponent of delving into a thing – running, for example – and being in that state as long as possible, connecting with nature and seeing what can happen at the edge of my capabilities, but I’m coming to understand that it’s more than that.

It’s also meditative, and present.

If I’m not present when I’m running, or riding a bike, I fall. If I’m not present when I’m performing or practicing, I give a lousy performance. I have to be focused and meditative in order to get the job done.

If I’m driving a car while looking at my phone, it’s incredibly dangerous – yet people still have massive struggles with putting the phone down and being present… and as far as I can see, it’s because they’re out of practice. Even in conversation with someone else – if we are watching my phone at the same time, we’re cheating both parties out of this experience and fellowship, and possibly even showing disrespect.

Mindfulness is a muscle that needs to be exercised, not only to keep it strong, but to prevent it from becoming week.

It might sound crazy – even after 3 years of writing this blog, but I’m 42 years old and I’m (still / again) learning how to be alone with myself.

nature boy

I like to run. It fills me up.

I’ve been going for a few years now and it’s brought so much joy into my life – not only to run – but to run outside. At this stage of the game, climate notwithstanding, if I can’t run outside then there’s little point to running at all. So I run outside, even when the weather sucks, and I haven’t run less than 5km this year. Typically I shoot for 10 or more kilometers but there’s been a few 8km loops since that takes me around an hour.

This can take a round of of my legs, meaning I only really get to do it 3 days a week… which makes me want to go even longer. I typically do between 20 & 35km per week and that’s slowly turning into 25-40km.

So, in conjunction with the old half-marathon training program I’ve been revisiting, I’m also revisiting the old triathlon training program… and getting on my bike – again, generally a rain-or-shine outdoor activity. It allows me to destroy the other parts of my legs that running doesn’t kill.

I’ll get back to swimming eventually, too.

The key here, is being outside.
I’m not a fan of running on an indoor track, though I’ll do it. Same goes for stationary bikes. I hate treadmills.

The spiritual connection to nature I feel when I’m pushing myself to exhaustion and delirium while being immersed is addictive. I don’t have to be on the edge of exhaustion to enjoy nature, or to feel that connection, but there’s something magical that happens when you’ve depleted yourself and poured out all of your energy, all of your emotion, all of your sweat, all of your stress and cuss-words and anxiety and frustration until you’re completely empty and ready to be refilled by the hand of God, and just then the hand of God arrives and gives you music and poetry and breath.

I’ve tried my share of man-made things to help me feel this euphoric, but our species just doesn’t have the tech to make this happen without also killing us simultaneously… and our species also can’t beat the price.

Nature is all around us.
Nature is us.
And one of the most short-sighted things we ever did was decide to view ourselves as separate from nature.
If we saw ourselves as the extension of nature that we are, we’d behave much more differently to each other and to our environment.

going without

I feel like everywhere I look, I see positive & negative reports of intermittent fasting. It’s been like that for some time in my feed, and i know a bunch of people doing it. It never really appealed to me for a couple of reasons, such as:
– I am a food addict.
– People seem to do it to lose weight, and it seems like a odd way to try and lose weight from my purview, especially since I’ve never personally witnessed anyone lose any noticeable amount of weight doing it.
– Intermittent fasting implements the notion of eating during a specific window of time everyday, which is fine, but that’s not what the term intermittent actually means.
– As someone with a rough relationship with food, it seems like a fantastic way to mask an eating disorder.
– It’s a fad

For someone who keeps his personal health at the center of most decisions, the proposed health benefits never really made me want to try it… (and there ARE health benefits, I’m just not certain that weightloss is one of them).

Nonetheless, my girlfriend and I have been trying it on in the most entry-level way. For the time being we’ve adopted a 12-hour eating window followed by a 12-hour fasting window (much of which we’re asleep for). Immediately we’ve noticed an increase in the quality of sleep we’re getting, and with an eating window that closes at 5:30pm, evening snacking is off-limits. Often that 12-hour fast gets stretched to 13 or 14 hours, which is great. Breaking fast at 6am and following it with a long run (60-90 minutes or more) or a strenuous workout nets a greater sense of accomplishment and satisfaction with my efforts.

However; these benefits are not the cause of my curiosity so much as they are an added bonus.

No, the reason fasting appeals to me is completely spiritual. The yogis, the gurus, the krishnas, the muslims, the hunger-strikers, and Jesus himself all fasted in a state of meditation and prayer, as a show of strength and sacrifice to a higher power and were ultimately cosmically rewarded, perhaps even victorious in one way or another. This action seems to put me in better contact with the universe, with my environment as a part of nature, and in harmony with the various beings that I cohabitate with on this planet.

There’s a lot of science for & against fasting for numerous reasons, and usually I like to have the science to back up a decision. It sure came in handy when I started running long distances, when I became vegan, and a number of other decisions I’ve made – but I have to say that in this instance, the scientific discussion has little bearing on my desire to do it.

Again, my efforts so far have been small, but I can’t help but wonder what a 36-hour water-only fast might look like – what wonderful music I might create or words I may channel.

Maybe I’ll see God.
Maybe I’ll sleep a lot.
Either way, I’ll experience something I’ve never experienced before – maybe even something that nobody’s ever experienced before, and my life will be richer for the experience.

My life is richer for every experience.

in the wilderness

Last week I talked a little bit about purpose, and walking my path with purpose, and as I develop that thought further I know that in the past, I’ve followed my path through life a little more closely. I got shaken off my narrow path by a few things and got lost in the bush… but I’m working my way back.

