You know how John Lennon said "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans"? I think really the first 4 words of that is all that's necessary. You see, a lot people think that the things that they plan out and the words that they write constitute "life", but really, your life is what goes on in your sphere of existence from day to day. Sometimes, we can forget this. Sometimes we'll make plans, set goals, and then get sidetracked by big happenings, but feel bad that we didn't get to do what we had planned. We also may mislead ourselves to think that the book we're writing, the round-the-world trip we're planning, or the blog we intended to update regularly are what constitutes our lives. But we'd be wrong. So that is why I don't feel bad for failing to update my blog. Because when I look back at what happened since I wrote my last blog entry, it's not distractions, it's life stuff--the real meat-and-potatoes of adulthood. So let's go down the list:
1) My lady and I bought a house and moved in.
2) I started working full time during some brutal hours.
3) I decorated our house for Christmas.
4) I proposed to my lady.
5) My lady and I cleaned out our old apartment.
6) We acquired a washer and dryer, and moved them in.
7) My car broke down, several times, and is now ready to be proclaimed dead.
8) I appealed for and was permitted to resume my Assistantship at the University I am attending.
9) I assumed a full courseload of graduate classes.
10) I switched from Windows to Linux, permanently.
11) My lady and I finished painting our living and dining rooms.
12) We purchased new furniture.
13) We fully decorated our home.
14) We visited 3 different families in a 24 hour period from Christmas Eve night to Christmas Day.
And most importantly, I prepare almost every meal that we eat, every night, with few exceptions.
Now, the content of the above list is not as important as the sheer number of events, which excludes many things that are quite time-consuming. But suffice it to say, those things are life. So when I ask myself "why wasn't I blogging?", I remember that list, and all the time that it entailed, and I say "oh yeah! I was f*&#ing busy!"
But things have calmed down a bit for me, and I do feel bad that in my time of doing the above listed things, I didn't keep running. Now, I don't feel bad because I feel lazy, I ran right up until the snow fell (in metric tons, mind you!). But I feel bad because I know that some time next week, when the ice on the sidewalks has melted enough to allow me to run again, it will be hell on earth. But I think that, in the meantime, I'm at peace with being slowed down. Perhaps my mind will be more tuned to the task at hand when I start up again. But even if it isn't, life is still happening; after all, it can't do anything else.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Friday, November 13, 2009
Keep it Simple, In Every Way Imaginable
Time for shop talk. Warning, when I use the preceding phrase, that means that I'm going to be talking about my bread and butter, my long-time mistress and first love, Philosophy. I was trying to keep it away from my blogging, and it's funny that it was when I mad that decision, that was about the time that I stopped blogging with any frequency. Funny how that happens, huh? Well as you can see, I have decided to abandon that rather meaningless policy and throw my ideas out there so that they will be etched in the digital stone that is the world wide web, and not on a flimsy piece of paper in the drawer of my desk that my fabulous lady Erin is currently whispering that I get rid of (okay, I concede that it is made of plywood...plywood and memories). However, though I will be intermittently wrestling with issues philosophical/theoretical on this blog, there are two things that will remain constant (so help me Plato):
1) I will still be writing about pushing myself in running toward a marathon and in being a grown-up man.
2) I will keep my posts accessible. Though I may engage in "shop talk" (which will also be the corresponding tag for posts of a philosophical bent), I will not be esoteric or overly technical. Anything that took me more than a few sentences of explanation to learn as an undergrad, I will explain briefly.
That stuff now out of the way, off I go!
Yesterday, in Metaphysics class, my professor was talking about the A-theory and B-theory of time. There are many complications, but the main difference can be laid out thusly (and arguments extrapolated from what each statement implies):
A-series - There is a past, present, and future. Each event goes from being the future, to presently happening, and then becoming past.
B-series - The A-series makes no sense. Time is a dimension like space, laid out in a certain way. Terms like "now" or "the present" are simply indexicals (like "I", where the meaning changes based on the conditions under which the word is uttered), and events are merely earlier than, later than, or concurrent with some arbitrarily chosen point in time.
Now, the big issue between the two, and between several different A-theorists, is that it seems that when we experience things, we seem to have, as part of the content "now". Let me explain. Let's say I'm in pain, I have a monstrous toothache. The content of my experience is "tooth in pain" or something like that. But the A-theorist says that in addition to that, we have a "nowness" that attaches to that experience. The B-theorist, it seems can't account for that, because all of time is on an equal plane, there is no "now" that is priveleged, and it certainly can't be part of an experience. I find that utterly convincing. There's more jargon to the argument, involving propositions, truthmakers, etc, but I am truly convinced by it.
