Tag: vegan athlete

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.

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.

ain’t done yet

It’s likely no secret that I don’t get up every Saturday morning and post these at exactly 8am MST. These posts are written in advance – sometimes a couple days, and sometimes a couple weeks – and this one is no different.

As I write this, my band is gearing up to shoot a music video for a brand new song called “Ain’t Done Yet” and boy-oh-boy am I ever not done yet.

The song is actually old. The music was crafted during the pandemic but the lyrics are older than this band, and emotionally, they send me back to a time in my life when everything was harder than I needed it to be, and writing the song was ultimately a form of poetic escapism… yet as I read these lyrics again today, you might think I had just written them, because they describe the way my life is now.

Evidently, I was setting goals.
And journaling.
Both of which I feel like I struggle to find the time to do. Actually no, wait, scratch that – I know exactly when I should be doing these and I absolutely have the time required to make a habit of these things – I just don’t.

I know what I want, and I think I even know how to get it… so why write it down? Because these things change over time, sure, but also because these goals get reached and it’s important to genuinely adjust your sights every once in a while. We need to take an inventory of where we’re at and where we want to be.

The future happens anyway. So I might as well be prepared for it, rather than to wait and see how it affects me.

I once heard an anecdote talking about losing weight or running a marathon or going back to school… whatever, it doesn’t matter I guess… but it was proclaimed that “getting to that goal would take 4 years – I’ll be 45 years” and the response was “yes, but in that time you’ll be 45 anyway… wouldn’t you rather be capable of (goal).”

I think about that from time o time, and I realize that I am right where I am supposed to be.

Anyway… please go watch my new music video. (Out JUNE 5th)

distraction

I’m no theologian, and I’m certainly in no position to speak on matters of politics or social media. I have no formal education outside of highschool, and I can only speak from experience… but I do a lot of people watching, and I observe and analyze my own actions as frequently as I can, and I have undoubtedly seen some bizarre shit.

As I type this, I’m reminded of when I was in Calgary last week… I pulled into a very busy parking lot to meet someone at a restaurant, and about 50 feet in front of me I noticed 2 young girls, aged between 4 and 6, that had climbed into the trunk of a car and were attempting to close the trunk lid on themselves. While this was happening, the man I assume was their father was playing badminton with himself, in the parking lot. At the moment I was watching him, he lobbed his bright pink shuttlecock into a tree, and – again, the parking lot was full – started trying to knock the shuttlecock out of the tree by throwing his racket at it. By now, the children were securely trapped in the trunk, and I got out of my car and walked into the restaurant.

That story has no real bearing on anything, other than to state that I was early for my meeting, and that I obviously wasn’t staring at my phone, as this was far more entertaining.

I’ll often challenge myself not to look at my phone. Sometimes I lose, but that depends on the environment. In a recent pause for reflection in a dentist office waiting room, I listened to 2 clerks discuss the logistics of meeting a new online love interest one of them has, mentioning different work schedules as a challenge, among other things like dog stewardship and other hobbies as challenges. I’m not sure the experience enriched my life, but I was present and I think that’s something to be celebrated.

“Mindfulness” is a term we get to throw around a lot these days, but I’m reminiscent of a time when we didn’t have to put any emphasis on mindfulness, because we didn’t have a 24-hour casino, social hall, and strip-club in our pockets while we waited for someone to meet us.

We just waited.

And really, there’s nothing more mindful than sitting alone at a table with nothing but a cup of black coffee and your own thoughts to keep you company. We were mindful all the time… now we have the luxury of both tuning out and hitting the dopamine feeder-bar at any moment, to the point that some people do so while their waiting for a traffic light to turn green.

What’s more, is that although I am a slave to the social media as much as anyone else, I’ve started to (somewhat naturally) get my social media time dealt with in the morning before anyone wakes up. Sure, I get caught staring at my phone on occasion, but really nothing in my feed has changed from the early morning binge-session, so it’s pretty short-lived.

I’ve discovered that, although I am a staunch introvert, that I’d much rather connect with a human being or two in-person. I have no problem leaving my phone in my jacket pocket at this stage of life, and I’m thankful that my watch lets me know of certain correspondence because I really have no idea where my phone is half the time these days.

I don’t know if there’s anything to take from this… other than some affirmation that my droning on about being more present and in the moment over the past couple years seems to actually be taking root.

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.

the news

It’s not a secret at this point, particularly if you read this blog with any regularity (thanks!), but I’ve made a few changes in my life. I’ve been fairly open about most of them but there are a few I don’t talk much about, mainly due to the facial expressions I receive when I do.

Like watching the news. In 2022 I stopped mainlining cable news in all of it’s forms because it was having a negative impact on my outlook. I think it was having a negative impact on everyone, really – but I can only make that decision for me. Between a global pandemic and a disgraced president, it’s safe to say that knowledge of the outside world was taking a toll. As it turns out, the really important stuff gets talked about openly enough that I can still call myself vaguely informed while maintaining some semblance of inner peace.

You watching the news is great. I actually count on it.
Me watching the news makes for shitty artistic output and a lack of focus on things I can control or improve.

If there’s a thing I learned during the pandemic news cycles, it’s that they broadcast the exception rather than the rule. That is to say; for example, that a 22-year-old athlete dying of Covid-19 was extremely uncommon, thereby making it newsworthy – which somehow gave everyone the idea that; although an outcome is extremely unlikely, it’s still cause for alarm. I’ll never say that a story like that isn’t tragic, but it’s a long way from preventing me from doing anything different in my life… though at the time I may not have known how to process it.

What I know now is that just because someone is saying something doesn’t mean that I need to allow it to alter my perception. At this point, a lot of people are saying a lot of things, and I’m really not too concerned about any of them. I’ve actually learned about a great number of things through shared memes on social media, which gives an interesting perspective, too.

For my life, though… I’m concerned with doing what’s right for myself, my family, and my community. I’m concerned with making rock & roll, and enriching the lives of people through that.

I’m just out here searching for the promised land.