Archives for April 2021

it seems like we can’t agree on much as a culture, but we can all probably agree that a year has passed.

and that people are trash.

now, depending on which side of my social venn diagram you are on, the reason for the above statement is either that people are cowardly virtue signaling sheep who refuse to think for themselves or they are selfish science denying babies having tantrums because they are being asked to act like members of a civil society and instead fling their own shit and cry about not being allowed to get their haircut.

i do, however, appreciate that the term “covidiot” seems to simply mean “someone whose coping mechanisms for unprecedented levels of stress brought on by a global pandemic and more accurately the response to said pandemic differs from my own”

i think one of the issues is that patience and goodwill are luxury goods, and in a time where our spouses or children are drawing down on our limited coffers, we find it unpalatable to offer either to a stranger in the grocery store. our entire limbic system is screaming for us to hoard and defend, to push away anyone who hasn’t already proven themselves and tighten those bonds – because if we can no longer experience a true physical human connection, at least we hate the same people.

and it feels good. or at least righteous. we are not being emotional, that is the realm of the “other” side. we are rational actors. we look at the data. at sense. its funny because the problems we are facing have always existed – at least in my lifetime – the issue is it is being accelerated because many of us have lost our coping mechanisms and our social distraction. the world is uncertain and our guts are trying to force us to find stable ground… so we create stability by accepting our peers and attacking everyone else. we argue – not with actual people who disagree with us – but with the caricatures of those others. we demonize and mock, and thanks to the near infinite expanse of human stupidity there is going to be someone on twitter who embodies every terrible thing we imagine about our opponent. i think it was george bush who said that we judge ourselves by our best intentions and our opponents by their worst examples. i think that is one of the larger problems, for all that is being said, for all the sound and fury there is actually very little being communicated.

i am scared. i am uncomfortable. i want this to be different. this is all your fault.

i think that mostly covers it. it comes out in different ways but i hear very little discussion and very much emotional venting. the scary part is when the venting is being misconstrued as objective reality. i was honestly taken aback at the level of offense that many individuals had to being categorized as “nonessential workers” by the US government (particularly because there is a large overlap between those individuals and the people who make fun of safe spaces and the general “fuck your feelings” crowd) as well as seeing many of my liberal friends suddenly jump to the defense of a private business’s right to refuse service to someone for any reason while the conservative talking point becomes “my body my choice” and “the government shouldn’t be involved with health decisions”

its a topsy turvy world until you look past the slogans and into the behavior…

i am scared. i am uncomfortable. i want this to be different. this is all your fault.

i think if there is one other thing that we can all agree upon it is that we have all been exposed.

not necessarily to the virus, but to each other, as ourselves. not our best selves, not our ideal selves… but some real base model shit. fatigue and stress wash away most niceties and what one week seemed like a moral commitment (when there was no other option) can turn so quickly as soon as it becomes personal. people who complain about government handouts chasing PPP money and scamming unemployment, people who constantly post that we need to trust medical professionals except for the last decade when their doctor was telling them to lose weight and stop eating shitty food.

the guy who says that we don’t really know what the vaccine will do to our bodies while smoking a cigarette…

hypocrisy interests me to no end. my friend once said that there is no such thing as a paradox – it was simply an issue with your model. you weren’t looking closely enough (or maybe too closely) – hypocrisy is simply an incomplete picture. maybe that’s a little generous, i firmly believe that there are malicious hypocrites out there; mask wearers and hucksters, (we can just call them politicians) men and women who choose their mark and claim whatever high ground will get them the best access to peek into bedroom windows and reach into back pockets – but i feel that most are a tamer, gentler version. individuals who discount that most of their so-called morality is circumstantial. emotional framework to justify their behavior – unwittingly choosing the most generous reasoning behind doing exactly what they fucking want. the thing here is that there was a miss identification of defining principles. no one wants to be the villain in a story (well, almost no-one) or even worse – a NPC. a placeholder. fluff. so we give ourselves a moral compass, find enemies to stand against, but not so it actually shows.

we tell ourselves a story.

so i guess my question is, a year into this: what is your story? how has it changed? is it consistent and if not – why not? have you grown? changed your mind? or perhaps you are the same and your framework for reasoning has shifted? do your enemies exist? or are you inflating them to give yourself a sense of importance?