I really only bring that up as a segue into a larger theme of my learned life. From my first Philosophy of Mind class as an undergrad, I've always had problems with certain philosophical doctrines. With ethics and Moral Philosophy, it's easy to see the root of any aversions one might have with a theory, because there are certain moral intuitions and value judgments that people bring with them to any philosophical debate. But things get murkier when you're discussing metaphysics. After all, the main question of metaphysics is "what is reality like?". And if you're doing metaphysics, and you make claims to describe reality, another metaphysician will no doubt ask you the above question, but without the last word. That question, the more basic one, is the ontological question. It is the question that W.V.O. Quine made philosophers focus on midway through the 20th century: "what is there? what exists?". This question can be asked more technically, in a sense, by asking "what do your quantifiers range over?". I have always been inclined to answer these questions by saying "only concrete particulars exist, my quantifiers ranger over only concrete particulars, that's all that there is". I thought that this was the bedrock of my metaphysical theorizing, and it led me to some pretty dismissive attitudes in metaphysical talks. It would go something like this:
Philosopher A: Properties?
Me: Nope
Philosopher A: Propositions?
Me: No way.
Philosopher A: Concrete possible worlds?
Me: Uh-uh.
Philosopher A: Abstract possible worlds?
Me: Not a chance [there's a hidden philosophy joke there]
Philosopher A: Numbers? Sets?
Me: Null. [also a hidden joke]
You get the idea. I however, did not really look at that until recently, when we were discussing Presentism. That is the doctrine that the only things that exist are the things in the present moment, or more succinctly, to exist is to be in the present. This means that there are no things in the past, and there is no future to which to travel at a faster rate than time moves. But my inclination to this view enlightened me regarding my most basic ontological attitude: keep it simple! I am concerned with keeping the leanest ontology possible. This means that even with regards to time, I operate with the least amount of existing entities. This gives me, in a sense, a new foundation from which to build my philosophical house. It also gives me something to fight for in the "field" that I have chosen. I fight for parsimony, I fight for simplicity. Maybe it's an extension of my laziness, but I think I can live with that, so long as "laziness" is not an abstract property.
1) I will still be writing about pushing myself in running toward a marathon and in being a grown-up man.
2) I will keep my posts accessible. Though I may engage in "shop talk" (which will also be the corresponding tag for posts of a philosophical bent), I will not be esoteric or overly technical. Anything that took me more than a few sentences of explanation to learn as an undergrad, I will explain briefly.
That stuff now out of the way, off I go!
Yesterday, in Metaphysics class, my professor was talking about the A-theory and B-theory of time. There are many complications, but the main difference can be laid out thusly (and arguments extrapolated from what each statement implies):
A-series - There is a past, present, and future. Each event goes from being the future, to presently happening, and then becoming past.
B-series - The A-series makes no sense. Time is a dimension like space, laid out in a certain way. Terms like "now" or "the present" are simply indexicals (like "I", where the meaning changes based on the conditions under which the word is uttered), and events are merely earlier than, later than, or concurrent with some arbitrarily chosen point in time.
Now, the big issue between the two, and between several different A-theorists, is that it seems that when we experience things, we seem to have, as part of the content "now". Let me explain. Let's say I'm in pain, I have a monstrous toothache. The content of my experience is "tooth in pain" or something like that. But the A-theorist says that in addition to that, we have a "nowness" that attaches to that experience. The B-theorist, it seems can't account for that, because all of time is on an equal plane, there is no "now" that is priveleged, and it certainly can't be part of an experience. I find that utterly convincing. There's more jargon to the argument, involving propositions, truthmakers, etc, but I am truly convinced by it.
I really only bring that up as a segue into a larger theme of my learned life. From my first Philosophy of Mind class as an undergrad, I've always had problems with certain philosophical doctrines. With ethics and Moral Philosophy, it's easy to see the root of any aversions one might have with a theory, because there are certain moral intuitions and value judgments that people bring with them to any philosophical debate. But things get murkier when you're discussing metaphysics. After all, the main question of metaphysics is "what is reality like?". And if you're doing metaphysics, and you make claims to describe reality, another metaphysician will no doubt ask you the above question, but without the last word. That question, the more basic one, is the ontological question. It is the question that W.V.O. Quine made philosophers focus on midway through the 20th century: "what is there? what exists?". This question can be asked more technically, in a sense, by asking "what do your quantifiers range over?". I have always been inclined to answer these questions by saying "only concrete particulars exist, my quantifiers ranger over only concrete particulars, that's all that there is". I thought that this was the bedrock of my metaphysical theorizing, and it led me to some pretty dismissive attitudes in metaphysical talks. It would go something like this:
Philosopher A: Properties?
Me: Nope
Philosopher A: Propositions?
Me: No way.
Philosopher A: Concrete possible worlds?
Me: Uh-uh.
Philosopher A: Abstract possible worlds?
Me: Not a chance [there's a hidden philosophy joke there]
Philosopher A: Numbers? Sets?
