The Dwyer Underbelly

Our target market 

is the man who can cut a hole in his roof 

while his wife is watching. 

- Owner of a do-it-yourself skylight company 

(that is probably not in business) 

While I'm nursing an ankle injury I suffered at Spartan Race three weeks ago, I'm not feeling very manly. I thought I'd try practicing the art of follow-through. Follow-through is the "six-pack abs" of virtues, and I've always had a beer belly when it comes to this one. So, today's show and tell is the equivalent of me moving beyond the wimpiness of my air brushed metaphysical abs. Besides, when your 1920s home has yet another clog, there's only so many times your manhood can bear your wife asking you, "Do you want me to call my dad?" This is rock bottom. It's what brings a man to resolve. 

A man sharing his plumbing project with the internet, is as naked and self-revelatory as you can get. It's the underbelly of his underfanny. Literally, when the pooper clogs, life clogs. Constipation of his pipes is constipation of his life. It's scary and emasculating. Constipation in life is what I regard as THE fundamental disease. It's stuckness. Lack of freedom. Lack of flow. It's trappedness. It's frustration. It's creation of walls and boundaries and borders and categories and classes and stale concepts and biases. It's entrapment in wells and pits of despair and ruts and inertia and shit in brains as much as shit in pipes. It's belief in permanence, in isolation. Fundamentally, it's a deception. 

Now, I'm NOT the kind of handy-manly man who rents a concrete saw for a weekend to cut a hole in his basement slab. Even less I'm I the man who digs a 10 foot trench to rebuild broken sewage lines while my wife watches. That's why I waited till Susie was 5500 miles away, in Istanbul Turkey.  Fundamentally, I HAD to try to unstick my stuckness. I HAD to agitate the system. I HAD to buy a sledgehammer and seismically shift things to the astral plane. 

Hi Honey! Have fun at Suleyman Mosque. We miss you.
Look what we did with the house while you were gone.

BEFORE - The 4" PVC ran above the slab. It was my plumber-endoresed temporary fix
while I saved money to pay for a safety net in the event that my DIY project went awry.

THE PROBLEM - one of many 1920's clay pipe joints that is broken and/or clogged with roots

MID PROCESS - It's beginning to come together. Plumbing is like a 3D jigsaw puzzle.
I have no spatial intelligence, so I had to call in help from a friend who's dad is a master plumber.

AFTER-- a smooth basement floor with a sewage line and floor drain that work!

Hurry Up and Die Before You're Dead Rites of Passage

Everybody loves a Pee-Wee with a bow tie.

Sometimes I meet a particular person at a social event in Cincinnati and I can't stop daydreaming about driving them to the edge of the closest wilderness, booting them out of the car, tossing them a knife with clear instructions: "Don't come back uncircumcised...or circumcised...whichever! Just please do something in some bloody way. It's like, "Jeeze, man! Expand your experience (and mine)-- I've asked you like six questions in a row and you haven't the slightest clue how to reciprocate!" 

If you're a transplant to Cincinnati, then you know that we natives just can't seem to get past asking each other about what stupid high school we all went to. I'm sorry, but as a city, and as a tribe, we all need to put this cliquiness to bed. Rather, we need to put this cliquiness to death! There are lots of other habits in my city that I'm ready to put to death in some publicly ceremonial way, in order that something new and better and might live. Below is my first attempt at a "to kill" list.

To Kill

- Otherness fearing (cliquiness, racism, neighborhoodism, high schoolism, which side of city-ism or which side of the river-ism)

- Inertia (extreme conservatism, afraid of change-ism, love of un-spicy spaghetti-ism, Terrace Park speed trap-ism) 

- Soccer mom-ism (fear mongering and over-protection from germs, gays, transportation methods that don't have four wheels and sliding doors)

- OTR-worship

- OTR-hating

- OTR-obliviousness

- Complaining and blaming
- TV
- Use of the words "I'm bored"

I often ask myself, how would a motivated tribe put any of these bad habits to death? I thought of the Kalenjin people of Kenya. The Kalenjin are the ones that have amassed the disproportionate amount of long distance running Olympic medals. I've been giving a lot of thought to their coming of age ceremony and the whole concept of "rites of passage", whereby something old dies, maybe so that something new and more beautiful can take its place. 

