Obscureness

"One inch ahead and the world is pitch darkness" 

- Japanese Proverb

It's been cold, gloomy, and rainy all weekend so far. I've confined physical activity to the indoor track; dismayed that the progress I thought I was making was a bit of a deception. I used the indoor track to re-calibrate my tracking sensor. I thought since I switched shoes, my gait may have a variation which could effect the true reading. It turns out that that was the case, and my pace was being monitored quicker than actuality, by about twenty meters per kilometer. I thought that was so, and probably the reason why I've been instinctively pushing myself ahead a little bit beyond the recommended marathon training presets in Nike +. With the correction, the runs now seem endless and grueling, as time has been in general with the coming of this wet and windy weather. Today's run seemed brutal, and I was forced to gear down. My heart was racing way too hard, like it belonged to a wild bronco. I hope I'm not getting sick: I have been feeling feverish. Perhaps the physical drain is just a manifestation or reflection of the bit of mental stress I've been feeling lately.

I confess that I've been feeling less than centred; demoralized is a more accurate word. I've worked hard to try to elevate my mood and energy for the past few months, and now I'm beset with news that seemed to demolish anything in me that's been positive and progressive. I'm trying my hardest to not be reactive to the issue outwardly, but the brooding of it still is a strain to me emotionally. I've been catching myself doing the useless thing of worrying, wondering about the future and it's innumerable variables, or creating some fantasies of dramatic possible consequences. I'll deal with it as I do with everything else: one day at a time. It won't serve me well to explain everything about it here as it's happening. I think it would just make things more complicated than they need to be. It's one of those wait and see how things pass sort of deals.

As the proverb suggests, the future is always something in obscurity. I just hope I have the wherewithal to cope with whatever change comes ahead, and that it won't make those who are along with me for this ride suffer as well. What is more intimidating than the situation itself is the overwhelming paths of action I'm left to choose from in an attempt to correct or better things, and feeling paralyzed in trying to choose the right one. That's the real disadvantage in having an over-analytical brain like mine.

I was hoping that this brief mention of it would clear my head a bit better. At with least putting it into comparison with some other things in my mind that were a lot worse to deal with in my life, I think I'll clear this hurdle one way or other successfully. It just demands my patience, diligence, focus, and foresight for opportunity.

Discipline and Habit Building

“Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become your character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

 - Buddha

My weekend was used to give my final respects to my grandmother. On Saturday, I was given the honour of placing her ashes in her grave, alongside the plot of my deceased grandfather. Not the way one wants to reunite with one’s family, but it was good to see everyone again. I toured around territory that I haven’t seen in ages, through some parts I’ve not been to since I was in my mid-twenties.

Sunday was very energy draining, but in good ways for the most part. I ran my best time for ten kilometres; breaking my old record from last September by a full minute. I wish I had a better gap of time between traveling back home and starting work in the afternoon.

I’m supposed to use this day to rest from marathon training, and it’s hard not to be seduced into running on a day like this: by the finest weather I’ve seen since this year began. It was so beautiful outside during the day, and so perfect to do so, but using discipline not to run and to rest and allow one’s legs and body to mend and build muscle tissue is just as important as using discipline to drive oneself ahead. I only risk injury while I have the remaining stiffness after yesterday’s feat. So this morning, I directed my energy instead to cleaning house, ledgering expenses, and doing so some mechanical tinkering with my bike and car before I went to work this afternoon. The bonus about this day was that at long last I got to move my “office” outside on my set-up deck space: working out there with my laptop. Sunshine and fresh oxygen seems to make caffeine work optimally, and so my brain felt like it ticked along harder. I stayed out there until sun’s glare reflecting off the screen got too intense.

My excursion this afternoon involved providing assistance for someone in making contact with a certain volunteer agency for a function in the near future. The formality was such that I had to fill out an application as well. It was the “skills and interests” field that really started my mind spinning. Perhaps it was some afterthoughts from Saturday’s service that made me wonder what I’m really doing with my life. It saddened me to think that there are so many things that I used to do, but now I feel so estranged from them all, and it’s like they’ve rusted away from disuse due to me being so engaged with my current job. Some of the tech stuff I knew has been obsolete for a long time. I’m dissatisfied with this feeling of being left in the dust, and found some kind of renewed eagerness to re-apply the practical knowledge I still have, and to learn more new and modern skill applications. I dived into websites, and my collection of e-books and PDF files for such stuff once I arrived back home. I arrived at nothing conclusive. All the course of living is just a complicated series of habits. Some progressive; others counterproductive. The trick for change is to simplify things and to maintain focus. Lack of focus, direction and motivation are the real culprits for me in not adopting something better as a good habit. The only thing that I got curious about and found to experiment with was a site called Habit Forge. I just have to create the list of habits that I want to build to be prompted into changing through reminders sent to me by e-mail. I wonder how useful this would be since one of my bad habits is not checking my e-mail on a regular basis. It better be damned interesting to make me want to bother sticking with the process. The real trick is to find things in my life that could be changed in 21 days.

