Tag: training

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.

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.

purpose

I think a lot about purpose. That word is a big one for me, and if if I’m ever at a point of questioning anything, the word ‘purpose’ centers itself in my mind: “What is the purpose of this?” “What is MY purpose here?” and then to “act with purpose.” Similar words may intercede from time to time… ‘intention’ or ’cause’ perhaps… but I’m all about purpose.

I run with purpose – to achieve a goal (which is not always strictly physical but often one of alignment of body, mind and soul).
I write songs with purpose (which likely drives my girlfriend a little batty, as I seem to not be able to write a simple love song on command, but can spit out lyrics about the death of the ego, or the evolution of the mind, all to the high-speed train beats and thumping bass lines).
My job is one of purpose.
My art has purpose.
The way I conduct myself in public has purpose.
I am sober with purpose.
I eat, and choose what to eat with purpose.
I meditate with purpose.
I journal with purpose.

I am very disciplined at this stage of my life, and that means people ask me a lot of questions, the answers to which may be polarizing. Often people will ask a question and then upon hearing the answer, feel the need to defend or justify their different outlook… but I’m not here to judge where anyone is at.

Nevertheless, I am happy to have these conversations, and wish I could have them more. Make me think! Let me make you think! This is how community and growth are started.

It’s unfortunate that social media seems to represent the opposite. There’s a huge potential for the sharing of stories and ideas to take place online, but instead we fight. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one keyboard warrior change another keyboard warrior’s mind, and I doubt that I ever will. But to see someone, and identify them as a living being, and to converse with them in real time and space – there’s a potential for greatness.

So I pose the question – Social media… what is its purpose? I believe it was started with good intentions, but it’s become just like regular television. Television’s purpose is to show you advertisements between segments of entertaining content, except on facebook, you can interact and become more invested. Your friends and acquaintances make status updates that are essentially tabloid headlines in between ads for products you’ve recently searched for on google.

It’s become such a distraction from purpose that people believe it is real life.

I will likely maintain my social media presence, but I feel the need to build even more structure around it for myself. I don’t want to be completely out of contact, but I don’t want to be a slave to it either.

Maybe I can manage it.
Maybe I’ll eventually quit it.
But whatever I do… it’ll be with purpose.

forty-two

Today I celebrate another revolution.

I don’t know how much I have to say about my birthday, really, other than to say that I feel younger and more vital than I did 10 years ago.

I’m happy to still be a vegan athlete and rock & roller, to have wonderful people around me, and to make the best music of my life. I’m more grateful, present, and productive than I have been at any point in my life so far and I don’t think I’ve capped out yet.

Forty-two.

I think I’ll give myself the morning off from blogging and go for a run.

Peace.

more of more

I’m emerging from one of the busiest times of my year right now. Between the year-end for the company I work for, personal & business taxes, festival applications, grant applications, tour dates, meetings… and a bunch of stuff I’m likely forgetting to mention pertaining to normal family life – let’s just say, I’m happy to be typing a blog entry right now.

The truth of the matter is, I love it. I am fully immersed in things I am happy to be a part of and although I could use some downtime, I could use more purpose-driven effort in my life. Perhaps that’s why I’m currently revamping my workout & diet and forging ahead into new territories of physical exhaustion.

The dream for every artist is to supplant themselves into a world of art production without skipping a beat when it comes to their pocketbook, and I’m not different. Who wouldn’t want to play guitar and write songs about what matters to them and completely replace their 9-5 job, maybe even do a little better? There’s no question, and I think any artist who doesn’t cop to that probably isn’t really an artist – but there’s a mountain to climb between here & there.

We don’t get to walk off the job and walk into a comparable pay rate (or better) of self-employment without first tackling the prospect of doing both at the same time and keeping everyone happy in the process. That’s right – I work 2 full time jobs… maybe 3, honestly. So does every serious artist you know. I think most of the people who use terms like ‘grinding’ and ‘hustling’ really have no concept of what those words mean, because if they did, they wouldn’t have time to tell people how hard they’re grinding.

But I’m not here to measure dicks so much as I am here to tell you that I love this. I can’t be concerned with what anyone else is doing when they’re ‘grinding’ because the more attention I pay to that, the more likely I am to drop the ball for myself and my band.

I don’t love being busy.
I love having a purpose, and seeing that purpose through. It’s when I’m in the mud like I have been for the past 4 months that I need to remind myself how grateful I am to do what I do to the degree I am doing it, all the while knowing that it’s a progressive movement and it will become more intense as time moves on.

I’ve come to understand that “The joy you find on the summit of Mount Everest is the joy you brought with you” so I don’t think you’ll find me complaining anytime soon.

There wouldn’t be any purpose to it, because I’ve chosen this.