i feel like a large part of the response to the pandemic is that politicians (and many business owners) do not want to deal with the blowback if they were/are wrong. everyone seems to be trying to defer the decision making to someone else and then complain about what was or was not done. because in the internet age nothing is forgotten (kinda) and hindsight is 20/20 (again, kinda). the other part is that it seems like a lot of people are having their very first existential crisis – and they are all doing it at the same time, televised and live-streaming.

in a big enough scheme: we are all non-essential. if your business fails, another one will take its place. if you loose your home someone will buy it. if you get in the way of the government fulfilling its biological needs it will destroy you with no consequences. there aren’t enough masks or hand sanitizer in the world to keep you from getting sick. having a lot of money makes everything easier. none of us are getting out of this alive.

fuck you go further.

*if* that is all true, then what?

then we do what we can.

we help those who we can help. change those things we can change.

we can give people a little grace, and realize that most people are not against you as much as they are for themselves. and that you are probably doing many of the same things.

we can recognize that “being wrong” is not necessarily a personality trait but a state of being. that the fastest way to be right is to accept when you are wrong and advance your ideas. we can normalize discussion, thoughtfulness, and growth as people. change is messy. learning is messier, “doing your best” in an uncertain world is messier still. try and roll with it.

we can recognize that if your autonomy can be subverted by putting on a paper mask while on a crowded airplane, then it was a weak, ineffectual thing in the first place and deserves to die.

we can recognize that if the only thing you are willing to do to protect your health is demand that other people change their behavior, then you haven’t earned a seat at the table and don’t get a voice in this discussion.

we can also agree that “you take care of your health i will take care of mine” is disingenuous at best when discussing infectious disease. think muzzle discipline. i don’t care if you tell me its unloaded, i don’t care if you tell me its a prop gun, i don’t even care if you point out that 77% of people survive being shot. you may be right, but the fact that you expect me to take your word for it is proof enough that you don’t deserve my trust. and if you tell me that if body armor works then why am a worried about you pointing a gun at me, just realize you sound like an idiot.

we can even go so far as to recognize that, despite my last comment, calling people idiots does not do much to advance our understanding of the underlying stressors. it doesn’t help us get through this. recognizing that peoples stress is real even if the way they speak about it is flawed. that we all have different coping mechanisms and that generally the things that damage us the most are the ones where we can not ourselves identify. winning is not an option – we are all just trying to get through this. so in the immortal words of james dalton: be nice.

name your feelings. become friends with them. being afraid. being stressed. being tired. its all being human. and if we can connect on that, then maybe we can actually get somewhere.

and hopefully in less than another year…

most people are not strong enough to hurt themselves.  at least not at first. i don’t mean that they physically lack strength to cause injury, i mean that in the gym or any environment that they can exercise control, they will quit mentally long before they encounter any real physical danger. “hard” work is a constant negotiation, your body sends you signals, information about the cost of your actions and you have to convince yourself to keep carving away at that pound of flesh despite the consequences. in that situation, most people drop the knife at the first sight of blood – but as we train, as we learn to get comfortable with the pain, to manage those costs, we creep, inch by inch, into the deep end and one day we reach our toes down only to realize we cant reach bottom, we are in over our head.

this exhibits in a few ways – cramping, vomiting, blinding headaches, symptoms like food poisoning, burst blood vessels in the eyes and face. symptoms usually last from a couple days to a week – working out during this window is usually nearly impossible and certainly ill advised,  but something happens during this forced downtime, something transforms. there is a realization; that every time you “went hard” before this you held back. you left something in the tank. as hard as you may have gone before you had never felt like this. it usually happens by accident, a change in circumstance or scenery – an adjustment or challenge momentarily shifts your self image and you fall victim to L’appel du vide, you gave in to the call of the void and this time nothing stopped you, no one protected you – and now the world looks different. shifted. it is like your first true heartbreak – it can’t really be “sought out” and no one wants to wish it on someone else, but there is usefulness to be found in the darkness. the bone-deep realization that the world is a little less safe, that risk and consequences are visceral things, they have a taste and a sound and a cost that must be paid. more than that, there is now an understanding that you possess the ability to do real damage. you have earned a bit more responsibility and the freedom to do with it what you will. the safety is off and the gun is loaded, now it is up to you to hit your target and avoid shooting yourself in the process. 