Me: Null. [also a hidden joke]
You get the idea. I however, did not really look at that until recently, when we were discussing Presentism. That is the doctrine that the only things that exist are the things in the present moment, or more succinctly, to exist is to be in the present. This means that there are no things in the past, and there is no future to which to travel at a faster rate than time moves. But my inclination to this view enlightened me regarding my most basic ontological attitude: keep it simple! I am concerned with keeping the leanest ontology possible. This means that even with regards to time, I operate with the least amount of existing entities. This gives me, in a sense, a new foundation from which to build my philosophical house. It also gives me something to fight for in the "field" that I have chosen. I fight for parsimony, I fight for simplicity. Maybe it's an extension of my laziness, but I think I can live with that, so long as "laziness" is not an abstract property.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Know the Trick: The Trick is to Know.
Yes, I've not been posting for a while. I could try to formulate an excuse for this that could not be reasonably rejected by any one of my readers, but I won't waste either of our precious time. I got lazy, I had to take time off to rest a slightly defective ankle, and I started working.
Yes, that's right! You did not misread the above line, I started a job. I won't name names, or pay-rates. Suffice it to say that I secured a retail job that I don't really like, but am comfortable with because it is temporary, uninvolved, and non-committal. Those aspects come into play come January, because I will be re-assuming my old position at the University. Yes, this is a good thing. I will have said position until May, when I plan to graduate with my M.A. in Philosophy. This brings me to my next point.
I have certain places on the internet that I value for their ability to give me valuable knowledge on a regular basis. One site tells me how a grown man ought to dress, another tells me who's publishing which papers on what philosophical topics, and another tells me what the people I know are up to. The list goes on, but I won't bother publishing any more of my increasingly geeky trail of links. But there is one particular site that I perused today for the first time in a while, which really spoke to my recent productivity downturn (I'd link that phrase to a demonstration of said downturn, but you can't link to a lack of blog posts, know what I mean?). The site is owned and operated by one Merlin Mann, not to be confused with Manfred Mann. It's called 43folders.com (type in the address yourself, I'm tired of linking), and it's all about productivity and what's called "knowledge work". Now, I read this post today, and it changed my way of looking at things. If you have time, watch the video. If you have less time, watch the first 8 minutes or so, you'll get inspired enough. So what does this have to do with getting my M.A. in Philosophy? (Thought I forgot, didn't you?) Well, in case you didn't stop reading my blog to watch the video on the last link, the subject of the video is a little secret about how to be productive. The key is to not forget who you are.
I'll try to simplify as much as I can. Productivity is what we in the philosophical field call a "teleological" concept. It only has meaning so far as it is attached to a thinker (and in this case, a thinker who acts on thoughts) and a goal. No one is just "productive" full stop. A person is productive with regards to a certain goal. This goal is largely a product of, or may very well define who you are. Answer the following question: What do you do? The answer will most likely be a description of your profession or desired profession that you are trying to break into. I am a philosopher, that would be my answer. So, I am productive if I do the things that I set out for myself philosophically speaking. I have articles to read, papers to write, comprehensive exams for which to study. My being productive comes from knowing what I have to know, knowing what I have to do, and doing what I have to do. My NOT being productive happens when I forget that I am supposed to be doing philosophy. I can attest to this. I find myself on all sorts of internet oddysseys in which I am learning all sorts of facts that it was not my goal to learn, and in which I have no interest. Then I lose track of where I was when I was on task (if I was on task at all), and I am not productive.
This is not to say that you always have to be doing work that contributes to your life's work. Well......actually, let me rephrase that. You will find that as you start working more--I mean "heads down", 90 words-per-minute type work--you will find that taking breaks and having fun and free time is actually a vital part of your work. My work is largely based on theoretical frameworks, fleshing out arguments, cross-referencing, use of analogies, and so on. Long spans of time doing that work can make innovation and creativity slower to come. I have found that I am most productive when I can get up, do something else for a bit, and get back to work. But here's the catch; I have to fully participate in that break (whatever the task is). If I am talking to my lady, I have to only talk to her, not think about one of my argument's sub-arguments or try to remember why Scanlon takes reasons as primitive (it's roughly the same as resemblance nominalists taking similarity as primitive, don't worry!). This way, when I come back to the laptop and the books, I am fresh, and I don't resent my work for taking my attention away from the other things I choose to do. Much like the Offspring wisely said; "You gotta keep 'em separated".
So what should you take away from all this sludge? Know who you are, and do the things that you need to do. Don't forget that, and you'll be fine. It's simple. But as I believe I've said before, simple does not mean easy. I must also apply this to running. I am a philosopher, yes, but I am also a man training to run a marathon. So I need to focus on running when I'm running, and make progress when I must. In that vein, it's been tough. I did something to my ankle, and though I did 5 miles Monday and 4 and some change today, it's still keeping me from pushing hard. I'll accept that, it comes with the territory. But when I can push, I'll be doing just that.
Onward!