I end my day indulging in whipped cream on chopped frozen bananas, chatting with a friend on Skype, and listening to some trance music. I was trying to build some new playlists for running, but all this was doing for me was making me imagine blissful thoughts of all the women I’d like to see dancing to this stuff. At least that’s something motivating to keep me in the habit of fitness.

On a Glass of Water

What will this become in the future?
With certainty, it will become more valuable.

That is just the way it was
Nothing could be better and nothing ever was
Oh, they say you can see your future
Inside a glass of water, the riddles and the rhymes
"Will I see heaven in mine?"

~ lyrics from Glass of Water, by Coldplay

I was compelled to do a creative writing exercise for some reason; I wanted to keep the subject simple, yet would easily lead into something more trippy and profound. I decided to restrict it to one common thing related to: a subject mentioned in the last chapter of a non-fiction book I read, an object I’d use first thing in the morning, and to whatever contents I’d find in my mailbox this morning. Upon finding my utility bill (and seeing the notice on my condo’s public bulletin board*), and noting the first thing that I grab to use with my multi-vitamins, and the blurb mentioned in the last chapter of a Richard Dawkins book I last read, the answer couldn’t come any simpler or clearer: a glass of water. It seems quite fitting since Earth Day is coming soon, and the topic is somewhat related to the environmental consciousness that the day is supposed to promote.

A glass of water is so simple, and yet so symbolic of some very transcendental things of thought. As a Canadian, living in a nation with the greatest abundance of potable water on Earth, sometimes a simple glass of water can so easily be taken for granted. That’s happening with me less so now that I’m doing more long distance running again, and being more mindful of how important it is to properly rehydrate. A glass of water somehow has become some ridiculous metaphorical indicator of perceived optimism/pessimism in a person when they first glance at a 125 millilitres of water inside a 250 millilitre capacity glass.** It’s the subject of the Paradox of Value, a matter of debate amongst economists when it is compared to a diamond. I don’t wear jewelry, and find water more immediately practical and life sustaining than a diamond, thus water for me is the more valuable thing. I’ll let you research this stuff on Wikipedia for yourself, because economic theories don’t interest me. King Solomon had the right idea when he was trying to trick and seduce the Queen of Sheba.

A glass of water is an indicator of one’s ability to remain balanced and steady. In fact, there is even an iPhone app out there called A Glass of Water. It was developed by Swedish engineers working with Toyota. It’s a virtual glass of water, used for monitoring and giving feedback on one’s driving ability for making smooth transitions into accelerating, braking, and steering. The accelerometer in the phone triggers the image of the glass on the screen to spill and splash out its virtual water if stops and starts are too abrupt, or the turns are too hard***. The purpose of this app is to help the driver improve engine efficiency, gas consumption, and their handling skill of their vehicle. The more water lost out of the glass during your trip, the worse your driving safety performance is. In my readings of Zen meditation, there was more than just on time that I’ve encountered an exercise where one is to imagine a glass of clear water, with a bit of sediment on the bottom of it. Succumbing to emotional upset is equal to shaking the glass and clouding the water, and losing all sense of mental clarity on reality. The purpose of meditation is to remain calm enough to allow such emotional sediment to settle out again, to regain clarity of mind.

Here’s a wildly interesting fact to dwell on when contemplating a glass of water. There are more water molecules in a glass of water than there are glasses of water on all of planet Earth. It’s roughly about 1500 times more in fact.**** That’s not even the most interesting part of this observation. The interesting thing occurs when you account for the probabilities that are statistically possible, given this great ratio of difference between the H₂O molecule number and global glass of water number. The mind-blowing thing is that during the course of having the recommended average daily intake for adequate hydration throughout an average lifetime, there is a high likelihood that one has had enough contact with enough molecules of water, or their constituent atoms of oxygen and hydrogen, which have in some way, cycled through or made contact with, every other type of living being that pre-existed you. Surely enough it’s at least a certainty that throughout the course of your whole lifetime, there has been enough of a volume of water molecules that have been cycling you and other beings from food and drink you consume, and the humidity in the air you inhale and exhale cycling through you to substantiate this. There’s a molecule of water in any one of the glasses you drank that was passed through a Neanderthal’s kidney, another that once was a component of the blood of a T-Rex, others that passed through the gills of trilobites and the roots of extinct, giant fern-like trees which have long since turned into coal, and perhaps even one that was used by the metabolic process of the very first singular cell of life that appeared on this planet. Things probably get wilder yet with viewing  water on a quantum level, but I'm hardly qualified enough to expound about the complexity of these interactions in writing. A single glass of water is not only life giving, but life connecting, and that alone is a wondrous enough thing for me. It’s nothing mystical; it’s just science, yet the scienctific data makes it more precious and sacred than any religion ever could.