i don’t mean to romanticize this. anyone who has felt it or even witnessed the effects will tell you that it is far from flattering – but that does not mean it isn’t useful. it is a shift in perception. a changing of the rules. after someone goes through that fire it is now up to them to hold the reigns – because we do not get better by doing this – it is a tool with an extremely high cost, and one that does not get cheaper with frequent use. it is physically damaging and even from the most meat headed perspective, it benches you from meaningful training for at least a  couple days. but after something like this we realize that we are responsible for these costs  – and we can exercise judgement of when it is worth it. we are more capable of making that decision, of exerting our will. most  of the time in the gym we chase numbers  as  reflections of our ability, moments like this are shifts in perception. they are lessons that once felt will never be forgotten. 

this was written years ago, in what feels like a different world, and while the struggle i was speaking of might feel a little trivial at this time, it does not feel irrelevant. rites of passage have always intrigued me – a socially agreed upon line where childhood ends and adulthood begins. 

often forced. often unpleasant. it is an accounting of sorts. an excising of the assumptions of childhood.  

isolation is, ironically enough, a key piece in many of these rituals. to strip away the attention of the community, to make one live for a time without its constant presence – and to ask them to return only when they have something to bring back. 

isolation is a beautiful teacher. our environment exerts such an overwhelming pressure on us that without it we become unmoored, we drift and spin and obsess over the past and the future and anything but where we are right now. but then it breaks. the self is all that is left. regardless of what created it, it is the only thing available to explore. so we do. we try and understand our place in all of this. more than that, in learning that we can be cut out, cut away – in learning how much we actually take from our surroundings without thought – we have to learn how to justify our expense. 

purpose. purpose is what separates a rite of passage from a crisis. from a penalty. 

purpose, above all, is a choice. it is an attitude. it is a way to view a set of circumstances.

so we find purpose. we create purpose. 

from a young age we are given roles to fill. without understanding who we are, we are given an objective. faced with expectations and immediacy – the desire to fit into the system often overrides the slower process of understanding ourselves. we are problem solvers. immediate objectives keep us driving forward. the system is massive and redundant, it does not require us to be happy or even content – only useful.

we become so accustomed to tumbling forward, flitting from one judgement to the next that many of us have never made the effort to create an internal structure, a self-referential value system that can at least push back on the environment that surrounds us.  

space. and time.

these elements are so often stressors, but in claiming them as your own they become fuel for definition. removing immediacy gives us space to learn. understanding is currency of sorts. a force multiplier. taking the time to understand your objective, your material, and your tools. it is an accounting. identifying what elements you can change, and at what cost. 

in defining why we can begin to work on how. raw material is simply potential, it is only after we have an objective that we can understand the balance sheet. assets and liabilities. artistry is the ability to see – to interpret the objective, to understand that a tool is simply a lever, an extension of will. it is that will, that understanding, that striving to be that is your most vital asset. we are all works in progress. snapshots of inheritance and influence. we are often so focused on moving forward that we don’t stop to ask if it is the direction that best suits us, or one that we want in the first place. 

purpose. created, deliberate, purpose. 

understanding and artistry.

these are things i value. 

these are things i choose to refine.

to see the end result within material. to recognize potential and expose it. to nurture it with a deft hand…

a traditional bow is nothing more than a piece of wood that follows a few simple rules. making it is actually quite easy: to bastardize Michelangelo – just remove everything that isn’t the bow. to build a bow is to take a material and, with our action, give it purpose. the “rules” are ones of function, and the skilled hand is the one that can interpret those rules more creatively. it has access to more material because of understanding how to balance and exploit what initially appear as liabilities. 

i am obsessed with lessons. with rewards. with identifying the traits our challenges are selecting for. the skillset required to be victorious. matching material with a realistic understanding of my capabilities. understanding appropriate tool selection. the stages of reduction. how to cope with the unexpected… 

understand your material. understand your objective. understand what you can change and what you cannot. most of all, understand why.

working with my hands, working with wood or steel or stone will always remind me of these lessons. will force me to look at problems differently, to turn mistakes into centerpieces, to recognize how to make an asset out of a liability, to be flexible and open to new information. 

applying these lessons day in and day out have changed me as much as they have changed the objects i have created. it has made me more comfortable being a work in progress, a being undergoing refinement. 

and refinement is heavy work, for if i cannot see myself – how am i supposed to see others? if i cannot control my hand then why would i lift a tool that will multiply my effect exponentially? 