"As a Kelenjin teenager-- boy or girl-- you have to go through an experience so painful, it's like a theatrical orgy of pain... and here's what happens... First you have to crawl naked through stinging nettles. And African stinging nettles are much much stingier than western stinging nettles... Your fingers are squeezed together... Then you get beaten on that bony part of your ankle where it really hurts... But all that is just warm up because then one morning comes the circumcision. Now we have some idea how circumcision works, maybe. Some of us are circumcised. But the Kalenjin circumcision happens somewhere right after puberty, so age 13-17. The foreskin is not only cut, but it's tied into a bow... A hole is cut in the top or the bottom of the foreskin and the head of the penis pushed through the hole... When he undergoes the operation, he is obliged to be absolutely stoical... In some versions of the ceremony, mud is caked on the face and allowed to dry. Then, if a crack appears in the mud...all the people around will know immediately to start to beat you with large sticks."

-as told on the Cut and Run episode of NPR's Radio Lab

I've been informally polling friends and strangers about their own rites of passage growing up, and ways in which they've metaphorically tied their foreskins into a bow. My dad told me about "honeymooning" during his MBA and PhD studies with my mom through arctic Minnesota winters. Others told me about road trips where cars have blown up in the desert, or backpacking and missing trains in Europe. The vital ingredient seems to be some disequilibriating effect of adversity. The travail elicits a growth response or adaptation from it, and then a community grows together because of it.  

I've also been asking parents what they hope for in their kids in the way of rites of passage.  One father I met recently told me that he was determined to send his daughter to a new school, and NOT the one where he sat on the board of directors. "She's lived too cushy a life at this school. It's time for her to be stretched and challenged." I'm not a father or anything, but I can only imagine that his hope, in so many words, is that his daughter metaphorically gets her ass kicked just up to, but not quite beyond, the point of death (emphasis on metaphorically). Two of my brothers even told me about how formative it was for them getting their asses kicked on the streets of Brasil, not metaphorically. Poison is made poison merely by the dosage. 

I was just talking with my brother, Mike, about one of the most important deaths I ever died was to an era of self-pitying that typified my 20's. It was a period of sucking on a mother-teat of poison, called "try (but fail) to live up to other people's expectations." What I'm about to say has nothing to do with bragging, but I must give credit where credit is due. What pulled me through that micro-death-and-resurrection experience of my 20's had much to do with the act of completing my first Ironman. It's not that Ironman or my performance was this big impressive thing. But somehow it served as a kind of medicinal technology that enabled me to experience an act of slipping into my own skin-- a kind of incarnation into living within new expectations. It's left an enduring awareness to the gift of both my personal life-force as well as my absolute human frailty. 

Now, my current micro-death project, that I'm struggling to accept and die to, is my incessant what next?-thinking. I obsessively idealize the future and the way things "ought to be" while neglecting and dissing the present. I set lofty goals that look like check boxes left blank for months and even years. I latch on to outcomes that may never be rather than processes that ever are.

"Nice skin, man"

On a small scale, it manifests itself as my dreaming of tasting the orange while I peel it, dreaming of where I'll put the peel while I'm chewing it, dreaming of what I want to do next as I'm walking through my garden to feed the peel to the compost-- never quite savoring each moment for the beauty of itself. So, I'm left trying to figure out how a future-obsessed caterpillar metamorphes into a bow-tie-foreskinned butterfly, fully immersed in the garden around it.