(This post is dedicated to KJ. He left this world too soon, for he wasn't done changing it yet. You are in my prayers, buddy.)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Onward and Upward
Yes, it has been quite a while since I posted on this blog. You've got me, I have been trippin'. But the lack of posting is not due to a lack of happenings. In fact, were there actually a lack of happenings, there would be more posting, as that seems to be just how it goes for me. But several things have been happening all at once, sapping my time, energy, and attention, but pushing me further along in my quest to be a full-fledged, bona fide grown up. Here's a quick bullet point list of what's been happening (in absolutely no particular order aside from my stream of consciousness):
- Erin and I received financial approval for a home loan, searched through hundreds of houses in our area, looked at close to 20+ houses, and put in an offer on one--which was accepted just last Friday.
- I went on around 4 job interviews which ate up a considerable amount of time (and neckties)
- I spent an exorbitant amount of time, gas, calories, and verbal energy taking care of a small personal matter that has been burdening me for the last 3 years, finally closing a chapter in my life that I am glad to leave behind.
- I received the gift of phenomenal new shoes, moisture-wicking cold-weather wear, and awesome gloves, to help me run straight through the notoriously feisty Midwestern winter.
- I ran....a lot. In the past 3 weeks, I have made big Monday runs of 6, 7, and 8 miles respectively. I have also ratcheted up the mileage on my smaller runs, going from two-three 5Ks per week to three 5-mile runs on Wed-Fri each week. My grand total last week: 22 miles.
- I've been hanging with my folks quite a bit. My family means more to me now that it probably ever has before. And it is funny that this is the case, as I have officially made my living away from my parents a permanent situation. But I am glad that I am now in contact with my family (and my future family) more these days, because it reaffirms the theme that has been present in my life for the past year and half: constant progress.
- I've been doing some heavy academic work. I'm starting to get used to Philosophy being a large part of my life again. It has been a while, and I still find myself weirded out by the presence of this fickle mistress, but I'm glad to have her back (so long as my #1 lady doesn't get jealous).
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Find Your Pace, Find Your Peace.
One of the intriguing things about life, broadly construed, is momentum. Sometimes, you can be pressing onward at a snail's pace, feeling heavy as a concrete slab. Other times, things seem to moving along like a windswept parachute, pulled quickly off the ground and far afield. The momentum may seem like it's random, and like you have no control over it, but I'm not so sure that that's the case. For the past week, I have been quite busy, for the first time in recent memory. I have had interviews at various possible employers, taken tests at a staffing agency, run into interesting research projects on the academic side of things, started taking steps to possibly move into a house with the woman of my dreams, and sorting out my future. Were I not newly in the habit of pushing myself to keep going, I'm not so sure that I'd be up for all of it. But lately, I've been pushing myself to keep moving; not moving senselessly and merely to stay moving, but to keep plowing through the tough terrain that is working to achieve my goals. I am also not moving mindlessly, trying not to deal with my feelings and thoughts that make my present moment, for that would be more dangerous than even sitting still. Rather, I am striking the balance between barely moving and thoughtlessly speeding along with no presence of mind. Allow me to make one more analogy in regards to running (that is, after all, a main theme in this blog, is it not?)
Imagine the mind and the body as two running partners. They're unwillingly tied to each other, need one another to do their best, but their tragedy is that they are so unevenly matched. The mind has the ability to keep on running faster and farther into the future, into uncharted possible futures, and quickly as far backward into a cloudy past. But the body can only run forward at the pace of the present moment, and unfortunately, it has to do so at the mercy of its reluctant partner, the mind, and its volatile changes of pace.
When I first started running, I wanted so much more than I could do in one session. I wanted to be able to run at an 8 minute mile pace, I wanted to go on for 5 and 10 miles in one fell swoop. In short, my mind took off at breakneck pace, and my body was left in the dust. But at some point, I stopped thinking that I had to one day run a marathon--my mind slowed down a bit--or even that I'd have to run a half-marathon--slower--or a 20k--slower--or whatever large race toward which I was moving. I forgot also that I had to run the 4 miles that I set out to when I left the house this morning--slower--and furthermore that I had to make it up the hill in front of me to get to the comfortable slight decline of the next road--slower. In reality, all I had to do was take the next step, because that's all that I have to do right now--slower. It was at that moment that my mind matched the pace of my body. Perhaps the mind realized that ultimately, even if he crossed the finish line long before his partner, he'd still have to stand there and wait for him, twiddling his thumbs the whole time with that limitless nervous energy that the mind seems to posses. With my mind now matching pace with my body, I rounded out the four miles charted for today without stopping, and even managed to help two old ladies find the detour to the main road.
So while momentum is a very real phenomenon that pervades the experience of living life, the supposition that it comes and goes involuntarily is quite unfounded. While you or your significant other may not actually run, your mind almost certainly does, at various paces, which rarely match that of your body. But if you can manage to sync the two, and harness the power of the teamwork that happens when the two run at a complimentary pace, well you just might find real happiness. But then again, what do I know? I'm crazy enough to think that running a marathon will be fun.