i wish to have an effect. 

i have limited energy. 

to maximize my effect i must understand my material. i must seek out and master the tools that will best allow me to craft that material to a purpose.

to my purpose.

the gym never made sense to me before it was given a purpose. to me, that purpose was initially as a laboratory, and later as a crucible. i realized that i needed to better understand my material, to understand myself. my behavior. how it changed when i was tired. when i was hungry. weak. scared. when i was cocky. when i was preforming. when i was alone.  

i needed first to see myself. honestly and without judgement. material is not good or bad, but degrees of usefulness in reference to an objective. the gym allowed me to explore so many scenarios, to better understand my potential, and where i was lacking. it also provided a structure to add and subtract – to develop skills to cope with my worst failings. it became a framework to exert some control, to start to unravel 25 years of short sightedness and quick fixes. like the crafting of a bow, the gym helped me remove the dead weight. to understand the interplay of flexibility, strength, and potential. of minute changes, leverage, and their effects. 

purpose. self-knowledge. what we are really building here is ownership. i am this way because i decided it is the best way for me to be. for now. 

without the space to really explore who and why you, how can you ever claim that ownership? and without it taking responsibility, how do you plan to be in control? 

a plan.

and control. 

one of the first thing i had to do when starting jiujitsu was reexamining my idea of control. in the gym, if i can control myself, i can control the weight. in jiujitsu, if i can control myself, my greatest hope is to influence my opponent. it became shockingly clear that even in combat, control is an illusion. until that last moment, our greatest hope is to understand. to use the knowledge of our own body and our opponents to exert influence, to steer events in a direction where the last choice of the enemy is an obvious one, and one where we are comfortable with either outcome. the part that really struck me from this realization is that the only way we demonstrate absolute control is by destroying something. anything less than destruction is not control but influence. attempts to control carry an implied threat, and the cost associated with that. 

knowledge of my opponent, of what they value, allows me to manipulate them more effectively – but thinking i have control over them blinds me to the directions they still have to go. to engage in this challenge requires me to try and see my actions through the eyes of my foe, to be willing to accept that the plan is not the goal, the goal is the goal. the plan is one vehicle that may or may not get there. changing the plan is respecting that the goal is the important part. exerting “control” by executing a plan in spite of the facts on the ground is not control but vanity. 

don’t mistake the map for the territory. we identify what we think is important and focus on it at the expense of the rest of the information. worse yet, we pick up someone else’s map and do not ask when they drew it, or what they were looking for when they did. we don’t question their experience or their motives in giving it to us. when we exit the simplicity of the gym we must accept that the things we can control are actually almost infinitely small. but it is all we have. the tools which we have to work. so we must learn. we must learn to be sensitive and dynamic. to listen and to understand. being honest with the limits of your toolkit will allow you to spend your energies more effectively. 

this is not control, this is commerce. this is about knowing yourself, about knowing your audience, and about your ability to communicate. this is about understanding. the gym is easy, it is practice. it is where we start. as we invite other variables, other players, other agendas – the idea of control swells and recedes. the acceptance that what we possess is a degree of self control and information. and that’s it. the relationship between those attributes is our leverage. the better we understand our sphere of control, the larger we can cast our sphere of influence. and the better we understand ourselves, the better chance we have to recognize which end of the lever we are holding. 

too often i see people defiant in the face of information. 

criticism rejected because we don’t like the source. opportunities to grow turned away as being borne of jealousy or some sort of attack. friendship tossed away over misunderstanding and ego.

we live in a disposable world. 

we live in such excess that it can be difficult to differentiate discerning from dismissive. be it business partners or personal relationships, we are all, on some level, replaceable. we can classify whole swaths of people as not my problem, in fact we have to – simply to stay sane. the problem arises when wielding that knife comes so easily that we risk using it without regard of the consequences. personal growth is constantly at war with personal preservation. it is simpler to cut away those with which we don’t agree, or who we feel wronged us in some way. we can go to another bar, move to another block, find new employees and new friends. growth is not linear. the process of investing involves setbacks, challenges, and finding a way to incorporate new information. 