If you have any ideas on rites of passage, I'd love to hear them. My muses remind me that usually, something therapeutic happens in the act of signing up for a race. It's like adding a magnetic field to the needle of an aimless compass. It somehow texturizes the dates on an otherwise formless calendar landscape. It schedules an encounter with my own mortality. There's one race I'm particularly drawn to in September, but also I fear that the in-the-flow moments I've been recently enjoying with friends on our trail runs and conversations with the studio run team suddenly devolve into loathsome "training" duties and future-preparing. But with every new race-adventure I get to do, the more I find that a spirit of adventure seems to inhabit the spaces between tasks not yet checked-off.

"I Run Because _____"

In the zone - chaneling my inner Fast of the Mohicans before the Flying Pig

 The elders say we must let go of the shore, 

push off into the middle of the river, 

keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

 

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. 

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves. 

For the moment that we do, 

our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. 

 Gather yourselves!
Banish the word 'struggle' from your attitude and your vocabulary. 

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

- Hopi Prophesy

The birds are chirping on this beautiful Saturday morning. The clothes washer and dishwasher are running. Oddly, I am not running. It’s my first Saturday since November that I haven’t. And it’s OK. Sure, there is a runner’s high that I’m missing out on today, but there is a not-giving-a-fuck-high that others are missing out on, and I’d like to talk about that.

“I run because _______________.”

(Fill in the blank)

The blank in the statement above is our own answer that coach Susie challenged Team S to search ourselves for in the weeks building up to the 2014 Flying Pig Marathon. My wife asked, “Do you have a response for that desperate moment in the marathon [life] where our bodies beg us to stop and our legs ask, ‘WHY DON’T YOU JUST CHECK OUT?!’”

Blank is the nucleus of that thing we run for. Why we trip, limp, and shuffle over hills. Why we rush home from work, foam-roll our hips, set alarm clocks for 4:30am, skip happy hour, do laundry, talk with strangers about cancer and lame jobs, freeze our butts off, get chaffed balls, and eat packets of slime and ibuprofen. Truth be told, I like this gig better than what those other guys are peddling.

Matching sub-zero eye lash icicles with my honey at 6 AM

Probably one zillion times, we've had an answer to a different question that goes something like this:

"I don't run because ___________."

Like an AK-47, our past experience has been able to fire blanks at machine gun pace-- BLANKITY BLANKITY BLANKITY BLANK!!!!  

I'm too tired. 
I'm not good enough.

I need to vacuum. 

My knees aren't built for it. 

I don't own technical fabrics or neon shoes. 

I need to save my energy for work tomorrow. 

My headphones pop out of my ears when the wiggling gets intense. 

My kids need me to supervise their TV watching. 

I don't know where I'm going. 

I'd rather do yoga and meditate. 

This is all just the hilarious strategy of the Resistance Mosquito buzzing around our ears and neck, trying to make a big deal out of the most trivial things. I'm not immune to it. But I found that the most effective bug spray to deal with my own internal Resistance is to move immediately to DEFCON 1.To always be in a posture of preparedness for Operation Dwy-raqi Freedom.It's least of all a matter of pent up aggression, but, as strange as it sounds...

I run because… 

fuck those motherfuckers!

I’m sorry…I mean—I’m just not sorry. My answer is not Chariots of Fire. It's more like Hell on Wheels.

We can all rest easier and thank the Lord that I have a trillion happy smiling cells inside my glorious body when I run. I certainly enjoy a delicious runner’s high as much as the next guy. That’s all fine and dandy. But we also owe it to God’s sense of humor, that there is a disillusioned, disgruntled particle inside of me who is sailing his ship toward a navigational beacon named FuckThisUtterNonsense North Star. I’ve come to believe it is my vocation-- that I have "a Calling" to be done giving a fuck about the big hairy bullshit that we pretend is important.  