Numbers: I ran 4 miles today, after doing a big run of 6 miles on Monday (the record to date). The times of both had me running at a pace of between 8:30 and 8:45 per mile (which I hope to improve by including speedwork in the regimen). That brings the week's total to 10 miles, which I hope to increase to 13 or more, depending on how sore I am tomorrow.
Imagine the mind and the body as two running partners. They're unwillingly tied to each other, need one another to do their best, but their tragedy is that they are so unevenly matched. The mind has the ability to keep on running faster and farther into the future, into uncharted possible futures, and quickly as far backward into a cloudy past. But the body can only run forward at the pace of the present moment, and unfortunately, it has to do so at the mercy of its reluctant partner, the mind, and its volatile changes of pace.
When I first started running, I wanted so much more than I could do in one session. I wanted to be able to run at an 8 minute mile pace, I wanted to go on for 5 and 10 miles in one fell swoop. In short, my mind took off at breakneck pace, and my body was left in the dust. But at some point, I stopped thinking that I had to one day run a marathon--my mind slowed down a bit--or even that I'd have to run a half-marathon--slower--or a 20k--slower--or whatever large race toward which I was moving. I forgot also that I had to run the 4 miles that I set out to when I left the house this morning--slower--and furthermore that I had to make it up the hill in front of me to get to the comfortable slight decline of the next road--slower. In reality, all I had to do was take the next step, because that's all that I have to do right now--slower. It was at that moment that my mind matched the pace of my body. Perhaps the mind realized that ultimately, even if he crossed the finish line long before his partner, he'd still have to stand there and wait for him, twiddling his thumbs the whole time with that limitless nervous energy that the mind seems to posses. With my mind now matching pace with my body, I rounded out the four miles charted for today without stopping, and even managed to help two old ladies find the detour to the main road.
So while momentum is a very real phenomenon that pervades the experience of living life, the supposition that it comes and goes involuntarily is quite unfounded. While you or your significant other may not actually run, your mind almost certainly does, at various paces, which rarely match that of your body. But if you can manage to sync the two, and harness the power of the teamwork that happens when the two run at a complimentary pace, well you just might find real happiness. But then again, what do I know? I'm crazy enough to think that running a marathon will be fun.
Numbers: I ran 4 miles today, after doing a big run of 6 miles on Monday (the record to date). The times of both had me running at a pace of between 8:30 and 8:45 per mile (which I hope to improve by including speedwork in the regimen). That brings the week's total to 10 miles, which I hope to increase to 13 or more, depending on how sore I am tomorrow.
Friday, October 2, 2009
No Matter What
If there's one thing that is the most important element of this whole operation, the glue that is holding this all together, it's staying positive. That's what's gotten me through the past year and some change, and what will get me from here today to the finish line (am I still talking about the marathon, or about life?). But sometimes I forget it, and I have to either be reminded, or remind myself. But I think it's appropriate here to tell the story of just how this all got rolling, and became the centerpiece of my life. Away we go....
In late 2006, I had developed a bad habit. I had graduated from college the year before, and entered graduate school with the goal of obtaining my Ph.D within 6 years. I was driven, I was determined, I was....burning out. I was in a hopelessly unhealthy relationship, I had become nearly a hermit, and I had no balance in my life. I spent days in a haze of walking and studying, theorizing and worrying. I spent nights arguing and/or sleeping in chairs next to hospital beds. I never allowed myself to find the middle-ground. Through it all, I carried around a stash of pills to get me through. I had white ones, blue ones, green ones, pink ones, circular ones, oval ones, uppers and downers. Simply put, I had become hooked on painkillers and benzodiazepines (look 'em up, you'll recognize a few names). After continuing the addiction to various degrees of severity, I was ordered into inpatient treatment in May of 2008. By that time, I had stopped attending classes with any regularity and was barely doing the day-to-day tasks. My grades fell drastically and I was dismissed from the graduate school via a letter delivered to me in rehab in July.
I spent three months in rehab, meeting and then befriending people from all walks of life. I med federal criminals, dealers, fathers, mothers, members and higher-ups of nearly every gang in and out of Chicago, and even a few people just like me. Actually, they were all just like me, they were addicts. They we addicts and alcoholics. They had come to the end of their rope (at least that particular rope) and were thrown in with everyone else like them to try to pick up the pieces for 90 days.
When I first got into the facility, I was unsure of how I would go about living there and what would happen afterward. But within the first day, I heard a counselor--a recovering crack addict with 30 years of addiction and 10 years of recovery under his belt--give a speech about being open-minded, about giving this (rehab) a chance in order to give yourself a chance. For whatever reason, I decided that day to stop being jaded, cynical, and drop the hubris that I had about handling my life. I decided that I needed help, and that I'd get it in treatment.