aggression is too frequently mistaken for power, threats stand in for control and impotence is wielded like some sort of weapon. in an attempt to be seen as powerful we give up the only true power we have. to control ourselves. to direct our action. to exercise agency. we cannot change what happened before this moment, but we can influence what happens next, and through that – what happens after what happens next. training, for me, is an exercise. it is an exercise in patience. in managing small things. in managing myself throughout the process.

i wish to be an agent of change. of progress. and the first step is to understand the material. the tool with which i have to work. to ask questions and seek out information. to seek out leverage. to practice influence deftly, applying all that i have, all that i am to the situation. and with luck, making whatever it is better for me being there.

ultimately, agency is understanding and the will to act. 

it is as simple and as complicated as that.

good luck.

traditionally, the first project of an aspiring blacksmith is a pair of tongs. with adequate heat and something to bang against, a serviceable pair can be made. this gives us reach. access. and with that access we can craft a better hammer. and with that, better tongs. each iteration also brings knowledge, of how the material moves and how we like to move it. leverage and focus and impact. the difference between a crease and a cut. how to bend and when to break. understanding the material and the goal allows us to apply creativity, to forge better tools and better art, because in this endeavor we are both the means and the end, the story and the author.

agency is accepting your role as artist and architect. subject and storyteller.

so gather your tools, and sharpen your skills. our tales will be told in the doing.

– the station.

traditionally, the first project of an aspiring blacksmith is a pair of tongs. with adequate heat and something to bang against, a serviceable pair can be made. this gives us reach. access. and with that access we can craft a better hammer. and with that, better tongs. each iteration also brings knowledge, of how the material moves and how we like to move it. leverage and focus and impact. the differ-ence between a crease and a cut. how to bend and when to break. understanding the material and the goal allows us to apply creativity, to forge better tools and better art, because in this endeavor we are both the means and the end, the story and the author.

agency is accepting your role as artist and architect. subject and storyteller.

so gather your tools, and sharpen your skills. our tales will be told in the doing.

– the station.

too often i see people defiant in the face of information. 

criticism rejected because we don’t like the source. opportunities to grow turned away as being borne of jealousy or some sort of attack. friendship tossed away over misunderstanding and ego.

we live in a disposable world. 

we live in such excess that it can be difficult to differentiate discerning from dismissive. be it business partners or personal relationships, we are all, on some level, replaceable. we can classify whole swaths of people as not my problem, in fact we have to – simply to stay sane. the problem arises when wielding that knife comes so easily that we risk using it without regard of the consequences. personal growth is constantly at war with personal preservation. it is simpler to cut away those with which we don’t agree, or who we feel wronged us in some way. we can go to another bar, move to another block, find new employees and new friends. growth is not linear. the process of investing involves setbacks, challenges, and finding a way to incorporate new information. 

aggression is too frequently mistaken for power, threats stand in for control and impotence is wielded like some sort of weapon. in an attempt to be seen as powerful we give up the only true power we have. to control ourselves. to direct our action. to exercise agency. we cannot change what happened before this moment, but we can influence what happens next, and through that – what happens after what happens next. training, for me, is an exercise. it is an exercise in patience. in managing small things. in managing myself throughout the process.

i wish to be an agent of change. of progress. and the first step is to understand the material. the tool with which i have to work. to ask questions and seek out information. to seek out leverage. to practice influence deftly, applying all that i have, all that i am to the situation. and with luck, making whatever it is better for me being there.

ultimately, agency is understanding and the will to act. 

it is as simple and as complicated as that.

good luck.

the gym never made sense to me before it was given a purpose. to me, that purpose was initially as a laboratory, and later as a crucible. i realized that i needed to better understand my material, to understand myself. my behavior. how it changed when i was tired. when i was hungry. weak. scared. when i was cocky. when i was preforming. when i was alone.  

i needed first to see myself. honestly and without judgement. material is not good or bad, but degrees of usefulness in reference to an objective. the gym allowed me to explore so many scenarios, to better understand my potential, and where i was lacking. it also provided a structure to add and subtract – to develop skills to cope with my worst failings. it became a framework to exert some control, to start to unravel 25 years of short sightedness and quick fixes. like the crafting of a bow, the gym helped me remove the dead weight. to understand the interplay of flexibility, strength, and potential. of minute changes, leverage, and their effects. 

purpose. self-knowledge. what we are really building here is ownership. i am this way because i decided it is the best way for me to be. for now. 

without the space to really explore who and why you, how can you ever claim that ownership? and without it taking responsibility, how do you plan to be in control? 