What’s the alternative? To be giving a fuck? Because that’s just it—I really do, too. Running is somehow, for me, a spinning centrifuge, distilling life’s chaotic soup into purified essences—encounters with that which A) I deeply care about and want to fight for, and B) toxic sludge which is easily identifiable as total bullshit. You don’t need me to name the utter nonsense for you. For too long, I’ve puttzed around, spinning my wheels, half-caring about Super Bowl commercials and other people’s opinions, waiting for a Rescuer to arrive. Running, however, is the necessary agitation of the rabbit ear antennas on the old school TV, tuning into my own inner arrival. 

When I say "Fuck those motherfuckers," it's actually a joyous moment for me, conquering my inner paralysis. For whatever reason, I was born with a metaphysical mouthful of sand- a sensitivity to feel life's grist in a sharp and chronic way. I am a hopeless idealist, burdened by disappointment with the state of the world. So, when I say "Fuck those motherfuckers," it effectively re-programs the moment, snowballing my paralysis into affective action. I admit-- it comes across as a bit uncivil. But faith in this civilization is definitely not where I'm betting my money. F those MF-ers is the stoney seed from which so many of my life's fruits have come. It's a take-no-prisoner, make-no-compromise, convertible energy.

A couple years ago, I watched my quasi-nephew, Brady, be born dangerously premature, and the NICU nurses basically assured his worried parents, “You’re lucky he’s a rambunctious little bastard. He’s obviously got something he’s fighting for. His kicking and screaming are GOOD. He’s gonna be OK.” Brady is a sign of hope for me that my own inner-trauma can be fuel for my own life force.

On any given run, I have sober moments of clarity, where I realize that this fleshy skeleton sandwich I’m lurching around in is essentially cosmic dust whirling through a universe that is evaporating at the speed of light. That alone induces a runner’s high—the awareness of how non-essential my mortgage is. How cool is it that in this unfolding drama, I get to be a tiny pixel in the universe’s pressure relief valve, blowing off steam from the engine of her own creative process? I feel like a piece of sand, bouncing on a bass drum, on which the Milky Way Galaxy vibrates a pulse called rock n roll.

In the face of such awesomeness, what am I supposed to do –  NOT run with a Kid-N-Play-Mullet-Mohawk?

NOT anymore.

HERE is the mullet-hawk.

EVERTHING is in question.

NOTHING is a given.

LIFE is too short.

FUCK cancer.

FUCK the war on cancer.

FUCK the fucking of the war on cancer.
DEATH is inevitable.

THE TATTOO has arrived.

SKIN is not so serious.
LOVE is getting bigger. 

BOSTON is in the bag!!!

A happy 10 yr anniversary "Team S" tattoo never hurt no one. My wife wanted one with a "C", but it actually hurt like hell and I vetoed her romantic gesture.

Flying Pig Race Report - All the Deets, ONLY IF YOU'RE THAT BORED

After coming up just shy of my Boston qualifying time at the Pig last year, having to run the last two miles without shoes, getting ushered to the medical tent for dehydration - I really wanted to train and race smart for the Pig this year. Almost as soon as last year's race was over, I set an aggressive goal to run it in 2:50, which would be a 15 minute PR over my 2013 time. That's pretty bone-headed irresponsible. But fuck those motherfuckers, right? Bone-headed irresponsible is fun. I was busy playing Monday morning quarterback, kicking myself for high-fiving singing Elvis at mile 6 in Eden Park, mooning Harvey's 3:05 pace group, chatterboxing with Franklin all dang day, and not scouting the course better. 

If 2013 was a clown parade, 2014 would be many times more calculated and down to business. I started building a broader aerobic base in October, basically kicking off training with the famous Mt. Airy Stone Steps race. I ran more quality miles (and more junk miles), averaging 50-60 per week, peaking in the 80s. I asked for coaching help from my good friend, The Professor, Matt. I was religious about speed work, building gradually, even through the iciest winter in my memory. I supplemented running with mid-week weights sessions with Susie. I converted my desk at work to be a standing desk. (I'm not convinced the standing desk was a net positive contribution, although there were days where I know it helped keep me from getting kinked up in knots and injuries. Mostly, it seemed to fill me with lower back fatigue. It is definitely more race-specific to doing ultras, so I'm thinking it will pay dividends come June when I run the Mohican 50 and Hallucination 100 in September)