Leaving my path was reactionary. At first anyway. Some punches got dealt to my family that we had to roll with, into uncharted territory. I’m (still) not going to get into it in great detail because the stories aren’t mine to tell, but ultimately we did the best with what we had at the time.

After that, I joined a 12-step group for overeaters anonymous. I can honestly say I tried it with all the energy I had to spare at the time and although the merits of the recovery communities are widely lauded by many (including me) I have since concluded that the group I was in was not for me. I learned that the way I’m wired is a little different, and what really resonates with me is moving forward. I’m not sure if it’s the group I was in, or if all groups are like this – but constantly living in the downtrodden stories of relapse and regret did not help me to endear or relate to anyone so much as it slowed my progress.

It was also the first time I’d ever heard the term “exercise bulimic” before, and although you could probably paint me with that brush to some extent, I maintain a level of safety and awareness in my fitness regimen that excludes me from that. Furthermore, if I have in fact transfered my addiction to something positive and helpful, and for the matter, manageable… and rather than compulsively drinking my face off, I compulsively work to enhance my diet and overall health… well, I guess I fail to see the problem.

Regardless, my point was that the group of spiritually like-minded people I was spending time with did not help me on my path so much as they pulled me onto a different one.

So now I’m working my way back.
How?
Well…

One of the things I used to never be able to do was “trust my gut.” My gut was sick and full of garbage most of the time. “Following my heart” was equally trepidatious, as my heart wasn’t in any condition to lead me anywhere… which left me with my brain – the organ solely responsible for overthinking, that had also been pushed to its limit in multiple ways.
… Not a great situation.

Since getting my health on track, my gut and my heart have been a lot more trustworthy, and work well in tandem with my brain – so when I hear or see something that speaks to me, I am ready to listen and willing to implement change where needed. This, for lack of any other appropriate term, is how I hear the voice of God. It comes to me through compelling conversations with friends, through podcasts, through autobiographical books, religious texts, song lyrics, stories from friends and strangers… and I am usually in a physical state of being able to receive the voice of God, because I am sober and nourished (though there are other factors, such as environment and frame of mind to consider.)

From there, I have to trust my three brains – the head, the heart, and the gut – to allow certain pieces of information to resonate.

Could I be led astray again? Absolutely. There are salesmen everywhere.
Will I allow that to deter me from trying to expand my consciousness? No. I hope I never do. I’ll strive to sit somewhere between skeptical and naive.

My path is taking me somewhere. I can’t stop here.

So I probably said a bunch of words people don’t like to think about much. “God” and “sober” are likely a couple of them. All I can say is, please try not to let singular words get in the way of the message. I’m not a religious zealot and I don’t aspire to be one, nor am I here to judge people for their habits around drinking or substance use.

This is just a blog. But if it speaks to you then I hope you’re ready to receive whatever message you got.

reactive

There are many aspects of life that are beyond control. As much as I’d like to think that I am in control of; well, anything… I have to take a step back and realize that I am not, and probably never have been. There are only a few things I can claim as mine in a creative sense, and for me they are all songs (though if I’m writing about something, even that level of control is questionable).

The truth is that I am reacting to most things.

I accelerate when the light turns green. I book musical performances when I am available to do them. I apply for funding when funding is available. I reward exemplary behavior. I buy shoes when they’re on sale.

I cannot truthfully be held accountable for anything that happens so much as I can be held accountable for how I react to those situations…

The neighbor’s dog got out. My kid forgot her bus pass. The grocery store ran out of tempeh. My guitar amp is crackling. I’m stuck behind a train that’s going to make me late for work.

Yes – but what am I going to do about it?
How am I going to temper my reaction to scenarios in order to illicit the best (or least worst) result?
And – is there actually anything I can really do to positively affect the outcome?

Almost unanimously, the quick answers to all of these questions is ‘I don’t know’ but beyond the initial shock of being presented with any scenario – be it good or bad – the possibilities are as limitless as the confines of imagination.

If my neighbor’s pitbull escapes the fence, and I am walking on-stage in another city, I must do nothing because not only can I not affect change from my current location, I must also not allow this scenario to take over the task at-hand. I have to resign to entrust the situation with my neighbor’s dog to the people that are able to do something, and I can’t feel regret about what couldn’t be done… especially when it can and will and does get handled.

This is ultimately why I don’t drink anymore. My decision making prowess suffers a devastating downgrade when I do, whether it means saying inflammatory things under the guise of attempted humour, or allowing my judgement around what I eat to slide, deciding whether or not to drive… the list goes on, and it primarily goes on because when I was drinking, I was drinking much more frequently than I should have been.

I am still bound to say inflammatory things and compromise my own judgement, but I do it with a sober mind. So, when my actions and reactions are called into question, I can be held appropriately responsible for them. It might sound a bit fucked, but I take solace in the fact that every poor decision I’ve made in the past 17 months has been made with intention. I don’t hide behind weak, hazy excuses anymore, and I own every smart and dumb idea… which is hard, because I’m fairly bashful and humble about the good ideas, and when the bad ideas come rolling out, there’s no excuse for me to hide behind.

The reality of the situation is that I am doing my best. My path is a spiritual one, and the actions, or reactions, I take are in keeping with the curves in that path that I need to bend with in order to stay upright.