The 90 days went by more quickly than I ever thought they would. I left as the summer was winding down, in August of 2008. My 6 year relationship was ending, my parents had come to pick me (a now 25-year-old man-child) up, and I was entering a halfway house to make my transition back into sober living. While at the halfway house, I met some great people--people who had been all but given up on, and were trying to find the strength to make a life for themselves. I found that even when things were going badly for them, they'd still be there to help anyone who was dealing with addiction and it's accompanying demons. Every day, as we gathered to pray (in the non-specific, personal way) in the morning, I gained inspiration and wisdom. Sometimes I wondered how I'd gotten to a place where I felt real, genuine peace. I realized that through it all, though there were tough times, I stayed positive about what I was trying to do. I smiled, I breathed, and I kept moving forward.
So it was fitting that one day, at the job I had managed to get while at the halfway house, I found a rubber band that fit nicely around my wrist. Many people in the recovery community wore rubber bands, to remind themselves to keep going, to snap when they got a craving, or whatever would help them. I figured that since I often learn visually, I'd write something on the rubber band to remind myself of what I had to do to make it. I took a sharpie from under the counter and wrote "PMA" all around it in fat, black letters. PMA stands for Positive Mental Attitude. It's a concept that's been around for a while, and I learned of it through my affinity for hardcore punk, and the band "Bad Brains", which had used the phrase many times in their songs. I figured that of all the things that people had told me about my progress and my good qualities, they referred to my being positive and genuine. So if I had to attribute my new way of life to anything, it would be to staying positive, no matter what.
Today, I still wear a PMA bracelet. I have made two of them for others; one for the woman that I plan to spend my life with, and the other to Hakeem, a man I met in the halfway house who taught me the value of hard work and optimism. Wherever you are, Hakeem, I hope that you're still sober and you still qualify (he'd know what it means). I have gone through many rubber bands myself, due to stretching, breaking, and fading, but I always make sure to keep one on. Now more than ever, I have made it a point to stay positive--to do and say things that reflect an attitude of openness, willingness, and honesty, and to give all that I can to whatever I choose to do. So when I wake up, stretch, and step out the door to run, I do it until I finish, running through any shit that my body wants to give me. I'd like to say that I have been doing the same with my life in general, but it is not so. I've been reflecting too much on the repercussions of my past bad decisions, and of the difficulty of the career and life goals that I have set for myself, but I've been failing to give my all and stay positive about what I can do. So today, while I sat in an office at an employment agency, hoping to get some sort of job to put my head above water, and allow my lady to stop having to worry about money, I got to worrying. I thought: "what if I can't get over my scholastic and legal indiscretions, and I can't do my life's work? What if I don't get a fair shake based on my past?" I almost got overwhelmed yet again, but I quickly caught on to what my mind was doing, and thought: "well, what if I just sit around and worry instead of stop pretending to know the future and put all my effort and passion where it belongs?" I decided that the latter question was more worth asking.
I left the office determined, and positive. There will always be hardships on the path I have chosen, but the only way I can be defeated is if I give up. Knowing this, I can rest each day, knowing that I have put my all into what I am doing, and that I don't live in the future, I live now. After all, I can only do what I can do in this moment, that is all I have right now. I'm pretty sure that I can handle that.
If you've read this far, thanks for doing so, and stay positive.
P.S. I ran 5k yesterday, although I don't normally run on Thursdays. I also ran this morning, another 5k. I beat my time by nearly 30 seconds, brining my time up to 27:29. The total mileage for this week is 14 miles. I hope to rack up some more next week, starting with 6 miles on Monday. Here's hoping!
I spent three months in rehab, meeting and then befriending people from all walks of life. I med federal criminals, dealers, fathers, mothers, members and higher-ups of nearly every gang in and out of Chicago, and even a few people just like me. Actually, they were all just like me, they were addicts. They we addicts and alcoholics. They had come to the end of their rope (at least that particular rope) and were thrown in with everyone else like them to try to pick up the pieces for 90 days.
When I first got into the facility, I was unsure of how I would go about living there and what would happen afterward. But within the first day, I heard a counselor--a recovering crack addict with 30 years of addiction and 10 years of recovery under his belt--give a speech about being open-minded, about giving this (rehab) a chance in order to give yourself a chance. For whatever reason, I decided that day to stop being jaded, cynical, and drop the hubris that I had about handling my life. I decided that I needed help, and that I'd get it in treatment.
The 90 days went by more quickly than I ever thought they would. I left as the summer was winding down, in August of 2008. My 6 year relationship was ending, my parents had come to pick me (a now 25-year-old man-child) up, and I was entering a halfway house to make my transition back into sober living. While at the halfway house, I met some great people--people who had been all but given up on, and were trying to find the strength to make a life for themselves. I found that even when things were going badly for them, they'd still be there to help anyone who was dealing with addiction and it's accompanying demons. Every day, as we gathered to pray (in the non-specific, personal way) in the morning, I gained inspiration and wisdom. Sometimes I wondered how I'd gotten to a place where I felt real, genuine peace. I realized that through it all, though there were tough times, I stayed positive about what I was trying to do. I smiled, I breathed, and I kept moving forward.