I never slept so well before a race as I did the day before the Pig. Waking up at 4:30 felt like just another Tuesday or Friday morning with the team. I had a small 4 banana green smoothie and carried a bottle of water with me to the team meetup at Paul Brown Stadium. I felt very good. Running 6:30/mi pace had by this point become very comfortable. In November, when all I had to do was run one 6:30 mile, I never thought the 2:50 possible. By the time I ran the Heart Mini in March, though, 2:50 never seemed so surmountable. I was very excited for seeing what the race gods would deliver. Unlike at the Heart Mini, I would triple check the course directions so I didn't take any wrong turns.  

Unfortunately, my buddy, coach Matt got a respiratory infection the week of the race, so Matt decided to drop out and put on an epic cheering performance with his sweetheart wife, Shelly-- finding me at 6 or 7 spots on the course. Meanwhile, our bud and training partner, Franklin, got a stomach bug the day before the race, so here I am thinking that I will be flying this Pig solo, rather than in their slipstream. Luckily, Franklin is no stranger to GI issues. He toed the start line in typical smiling fashion and put on an incredible performance despite his circumstances.

Susie rallied the Team S runners together in a circle for a final huddle of power, where we set our intentions and wished each other safe travels. Then we disbanded into our mental zones, where Eminem perpetually plays a joint soundtrack with Enrique Iglesias. Franklin and I did a short warm up and a ritual visit to the edge of the woods by the Ohio River for one final pee. 

Last year I miscalculated the gravity of the food shortage situation on the course. FYI- There is NO food on the course (unlike at Ironman or an ultra). The Pig has only one gel station at mile 18 and an orange slice doesn't count as food in a race!! So, this year, I decided to run with 10 gels tucked in my spandex shorts. This is very stimulating until you accidentally give yourself a paper cut with the package when you pull them out of your shorts. My butt cheek got a huge cut. Note to self-- calm down when fishing down your butt crack for food.

Almost immediately, Franklin and I linked up behind what we thought was the 1:25 half marathon pace group. They held a pace balloon-on-a-stick, that of course was illegible without my glasses. We didn't realize we were going 10-15 seconds/mile slower than our goal pace until crossing the bridge back from Kentucky into Cincinnati. So, we knew we had to disengage from the pace group and start busting ourselves out of a time hole, catching up to the right pace group.

At mile 4, near Dalton St. the traffic duty cop came barreling down towards me and Franklin, waving his arms and shouting that we turn left. Meanwhile, the 50 or so runners ahead of us were all pulling a Dwyer -- GOING THE WRONG WAY. If I've learned anything at all from my past race mishaps, it's your own darn fault when you go the wrong way. So there we were, Franklin and I.... IN THE LEAD of the Flying Pig while accidentally going slower than our goal pace! Is that karma? 

Then I saw my Dad and brother Matty cheering me on. But, now that I think about it, they weren't nearly rowdy enough considering for all they knew I was in first place, legitimately, this time. Haha. That's OK. It's always a boost of spirits to see your loved ones on the course. We couldn't do it without them. Today would be a day of deferred love. All my family and friends were showing OVERWHELMING support for me with their cheers, but I was deliberately trying to be very stoic about exerting even the slightest morsel of non-running energy. 

In less than a mile, the front runners and us had merged back together on the course like cyclists in a Tour de France roundabout. We instantaneously went from 1st to 50th place. There, we heard the bitching of the first place female who was clearly thrown off her game by the course mishap-- HER course mishap. I silently reprimanded her. She didn't win, of course, probably because her team morale was shot and she was not prepared to adapt mentally. I know which female did win, because unfortunately, she was not my friend Kerry whom we all (perennially) hoped it would be, and because the eventual winner was right on my heals all darn day. Apparently, my default race strategy always seems to be the exact same as the fastest female. So, accompanying me on both races this year are cheers from spectators screaming, "You go girl! You beat that boy. Get that mohawk! Girl power!" ALL day. Talk about keeping your ego in check.

