This is my blog. It's been going for a couple of years now. I'll keep writing in it from time to time, often for no particular reason.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Photos

No I haven't put any up. Not for ages. I was just looking at some.

Do you ever look at yourself in a photo and think "gee I was different back then", sometimes you know what has changed, sometimes it is just a funny feeling, looking at yourself and not knowing what was going through that person's mind at that time.

I always thought that as time goes on a person (particularly a young one) will inevitably become a better more rounded person. More confident, more intelligent, aware and knowledgeable. But not always. There is the obvious case of the person getting hooked on damaging behaviour (drug abuse etc), that goes without saying. But what about as you get older and you become more certain about what you believe, what you like, what you consider right and wrong, and I guess in the end, the awful realisation that you have ideas and concerns about how other people should live. Self-righteousness. There is clearly an element, and probably needs to be an element, of self-righteousness in everyone. Parents and Governments for example, it is their job to make value judgements and impose those judgements on their underlings.

I've always had some difficulty in expressing concern, offense, insecurity, stress and other such negative feelings, in a form other than anger. The more bitterness and hate with which the anger can be spat out the better. Condescending, belittling, and furiously forked tongue lashing out.

Fortunately I don't have those negative feelings too often. But a side-effect of education and some experience has brought to life feelings of self-righteousness - people spending too much, using too much electricity, ignorant of the how the media manipulates them, unaware of their own greed - thinking that buying presents for people makes them thoughtful and caring. Already I can feel the poison rising to the back of my throat, into my fangs, one eye on the victims jugular.

But the poison remains within me, the only fruit of the anger is frustration and a further withdrawal from the society that doesn't feel the way I do. I don't want to be angry anymore. I want to be that laughing semi-inebriated boy standing on a table that I see in photos.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Weekly Newsletter

If you've ever complained inwardly or to someone else about 'dole bludgers' or someone 'getting something for nothing', chances are that you're no better. The opportunities you've been given in your society FOR NOTHING, the environmental resources you consume damage and destroy FOR NOTHING. That's the problem with people who lack empathy and want more for themselves and their inner circle of friends and family, they can't take a look at themselves and extrapolate on their own assumptions. There is nothing wrong with being born with these privileges and opportunities, just recognise them and be fair, or perhaps even generous, to those who didn't have your luck.

Anyway.

This is an excerpt from the weekly newsletter that I get from an old weightlifting icon in the US, Dave Draper. Always fun to read, I thought I'd share this week's edition and see if it can't add a little motivation to somebody's excercise regime.

> Is your exercise time an obligation, a responsibility?

Why not? Obligation and responsibility develop strong women and men. Strong men and women undertake obligations and responsibilities. One's strength and health is a responsibility, a major responsibility and a largely neglected one. Look around you and what do you see? Seven out of ten feel neither obligated nor responsible for their strength and health, shape or well being. We all lose, we all pay and it doesn't stop at their waistlines. For you and for me, our exercise is an obligation, one we embrace with open arms as it streamlines our life. And, I suspect, the iron is far more than responsibility alone. By itself responsibility is a chore, and chores can get old and redundant, imitated and boring and lifeless and bitter. Our workouts must never take on the characteristics of a chore, lest we become an image of what we do.

> Is your training a habit, a blank, going through the motions without emotion?

Good habits are very good. In the door, to the weights, sets and reps, sweat and strain, hi-goodbye, out the door and home. The workout doesn't have to be a ritual, a production, a ceremony, a major project. Just do it. It's the emotionless blanks who need a nudge. I know people like that. They're zombies walking heavily through the gym with their arms extended, mouths open and their eyes like galvanized quarters. "Take me to your exit." From the stationary bike, magazine in hand, they make a lap around the gym floor before sitting on the leg extension for an extended length of time thinking of cookies. If only we could inspire them to grasp a barbell, dumbbell and pulley. They would come alive, their vacant eyes would see and they'd grunt audibly with their once-silent open mouths. Nice sneakers, though... clean, snappy. Cool iPod.

> Is your time on the gym floor recreation, playtime and talk time?

