New Challenges

The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for
everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little
more than changing our ideas about what is normal.

-Deepak Chopra

I thought this quote was rather appropriate considering the ideas rattling around in my head as of late. I'm still trying to come up with a challenge for this year and in doing so I think I already found one for next year. There is a series of events in IL called the Grand Slam, which consists of 4 ultramarathons throughout the year. To qualify for the Grand slam standing you must finish each race in the allotted amount of time. These races will range from 30 miles to 50 miles and are all trail oriented. People most often ask 'why would you want to run that far' when first hearing about ultramarathons. I don't yet know the answer to that question... often the response is 'because it feels so damn good when you're done.' But for me it's about attempting to push my personal limits of what I can accomplish.

In ultra running it has been said that it's 90% mental and the other 10% is mental. It's about reconstructing your ideas about what is possible and what isn't. Just last night I was watching a movie called "Running the Sahara" in which 3 guys attempt to run the entire distance of the Sahara Desert. A distance of over 175 marathons, running every day with no rest days. They were averaging 40-50 miles per day in 140degree ground temperature heat. Almost everyone doubted their ability to do it, including the three runners at times. But the ultimate goal for them wasn't to run across a desert, it was to challenge the notion of what was humanly possible. It was to experience a level of suffering such that it would lead to a new outlook on life. It was more about surviving ones own doubt as opposed to surviving the brutal conditions around them.

So my goal for next year is the Grand Slam of Illinois trail running. But for me it's going to be about much more than running. It will be a will to power, a journey into suffering, and an exploration of previously unattainable goals and world views. I have found that great struggles give a greater appreciation for those precious people around us and a sense of connectivity to everything that surrounds us. And that is what I'm striving for.

Things to come...

The future often seems unsettling to me and I can't help but think that our current ways of life contribute almost wholly to that. What has spurred our excessive procreation, our need for mass produced items, and our unwillingness to compromise? Since when did we need bigger, better, more, faster? Our greed for more has led to an inevitable road where many will be lead toward a future of less rather than more. Less jobs, less food, less money, less possessions, less house, less car, less... To think this isn't a product of our own doing is to the point of ridiculous. We are a society that wants more for less, which leads to a number of problems. First off we buy cheaper products, products that don't last as long and end up in the trash, so that we have to buy more and use more resources. Second, we want to pay less, which means we have to pay workers less to produce these cheap items. We Americans don't want less... so we give up our jobs and factories to overseas countries that pay less. And even though we know these cheap products are costing our neighbors their jobs... we buy them... because we want, neigh, need them. Our economy, our health system, our food system, our water system, is all falling apart around us... but we don't care, not yet. We won't care until it affects us personally, and by us I mean the middle class, the majority, the heart and soul of the country that we love so much, but seem to be trying to destroy. And by the time we care... well you can see why the future is unsettling.

State of affairs

What is going on in the world of democracy? Nothing. What is going on in the world of politics? Everything. This is no longer a time when the voice of the people is to be heard, but is to be screamed over top of so as not to be heard. It's where fear, irrationality, and ignorance take up talking points against progress. It's reminiscent of propaganda from days past where fear rules and information is thrown to the wayside. Both sides are corrupted by the ever mighty dollar and a promise of continued power in the future. This country was founded upon one thing (no not religion, and no not greed of money). It was founded upon the principle of giving people the power to change the status-quo for the benefit of the society as a whole. Those rights are being sucked away by the bribes and donations of monstrous corporations and industries to easily swayed politicians, apparently the people who voted for them don't pay nearly as well.

So here's the dilemma, does the government get involved and try to make options to best help the people? Why don't those informed public souls step forward, make their voices heard so the rest of us can make informed decisions? Because they are being shouted down, demonized, and slandered while trying to do so. These public meetings that are taking place are not places where reason presides, but where hate prevails. People who show up to debates with pictures of the lecturer with devil horns are not there to become informed. They are there to disrupt. They feed on emotion, not information. They are quick to stand up and say no, but unwilling to sit down and listen. They use propaganda and scripts to cut down ideas, of which they have none of their own. They side with corporate tyranny over government decency.

And what information do they provide us? DENY DENY DENY To the very end deny, than you can't possibly be wrong. Obama is American... DENY Public option is good for the American health and bottom dollar... DENY Oh, they did give us that fake Australian birth certificate of Obama's... thanks for that. And what else do we get besides lies, denials, and an unwillingness to debate? We get nothing done, which is apparently the end goal of the grand old party. Status quo, because improvement is not a word we like to hear.