Going up from the Casino through Eden Park is what I consider the most strategic part of the whole race. Going up the hill too fast can destroy you later in the day. We backed off the pace down to 7:00-7:15/mile pace, taking turns to block the wind for each other. Once you get to the top, you get excited because it's net downhill from there and there are plenty of descents where you can make up time, and already I needed to make up a lot of time.

What's tough about the Flying Pig is that it is one of the funnest races to watch. It's such a temptation not to race. If you could watch AND run at the same time, you'd really be on to something. You've got Elvis, the naked running man, DJ Westrich, your neighbors, etc. I'm thinking that next year, I really want to be a pace leader and carry the balloons, teach runners how to run through an aid station, tell them about how awesome Cincinnati is. I think there is noone better in the business, no better ambassador for running nor the city than my friend and fellow coach, Harvey.

One way to make up time is to be surprised by the girl holding your water cup at the aid station. It was our good  friend coach Alicia! Then you see coach Nicole, the Lulu Lemon girls, your mother and father-in-law, your former students.The support fills your veins with gasoline or something. It's an awesome pick-me-up.

Mariemont is always the highlight and a bitch. It's the farthest from the city you go during the race. You enter the bucolic neighborhood feeling one way and by the time you leave your body feels 180 degrees worse. This is where it gets really hard. This is where Franklin was smitten with his belly falling out of his body and I thought it was curtains for his race. I plodded onward, in no man's land (in one woman's land) through the annoying part of the course on Columbia Pkwy. I couldn't wait to get down the final stretch on Riverside Dr.

Matt found me on his bike at this point and encouraged me to "Leave it all on the course, man." I ran as hard as I possibly could up to the until the point where my stomach would heave and cramp. I was getting slower and slower, registering flat land miles that were 30-45 seconds slower than my goal pace. I passed a few runners who were cracking hard. That should have felt more awesome than it did. But simultaneously, I got passed by several who just ran smoother races than me. I only found out later that the guy I had been yo-yo-ing back and forth with, and who I final beat was the former Leadville 100 winner!

I thought I could keep first female at bay, but Matt took a great video of her passing me, that was incredibly beautiful and humbling. I obviously have a long way to go. She was in complete control! I think she Crocodile Dundeed me into submission or something.

In the final 1.2 miles, all I could think of was my amazing brother-in-law, Mike, who was also running the race, also leaving it all on the course. He talks about how finishing a race is like wringing out the sponge-- the goal is for the sponge to give up its last drop of water at the finish line. There should be NOTHING left. That's what I did, hoping to clock my fastest mile. It definitely felt the fastest. I thought sub 6 for sure, because I was swinging my arms at hard as I could like my track coach in grade school told me to do. Perception is so funny, because when I checked my Garmin GPS file at home that night, it was actually one of my SLOWEST miles. Haha!

The finish line was a glorious sight. As soon as I crossed, I dove into large volunteer's boob. It was the most padded cushion I could find, because I was crashing HARD. Than I landed on the pavement and the medical crew, (according to my tradition, I guess), rushed me to the medical tent to re-hydrate me. It was AWESOME. I mean, you pay so much for a race. You might as well use the amenities, right? The volunteers are the best I've experienced in ANY race across the country. Hats off to the organizers.

It wasn't 2:50 as I had hoped and trained for, but I still clocked a 2:57. So, I achieved
A) my goal to finish,
B) my goal to PR,
C) my goal to qualify for Boston,
D) my goal to break 3:00,
E) my goal to live to tell the tale.

I know I could have told it better and run it better, and for that reason I almost didn't run or write anything. But then I told myself "F those MF-ers."