Nothing wrong with a little fun, mixing business with pleasure and few friendly words with your buds and chums. Intermingling is healthy, supportive and fulfilling. I know some hard trainers who can carry on meaningful conversations throughout their workouts with tacit nods, grunts and a few key words. I seldom feel alone or abandoned in the gym, amid a crowd or at the solitary crack of dawn. I don't have much to say and I do have a lot to do. But there are some who enter the gym, look about earnestly, as if seeking inner training direction, and adroitly zero in on a sucker, the most likely to respond to grandiose conversation. Sports are a favorite (bearable), opposite sex is in the top five (pitiable) and politics slither in like a venomous snake (deplorable). Just leave the magazine in the rack and the cell phone in the locker-room. This is a gym. Starbuck's is down the street.

That doesn't mean you can't have fun. Feel the steel.

> Do you love the deed?

Not once have I not loved the idea of weightlifting. The practice itself holds other experiences. The early attempts to move the iron are novel and exciting, curious and mysterious and inventive. Continued applications of force against steel yields rewards that multiply and are most desirable. Don't you love the pump, muscular growth and regular increases in strength, the designing of workouts, their smooth execution and the last engaging rep? Obstacles and plateaus be leveled by cannons; they test the body, mind and soul. Enduring them lifts us to new levels of completeness, physical, mental and spiritual. Who among us doesn't appreciate endurance and its plentiful fruits?

Appreciation borders on love.

As if these delights were not enough, there are more: the comfort of expression and freedom and the understanding born of discipline and purpose, compromise and patience, no matter the abundance or scarcity indwelling your bones. These joys are difficult to distinguish from love.

> Do you skip workouts without disappointment or guilt or total collapse?

Did you pause to think about the answer? Or did you say with assurance (indignation, perhaps), "I don't skip workouts, Bub." The answer is usually somewhere in between. We all miss workouts. Life has a way of inconveniencing us from time to time, demanding our attention. Family, job, TV, weddings, funerals... it's always something. One postponed training session is tolerable, two is unmentionable, three threatens sudden implosion and four borders on death by firing squad; five, they seize the spouse, kids and dog, and, six, the western hemisphere is vaporized. No seven... no... none! If you don't agree, I can't help you. You're doomed.

> Are those hours and days of the week with the iron a passion?

If you don't know what passion is, go on to the next question. You don't need passion to exercise; ordinary interest, common sense and responsibility will do just fine. But to train vigorously and enjoy it, passion is essential. Passion is the inner fervor, the burning desire, the lust-less love, the insatiable zeal that causes the lifter to lift beyond his limit, to train when the castle walls are burning and to grin as the bar bends on his back and crumbles his shoulders. The passionate trainer never misses a workout, even when he should. One more set leads to another, one more rep to another, and another. Passion is one degree short of obsession. Obsession is a disease; passion is love. Don't you love to work out? Of course you do!

> Do you train and leave it in the gym, or do you pack it up and take it with you?

I've actually seen people leaving the gym as if nothing had happened. They're fresh and bright and smell good. Not staggering, not red-eyed, no bruises, no gasping. "You forget your high heel sneakers, Sue?" I say under my breath, hunched in the dark corner by the rusting metal, sagging bars and cobwebs.

www.irononline.com

Monday, May 07, 2007

Arabic and Persian Languages

When I read the translations of media releases/exclamations/proclamations/condemnations emanating from Persia and its surrounds I am struck by the strength of the passion in the words. Whether it be from fundamentalists, moderates or women's liberation advocates - the language used is, to an extent, extreme.

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan 'celebrate' 30 years of struggle this year. I am sure it is a feature of the translation issues between English and these Turkic and Arabic languages, but anyone who is a good guy is always 'glorious' and 'brave', and the array of adjectives used for the bad guys is a rage-filled shower of burning arrows at every opportunity.

So much intensity of anger and love seems consistent with thousands of years of warring and artistic achievement across that land. I don't want to suggest that inhabitants in that region are always on the brink of madness, but there is an underlying passion that I think our somewhat teutonic caucasian nature fails to understand. Lack of understanding that results in misunderstanding.

(just procrastinating from writing a pretty boring essay on the determinants of Singapore's economic growth)