Interestingly, childhood sports taught me how to work with others towards a common goal.  I even played high school football not because I enjoyed the sport itself (the sport itself wasn’t fun for me), but because I had so much fun with my friends while playing football.

Basketball is a better example of learning how to work with people.  I remember always being most excited by a great pass.  Sure the goal was to score points, make a basket.  And it felt great to make a shot, to drive the lane and do some spinning backshot.  But making a great pass?  The ultimate.

…or else the work will suffer

It could very well be an old wive’s tale, but the saying goes that of all the five senses, we attach emotion most strongly to odor.  The same saying acknowledges the irony that odor is the hardest sense to call up on demand, or describe to others.  Touch, sight, sound.. all can be described & reproduced fairly easily.

What is it about odor, exactly?  What makes it so emotionally powerful?  And is this power related in any way to its elusiveness? If odor was able to be regularly reproduced, would it (eventually) alter our emotional?

read about the documentation of odor

Reading a book in the park takes a certain level of physical effort.  Simply the holding of the book in the right angle with one hand, while angling the book so the sun hits it right… switching hands when one arm becomes tired, and changing everything up when your body needs to shift positions…

I actually prefer listening to an audio version of a book over reading it, because I can walk around and do things while listening.  I find it brings me deeper into the story, simply because my body is as engaged as possible.  I associate aspects of the story with places, people I pass by, and if I walk past these areas again in the future I am brought back to that part of the story, as if I had lived it myself.

But just like listening to an audio book while walking is more engaging than reading, maybe the physical demands of holding a book while reading make it more engaging than other more passive medium, like film or TV.  Hmm… on second thought, film can be incredibly immersive.  I guess I’ll leave this thought off on the conclusion that the physical aspect of imbibing a story has a major effect on the experience of that story.  Instead of “the medium is message”, this is “the medium is the state of mind of the audience”.

read about the value of promoting the medium itself

I’m on a new exercise regimen:  Swim, bike, run.  I’m unofficially training for a triathlon.  I’ve been swimming and biking for the past seven years, but never got excited by running.  Until a few months ago.

What got me so into running is the way I’ve been using my feet.  First of all, I read the “Born To Run” book and got incredibly inspired about freeing my feet.  Then my wife convinced me to run without socks, and to loosen the laces of my shoes.

I used to tie my shoes TIGHT, hearkening back to basketball days where the worst thing in the world was a sprained ankle.  Well, the experience of giving my feet the freedom to just do their thing has been a renaissance for me.

Normal shoes now feel like a straight-jacket for my feet.  I want barely there shoes.  For running AND for walking.  Whoever you are, there’s a good chance your feet have been locked up and imprisoned for years.  I suggest you release your feet.  You will thank me.  And they will thank you.

read thank you is a misused term

One thing about emotions that I learned/realized in early 2009, is that emotions are PHYSICAL.  The interpretations of emotions happen in the mind… the explanations, the blames, the reasons.  But the emotions themselves are physical occurrences.

I first realized this one day when I was lying in bed, stressed about some decision or another.  I felt the stress in the lower-middle of my chest, and because it was morning I involuntarily arched my back for a morning stretch.. and noticed that the point of stress felt relieved!  So I continued doing that stretch into the place of stress, and the emotion of confusion and stress itself released away.

Conclusion:  there are solutions in motion that cannot be pre-conceived or pre-solved.  That’s why I run, I bike, I swim, I stretch, I keep my body moving.  It improves life.

read about disguised fiction

So this is the first post I’m writing on this blog.  Funny thing is, I’ve had this domain in my life for years.  In fact, for some reason I backordered it through GoDaddy a long time ago, and I was sitting on that backorder itself for about two or three years.  Then at some point I silently won the domain and it’s been sitting in my GoDaddy account unused for, well, too long.

Now it’s live, and we shall be using it for discussing not space or flight but what they both represent:  adventure, exploring beyond the physical limits of standard life.  There is something unexplainable when you’re sitting in the middle of a wilderness that you could only get to by walking for 5 days.  No other feeling like it.

read about wilderness & relationships

Rain.  Usually, we use umbrellas, rain coats, water proof boots, and whatever else it takes to keep dry when it rains.  Over the years of working hard to keep dry things dry, we forget that our bodies themselves are water proof.  We take showers, baths, swim in pools or oceans, and never fail to dry off afterwards.  Yet somehow, the moment we don clothes, rain water becomes the enemy.

EXCEPT:  for when we go for a run in the rain.  The rain becomes a friend, an inspiration, a running partner.  Our wet clothes become a mere formality.  If for no other reason than this, people should take up running just to experience the rain the way we did as children:  with joy.

Read about connecting to nature

I went for a barefoot run last weekend.  WOW.  But my “WOW” feeling is fueled by a “This is so not a ‘wow’ experience”.  I was looking at some videos of people running barefoot, and suddenly realized how plainly simple it is.  So I just got up from the couch, opened the door, and went for a barefoot run down the street.

As cars drove by, I felt a tinge of weirdness, but mostly I thought about how actually normal this was.  Well, I’ll compare it to being naked in public.  THAT would feel weird.  How about being shirtless?  That would feel weird in some situations; I wouldn’t walk down the streets of NYC shirtless, but at the pool, the park, the beach, totally cool.

So barefoot?  First and foremost, the awkwardness of the experience is almost entirely a SOCIAL awkwardness.  It just feels wrong.  But from a physical perspective it feels incredibly right.  To experience the full mechanical engineering feat that is my feet, to let go of the belief that feet are a structural mistake, and to instead embrace my feet in all their structural glory… quite a unique experience.  It’s like peeling back a layer of reality and realizing that layer was all made up.

read about a recent pseudo-conspiracy

I went for a run yesterday down a quiet, tree-lined road.  The only sounds were the chorus of cicadas, the community of birds, and the occasional car.  I’m still a new runner, and my runs have all mostly been in NYC.  Running through this deep quiet, well, I love it.  I wish I ran more than the ten minutes I did, but because I’m trying out these new Zoots, and landing completely on the balls of my feet, my form is feeling all types of awkward and even ten minutes are enough to work my calves to the point that I might not be able to run today.

Up until I got these Zoots, I was on a roll.  I had switched to running sockless and just barely tying my laces.  Lots of foot freedom equals such goodness.  I told anyone who’d listen that I was experiencing a renaissance of my feet.  I don’t even know what that really means, but I like the sound of it.

So I decided that the next step was a pair of more freer shoes, ones that were intended to be used barefoot.  I still haven’t figured out why these Zoots have changed my form so much.  I might be overcompensating for the “just like running barefoot” sales pitch.  Or I might be going through a very normal conditioning period, which will end in my calves being able to handle this running style perfectly.  Hmmm…

read about how birds are unsung heroes

The beauty of running for me is how it strips away everything else.  It wipes away the clouds of interpretation, the plans and strategies I have, the hopes and desires.

When I run, I am simply being as real as I can be.  In fact, I am searching for myself.  Not in the “who am I” troubled singer-songwriter kind of way. But searching for stillness inside my body, my being.

It is the most real feeling, when I run through the park, and the birds are chirping, the sun is blinking through the leaves, and I become just another prop on this beautiful stage.  And I see myself.  Simply.  And real.