So it was fitting that one day, at the job I had managed to get while at the halfway house, I found a rubber band that fit nicely around my wrist. Many people in the recovery community wore rubber bands, to remind themselves to keep going, to snap when they got a craving, or whatever would help them. I figured that since I often learn visually, I'd write something on the rubber band to remind myself of what I had to do to make it. I took a sharpie from under the counter and wrote "PMA" all around it in fat, black letters. PMA stands for Positive Mental Attitude. It's a concept that's been around for a while, and I learned of it through my affinity for hardcore punk, and the band "Bad Brains", which had used the phrase many times in their songs. I figured that of all the things that people had told me about my progress and my good qualities, they referred to my being positive and genuine. So if I had to attribute my new way of life to anything, it would be to staying positive, no matter what.
Today, I still wear a PMA bracelet. I have made two of them for others; one for the woman that I plan to spend my life with, and the other to Hakeem, a man I met in the halfway house who taught me the value of hard work and optimism. Wherever you are, Hakeem, I hope that you're still sober and you still qualify (he'd know what it means). I have gone through many rubber bands myself, due to stretching, breaking, and fading, but I always make sure to keep one on. Now more than ever, I have made it a point to stay positive--to do and say things that reflect an attitude of openness, willingness, and honesty, and to give all that I can to whatever I choose to do. So when I wake up, stretch, and step out the door to run, I do it until I finish, running through any shit that my body wants to give me. I'd like to say that I have been doing the same with my life in general, but it is not so. I've been reflecting too much on the repercussions of my past bad decisions, and of the difficulty of the career and life goals that I have set for myself, but I've been failing to give my all and stay positive about what I can do. So today, while I sat in an office at an employment agency, hoping to get some sort of job to put my head above water, and allow my lady to stop having to worry about money, I got to worrying. I thought: "what if I can't get over my scholastic and legal indiscretions, and I can't do my life's work? What if I don't get a fair shake based on my past?" I almost got overwhelmed yet again, but I quickly caught on to what my mind was doing, and thought: "well, what if I just sit around and worry instead of stop pretending to know the future and put all my effort and passion where it belongs?" I decided that the latter question was more worth asking.
I left the office determined, and positive. There will always be hardships on the path I have chosen, but the only way I can be defeated is if I give up. Knowing this, I can rest each day, knowing that I have put my all into what I am doing, and that I don't live in the future, I live now. After all, I can only do what I can do in this moment, that is all I have right now. I'm pretty sure that I can handle that.
If you've read this far, thanks for doing so, and stay positive.
P.S. I ran 5k yesterday, although I don't normally run on Thursdays. I also ran this morning, another 5k. I beat my time by nearly 30 seconds, brining my time up to 27:29. The total mileage for this week is 14 miles. I hope to rack up some more next week, starting with 6 miles on Monday. Here's hoping!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Just Be Stubborn
I would like to preface this post by saying that I generally advocate listening, and listening well. I believe, as I learned in rehab (yes, that kind of rehab, which I will explain soon enough), that to be aware is to be alive. Being aware necessitates being attentive, which means listening to not just what is said, but to what is not said, and to what cannot be said, because it's not linguistic. I mean that you have to be able to listen to your body, to the body language of the people around you, to interpret expressions, lack of expression, actions, and environments. By paying attention to all of that (and whatever I may not have mentioned that is of importance), you will have plenty of things to do, and boredom can never be an excuse for your actions (or lack of action). If you are aware and attentive, if you listen to your mind, body, and to others, you can learn quite a bit, and begin to live well.
But as is true of any suggested rule or set of rules that I can think of (and being a philosopher, I can think of many, trust me) there are counterexamples, exceptions. In the case of the maxim which can envelope what I said above, namely; listen and learn--there are times when you have to go against the suggestions of said rule. For example, when you wretch at the smell of some food item, when it totally turns you off if it is the main part of a dish, and when you can barely touch said food item without being sort of grossed out, don't eat it! Nature has given us plenty of differently textured, colored, flavored, and scented things to eat, so we should just consume what we aren't repulsed by. That was the case with bananas and me. I have never like bananas, they always smelled weird to me, they looked weired, the few times I tasted them I gagged, and I found very little appealing about them. But before I started this running venture, while working in the health and nutrition sector of retail, I found out a few things that warmed me up to bananas.
A) Potassium is key for sending messages throughout the nervous system. This includes the brain, muscles (like the heart, muscle tissue in the intestines, and other organs), and nerves throughout the body.
B) Potassium can be the cause of cramps during endurance exercises such as running (RUNNING!!!)
C) Potassium is so hard to get in the necessary amounts from any source other than BANANAS that you would have to swallow 30 large potassium supplement pills, eat a few CUPS of Almonds (which would just about tax your fat allowance for the day) or.....eat a BANANA!!!!
So I decided that I had to give in, and I started making fruit smoothies almost daily, with a huge banana in them. You know what, I kind of like bananas now. So I heard the maxims that nature provided me, and I listened to my wretching body, and I promptly ignored it.