a plan.

and control. 

one of the first thing i had to do when starting jiujitsu was reexamining my idea of control. in the gym, if i can control myself, i can control the weight. in jiujitsu, if i can control myself, my greatest hope is to influence my opponent. it became shockingly clear that even in combat, control is an illusion. until that last moment, our greatest hope is to understand. to use the knowledge of our own body and our opponents to exert influence, to steer events in a direction where the last choice of the enemy is an obvious one, and one where we are comfortable with either outcome. the part that really struck me from this realization is that the only way we demonstrate absolute control is by destroying something. anything less than destruction is not control but influence. attempts to control carry an implied threat, and the cost associated with that. 

knowledge of my opponent, of what they value, allows me to manipulate them more effectively – but thinking i have control over them blinds me to the directions they still have to go. to engage in this challenge requires me to try and see my actions through the eyes of my foe, to be willing to accept that the plan is not the goal, the goal is the goal. the plan is one vehicle that may or may not get there. changing the plan is respecting that the goal is the important part. exerting “control” by executing a plan in spite of the facts on the ground is not control but vanity. 

don’t mistake the map for the territory. we identify what we think is important and focus on it at the expense of the rest of the information. worse yet, we pick up someone else’s map and do not ask when they drew it, or what they were looking for when they did. we don’t question their experience or their motives in giving it to us. when we exit the simplicity of the gym we must accept that the things we can control are actually almost infinitely small. but it is all we have. the tools which we have to work. so we must learn. we must learn to be sensitive and dynamic. to listen and to understand. being honest with the limits of your toolkit will allow you to spend your energies more effectively. 

this is not control, this is commerce. this is about knowing yourself, about knowing your audience, and about your ability to communicate. this is about understanding. the gym is easy, it is practice. it is where we start. as we invite other variables, other players, other agendas – the idea of control swells and recedes. the acceptance that what we possess is a degree of self control and information. and that’s it. the relationship between those attributes is our leverage. the better we understand our sphere of control, the larger we can cast our sphere of influence. and the better we understand ourselves, the better chance we have to recognize which end of the lever we are holding. 

CONT… soon

so we find purpose. we create purpose. 

from a young age we are given roles to fill. without understanding who we are, we are given an objective. faced with expectations and immediacy – the desire to fit into the system often overrides the slower process of understanding ourselves. we are problem solvers. immediate objectives keep us driving forward. the system is massive and redundant, it does not require us to be happy or even content – only useful.

we become so accustomed to tumbling forward, flitting from one judgement to the next that many of us have never made the effort to create an internal structure, a self-referential value system that can at least push back on the environment that surrounds us.  

space. and time.

these elements are so often stressors, but in claiming them as your own they become fuel for definition. removing immediacy gives us space to learn. understanding is currency of sorts. a force multiplier. taking the time to understand your objective, your material, and your tools. it is an accounting. identifying what elements you can change, and at what cost. 

in defining why we can begin to work on how. raw material is simply potential, it is only after we have an objective that we can understand the balance sheet. assets and liabilities. artistry is the ability to see – to interpret the objective, to understand that a tool is simply a lever, an extension of will. it is that will, that understanding, that striving to be that is your most vital asset. we are all works in progress. snapshots of inheritance and influence. we are often so focused on moving forward that we don’t stop to ask if it is the direction that best suits us, or one that we want in the first place. 

purpose. created, deliberate, purpose. 

understanding and artistry.

these are things i value. 

these are things i choose to refine.

to see the end result within material. to recognize potential and expose it. to nurture it with a deft hand…

a traditional bow is nothing more than a piece of wood that follows a few simple rules. making it is actually quite easy: to bastardize Michelangelo – just remove everything that isn’t the bow. to build a bow is to take a material and, with our action, give it purpose. the “rules” are ones of function, and the skilled hand is the one that can interpret those rules more creatively. it has access to more material because of understanding how to balance and exploit what initially appear as liabilities. 

i am obsessed with lessons. with rewards. with identifying the traits our challenges are selecting for. the skillset required to be victorious. matching material with a realistic understanding of my capabilities. understanding appropriate tool selection. the stages of reduction. how to cope with the unexpected… 

understand your material. understand your objective. understand what you can change and what you cannot. most of all, understand why.

working with my hands, working with wood or steel or stone will always remind me of these lessons. will force me to look at problems differently, to turn mistakes into centerpieces, to recognize how to make an asset out of a liability, to be flexible and open to new information. 

applying these lessons day in and day out have changed me as much as they have changed the objects i have created. it has made me more comfortable being a work in progress, a being undergoing refinement. 

and refinement is heavy work, for if i cannot see myself – how am i supposed to see others? if i cannot control my hand then why would i lift a tool that will multiply my effect exponentially? 

i wish to have an effect. 

i have limited energy. 

to maximize my effect i must understand my material. i must seek out and master the tools that will best allow me to craft that material to a purpose.

to my purpose.