One Night in the Tank - Dipping My Toenail in the Psychedelic Experience

We have been to the moon, 

we have charted the depths of the ocean, 

and the heart of the atom, 

but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves, 

because that is where we sense all the contradictions flow together.

-Terence McKenna

About a week ago, I took my first float down a cosmic ocean whose headwaters look like a 1000 lb  Easy Bake OvenTM or a lunar escape module. They're called many things-- flotation tanks or sensory deprivation chambers, but the idea is simple-- that by spending time alone, floating in a womb-like chamber of of lukewarm saltwater, in complete darkness, deafness, and stillness, on a cold winter Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, one might come to a radical encounter with themselves, the present moment, the frailty of their beating heart, the meaning of eternity, and the scale of the universe. It could literally drive you crazy if you weren't already. 

Gravity Spa in Dayton has a cool thing going on.

My brother-in-law was sweet enough to let me tag along to his annual birthday ritual. Otherwise, I don't know that I would have ever gone alone. I certainly never would have found it in the eastern suburbs of Dayton. I could see why maybe he just wanted a bit of quiet time away from his kids for a few hours. Because it delivers on that, no question. Any galactic spelunking or insights from the great cosmic alien Mind is just icing on his cake. It's also reputed to be a sober trip into the psychedelic experience, which I know nothing about.

Maybe I'm pandering here-- trying to justify to my 'merican mind why spending $50 to take a cold bath is a Pareto-efficient investment of a tax refund toward preventative medicine. In fact, for me, it really was great muscle recovery. It was a fantastic stress relief. (Until it wasn't, at about the 84th minute, when my chaffed scrotum felt the volcanic burn of epsom salt and I needed to scratch my eye lid). It brought me a great camaraderie with my bro-in-law-- sipping tea, high-fiving, burrito-munching, exchanging notes, debriefing about how my anticipated roller-coaster rocket shipping of the mind was more like bumper car traffic jamming.  Maybe the exercise was practical. Maybe it wasn't.

One of the spin-off insights the tank delivered was about the limited scope of our awareness and the power of our filters. I can see how the mind is like a Magic 8 Ball. Our immediate awareness capturing just a tiny sliver of ALL that's actually going on in our mind, let alone the world around us. If you've ever played with one, you know that inside the plastic ball, there is a small, buoyant icosahedron with affirmative, negative, neutral, or maddening phrases etched in the face of one of its 20 sides.

At some periods of my life, I could have sworn that inside the plastic sphere of my head was a polyhedroid with just one or two phrases that read something to the effect of "SIGNS POINT TO SHITTY" or "SAME SHIT DIFFERENT DAY" or "YOU SUCK!" And you feel as good as dead, despite a lovely wife and a good job. 

When this is what happens, IF you're really lucky, you will have an absolutely magical moment IF you can take that magic 8 ball and smash it against the wall and watch the blue dye ooze out and the plastic innards hit the floor. This is kicking the Man in the dick. It's blessed.

In Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, he tells the following story: "Someone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed. He replied: Contempt for death." As a modern rendition, I would substitute Leonidis's supreme warrior virtue with contempt for big hairy BS. 

Dysfunctional magic 8 ball minds, with their stuck-in-a-rut-ness, qualify as a big hairy BS. They are not to be believed, in their limited awareness. They are to be smashed. If they cannot be smashed, perhaps they are best left on the floor and ignored like an age-inappropriate toy.

When I was in the seminary, I would "meditate" 1.5 to 4.5 hours per day. It sucked. I had the same frustrations through my 20s. I was trapped in the same old awarenesses and same old filters. I know a great many meditation teachers would disagree with me here, but I credit the physical act of running-through-the-woods-meditation with saving my life. Running, they will say, is NOT meditating. But this is a big hairy BS. This is something to kick in the dick. If it's worth its metaphysical muscle, it will not smash to pieces, but may become accessible once I grow up a bit more.

You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, 

because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you 

is your own understanding. 

- Terence McKenna