Also, as has been documented in previous posts, I have been dealing with a foot....deal. It's like an injury, but less consistent. I'll run one day and it'll be sore near the end of the run and for an hour or so later, then end the day fine. I'll wake up the next morning (like yesterday morning, for instance), and it'll be stiff up to the ankle and hurting all day. So I gave it from last Thursday to this Monday off, trying to be attentive to my body's signals. But when I woke up today with no pain or stiffness, I decided that yeah, it's good to listen, but if the person you're listening to is f*@#ing crazy, you won't learn anything, and you'll waste time. So I went out and ran a full 5 kilometers, fully expecting my foot to start babbling on halfway through, still making no sense, but telling me to stop. So about halfway through, as ol' lefty started nagging me, I decided that since my calves were still a bit sore from Monday's big run, I'll push more from my quads down to my knees. And whaddaya know, this shut my foot right up. I ran the next 1 and a half miles in that mode and my foot stopped bothering me. When I got to the home stretch, I even stepped up the pace a little and ended with both feet doing fine. I also managed to beat my current solo 5k record by nearly a minute, clocking in at 27:53.
So what have I learned from this experience? Sure, listening is good. If you don't listen you your mother, she'll get angry and punish you. If you don't listen to your girlfriend, you can bank on not having said girlfriend for long, and if you don't listen to your body, it will rebel and make you sorry. But just because you listen doesn't mean that you have to accept what's being said. So I found that while it was good to listen to my foot's moaning and groaning, after a while I just realized that 's moaning and groaning because it's a pussy (which prompted me to ask it to stop pussy-footing around, *zing*), and while I should listen to it, I can also tell it to stop being whiny and run with me. Stubborn? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
But as is true of any suggested rule or set of rules that I can think of (and being a philosopher, I can think of many, trust me) there are counterexamples, exceptions. In the case of the maxim which can envelope what I said above, namely; listen and learn--there are times when you have to go against the suggestions of said rule. For example, when you wretch at the smell of some food item, when it totally turns you off if it is the main part of a dish, and when you can barely touch said food item without being sort of grossed out, don't eat it! Nature has given us plenty of differently textured, colored, flavored, and scented things to eat, so we should just consume what we aren't repulsed by. That was the case with bananas and me. I have never like bananas, they always smelled weird to me, they looked weired, the few times I tasted them I gagged, and I found very little appealing about them. But before I started this running venture, while working in the health and nutrition sector of retail, I found out a few things that warmed me up to bananas.
A) Potassium is key for sending messages throughout the nervous system. This includes the brain, muscles (like the heart, muscle tissue in the intestines, and other organs), and nerves throughout the body.
B) Potassium can be the cause of cramps during endurance exercises such as running (RUNNING!!!)
C) Potassium is so hard to get in the necessary amounts from any source other than BANANAS that you would have to swallow 30 large potassium supplement pills, eat a few CUPS of Almonds (which would just about tax your fat allowance for the day) or.....eat a BANANA!!!!
So I decided that I had to give in, and I started making fruit smoothies almost daily, with a huge banana in them. You know what, I kind of like bananas now. So I heard the maxims that nature provided me, and I listened to my wretching body, and I promptly ignored it.
Also, as has been documented in previous posts, I have been dealing with a foot....deal. It's like an injury, but less consistent. I'll run one day and it'll be sore near the end of the run and for an hour or so later, then end the day fine. I'll wake up the next morning (like yesterday morning, for instance), and it'll be stiff up to the ankle and hurting all day. So I gave it from last Thursday to this Monday off, trying to be attentive to my body's signals. But when I woke up today with no pain or stiffness, I decided that yeah, it's good to listen, but if the person you're listening to is f*@#ing crazy, you won't learn anything, and you'll waste time. So I went out and ran a full 5 kilometers, fully expecting my foot to start babbling on halfway through, still making no sense, but telling me to stop. So about halfway through, as ol' lefty started nagging me, I decided that since my calves were still a bit sore from Monday's big run, I'll push more from my quads down to my knees. And whaddaya know, this shut my foot right up. I ran the next 1 and a half miles in that mode and my foot stopped bothering me. When I got to the home stretch, I even stepped up the pace a little and ended with both feet doing fine. I also managed to beat my current solo 5k record by nearly a minute, clocking in at 27:53.
So what have I learned from this experience? Sure, listening is good. If you don't listen you your mother, she'll get angry and punish you. If you don't listen to your girlfriend, you can bank on not having said girlfriend for long, and if you don't listen to your body, it will rebel and make you sorry. But just because you listen doesn't mean that you have to accept what's being said. So I found that while it was good to listen to my foot's moaning and groaning, after a while I just realized that 's moaning and groaning because it's a pussy (which prompted me to ask it to stop pussy-footing around, *zing*), and while I should listen to it, I can also tell it to stop being whiny and run with me. Stubborn? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
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