CONT… soon

it has been almost a year since i sent off the zine. over the next few weeks portions of the text will be released for those who missed it…

most people are not strong enough to hurt themselves.  at least not at first. i don’t mean that they physically lack strength to cause injury, i mean that in the gym or any environment that they can exercise control, they will quit mentally long before they encounter any real physical danger. “hard” work is a constant negotiation, your body sends you signals, information about the cost of your actions and you have to convince yourself to keep carving away at that pound of flesh despite the consequences. in that situation, most people drop the knife at the first sight of blood – but as we train, as we learn to get comfortable with the pain, to manage those costs, we creep, inch by inch, into the deep end and one day we reach our toes down only to realize we cant reach bottom, we are in over our head.

this exhibits in a few ways – cramping, vomiting, blinding headaches, symptoms like food poisoning, burst blood vessels in the eyes and face. symptoms usually last from a couple days to a week – working out during this window is usually nearly impossible and certainly ill advised,  but something happens during this forced downtime, something transforms. there is a realization; that every time you “went hard” before this you held back. you left something in the tank. as hard as you may have gone before you had never felt like this. it usually happens by accident, a change in circumstance or scenery – an adjustment or challenge momentarily shifts your self image and you fall victim to L’appel du vide, you gave in to the call of the void and this time nothing stopped you, no one protected you – and now the world looks different. shifted. it is like your first true heartbreak – it can’t really be “sought out” and no one wants to wish it on someone else, but there is usefulness to be found in the darkness. the bone-deep realization that the world is a little less safe, that risk and consequences are visceral things, they have a taste and a sound and a cost that must be paid. more than that, there is now an understanding that you possess the ability to do real damage. you have earned a bit more responsibility and the freedom to do with it what you will. the safety is off and the gun is loaded, now it is up to you to hit your target and avoid shooting yourself in the process. 

i don’t mean to romanticize this. anyone who has felt it or even witnessed the effects will tell you that it is far from flattering – but that does not mean it isn’t useful. it is a shift in perception. a changing of the rules. after someone goes through that fire it is now up to them to hold the reigns – because we do not get better by doing this – it is a tool with an extremely high cost, and one that does not get cheaper with frequent use. it is physically damaging and even from the most meat headed perspective, it benches you from meaningful training for at least a  couple days. but after something like this we realize that we are responsible for these costs  – and we can exercise judgement of when it is worth it. we are more capable of making that decision, of exerting our will. most  of the time in the gym we chase numbers  as  reflections of our ability, moments like this are shifts in perception. they are lessons that once felt will never be forgotten. 

this was written years ago, in what feels like a different world, and while the struggle i was speaking of might feel a little trivial at this time, it does not feel irrelevant. rites of passage have always intrigued me – a socially agreed upon line where childhood ends and adulthood begins. 

often forced. often unpleasant. it is an accounting of sorts. an excising of the assumptions of childhood.  

isolation is, ironically enough, a key piece in many of these rituals. to strip away the attention of the community, to make one live for a time without its constant presence – and to ask them to return only when they have something to bring back. 

isolation is a beautiful teacher. our environment exerts such an overwhelming pressure on us that without it we become unmoored, we drift and spin and obsess over the past and the future and anything but where we are right now. but then it breaks. the self is all that is left. regardless of what created it, it is the only thing available to explore. so we do. we try and understand our place in all of this. more than that, in learning that we can be cut out, cut away – in learning how much we actually take from our surroundings without thought – we have to learn how to justify our expense. 

purpose. purpose is what separates a rite of passage from a crisis. from a penalty. 

purpose, above all, is a choice. it is an attitude. it is a way to view a set of circumstances.

so we find purpose. we create purpose. 

CONT... soon…