Recent thoughts

There are many arguments to be made... against those great dangers that are harmful to my delicate sensibilities. I am in a full swing assault on religion as a whole and am immersing myself in current texts to fill my arsenal. I have recently come to realize my evolution from semi-agnostic to full on atheism. Allowing for the freedom of moderate and liberal believers of any faith keeps the door open for the fanatics to practice their corrupt and downright harmful dogmas. It's easy to fight against extremism, but what of the moderates? You only need look at the current state of our union to know that the majority remains unwaveringly religious. Stem cell research, abortion, abstinence, gay marriage... these are all hot topics of our time and topics that the religious right is currently dominating and causing much suffering along the way. What good comes of denying a same sex couple the right to marriage? What good comes from denying science the ability to help alleviate suffering from disease and injury by making stem cell research illegal?

Are you prepared to tell me how a young girl dying of a potentially curable ailment is less significant than a 3 day old blastocyte? Will the religious right help me explain to a 16 year old girl that her life as she knows it is over because abstinence that was taught in school didn't teach her how to use a condom? Will you help me explain to those people suffering from environmental ailments that clean air and clean water don't matter because your Lord and Savior should be showing up anytime in the next 50 years to take care of everything? Let me ask you this... what problems do religious faith actually solve? The only potential one is to give the believer a false sense of hope that somehow they will live in bliss when they leave this world.. Not exactly relevant to the suffering currently going on in the world, and downright selfish when it comes down to it. Besides truly needing something to believe in that is out of this world, people turn to religious faith to feel like their lives have meaning, mission, or purpose. It's the oldest answer to an even older question. "What happens when you die... I go to Heaven... then why don't you just kill yourself?... because God has a plan for me... and how do you know his plan isn't for you to kill yourself?" You need a purpose in your life... you want a mission to go on... here you go! Make this world, the one you're living in right now as morally happy a place as you can. Don't know what moral happiness is?... coming right up...

Happiness

I quote John Galt... "Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy - a joy without penalty of guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction..." This is my definition of a moral happiness. It means that whims are thrown out the door, this is not a motto of "do whatever makes you happy" for in that case you may be into murdering, plundering, raping, drugs etc. as your means to happiness. It it worth noting here that "human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone." The values a rational person upholds are reason, purpose, and self-esteem and the virtues used to maintain these are rationality, productiveness and pride. We must learn to value ourselves before we can value anyone or anything else, this is because the achievement of our own happiness is our highest moral purpose.

An obvious altruistic response to these statements goes something like... "but selfishness will only lead to evil and mindless whims!" In reality selfishness merely means 'concern with ones own interests'. The evil connotation attached to it has been produced by those whose moral agenda requires human sacrifice to achieve greater good. What this idea of happiness suggests is to not make sacrifices, and a sacrifice is merely giving up something greater for something lesser, not the way we probably typically think of sacrifice. This does not imply that there will be no giving, for instance I would not normally give up a 5 dollar bill for a 1 dollar bill as it does not make any sense to do so, however, if someone asked for 5 dollars to buy dinner for himself and I valued this man's health more than that 5 dollars than it would not be considered a sacrifice. A father willing to risk his life to save his daughter would not be a sacrifice if he valued her life more than his own. On the news they would surely say that he sacrificed himself, but that would merely be a slap in the face as he was really only fulfilling his own moral purpose.

So what does this mean when it comes to religion? It means that we look to ourselves for our own moral code, a rational code that cannot contradict anyone else who holds the same rational code, for rational men do not hold contradictory values. It means that we do not look to a 2000 year old story or the eye in the sky for direction on how to treat our fellow humans. This moral code allows for change and flux in the world such as science and environment and doesn't insist that people be stoned for things such as heresy or adultery or not being a virgin on your wedding night (all things the bible calls for). It means that we can once again value ourselves fully and that we are given a purpose "the achievement of his own happiness is man's highest moral purpose." This indeed sounds nothing like a Christian view of "purpose" but it will be this life that will be lived to the fullest and in doing so we shall make others lives better as well. I end with Galt again, "You have been using fear as your weapon and have been bringing death to man as his punishment for rejecting your morality. We offer him life as his reward for accepting ours."

You sit down to write, to write what's right, what's in your head... and you come up empty handed. So is there nothing up there, empty, barren... or is there so much up there you can't concentrate long enough to pick one out. I think it's this nihilistic attitude that creeps up on me, you open your eyes long enough and it's hard not to let it take you over. So many people doing some many bad things to so many innocent beings. We are truly the one creature on the planet that can destroy everything and the only thing that stops us is ourselves... but how long will the discipline last?

Monday workout back squats 5x3 reps... 115, 125, 135,135, 145