The glass of water case is another reason I have for ridiculing religious mysticism. Surely throughout even a short lifetime, one has consumed at least one glass of water that had a molecule, or molecules that may have been used by such 'holy' influences, such as the water used by: John the Baptist to baptize Jesus, Confucius to steep his tea, the Hebrews to exile the baby Moses down the Nile, Hindu priests for any sacred ritual they perform in the Holy Ganges, or even by Mohammed for his ablutions before he prayed. If water is already this all-encompassing, and all-permeating to every other life form in existence on Earth, including to those sources who founded/served their respective religions, why the need then to perform a silly, sacrosanct ritual of “sanctifying” water, trying to make it pure and more “holy” through some babbled quasi-magical incantations? It is through man’s own foolish sanctimony, arrogance, and ignorance that he feels that he can intercede and make stuff that has already had its supposed contact with the divine beings even holier. As for purification, I’d prefer people using some common sense of not throwing pollution in it rather than seeing need to attend some service where water needs to be “blessed”. We can bless water by not wasting and polluting it so carelessly. It’s cases like this where I wish people would allow more intercession from I call the real holy trinity: science, mathematics, and logic. We need to value fresh water more, and be more environmentally responsible in using it.  Desalinizing sea-water is terribly costly in terms of energy use, and more and more nations are looking into doing this as an option to protect or replenish their water supplies. Harvesting icebergs is another extreme idea. It's done already by a Canadian company in Newfoundland, which ironically, uses the purity found in iceberg water for the purpose of making vodka. Of course the iceberg flow comes around or directly to Newfoundland, and this is a relatively passive harvest of pure water for the sake of producing a luxery beverage. However, if one modern concern is global warming, does it make sense to exploit, consume and destroy the very things that are helping to regulate the temperature of Earth's oceans which are preventing it from happening quicker? April 12th of this year marked how an iceberg had destroyed the Titanic a century ago, but what date in the future will mark our ultimate demise once we have to reached a point of being relegated to actively harvest the icebergs, polar ice and glaciers, just for untainted drinking water? Most people are ignorant of how little of it there is in comparison to ocean/marine water.*****

Don't ask me how many of these could be made from one iceberg.

During a documentary program I saw last year related to Earth Day, I remember one of the speakers, I believe it was Dr. David Suzuki, who said something to the effect that our planet shouldn’t be called “Earth, but rather it should be called “Water”, since the majority of this planet’s surface is covered with it. When it comes down to it, the planet is already changing more and more to fit its namesake proper, realizing that whole rivers and lakes are being drained around major cities in China because of over-population, and with more affluence coming to nations like India and Brazil, there will be even yet greater man-made strain on the hydrosphere.  I fear for Canada’s future: with the possibility that our nation being a made a centre of environmental exploitation and conflict, as the eyes of the world look upon us as some great big oasis, on a planet that’s getting drier . . . and thirstier.

*- Water service for the building will be shut off due to system maintenance on April 21/12. I’m lucky I’m out of town then.

**- I don’t and won’t use either of the terms “half-full” or “half-empty”. I’m a realist; all I care about is whether or not the contents in any glass are suitable enough to quench my thirst.

***-This would be an utterly useless app to have on the pothole riddled streets of this town. However, the app is free, so there's no cost to you to check it out.

****-Using factoids from the Wolfram Alpha science app: One glass = 0.25 L; There are 3.5 x 10^19 L of fresh water, or 1.4 x 10^20 glasses of water (fresh), plus 1.332 x 10^21 L of ocean water on earth, or 5.328 x 10^21 glasses of ocean water on Earth, which equals 5.4612 x 10^21 glasses of water on Earth. The number of molecules in a glass (250 mL) of water: weight of water 250 mL = 250 grams); Molecular mass of water = 18.013 grams per mole; Number of moles in 250 grams of water = 250 g divided by 18.013 g/mole = 13.879 moles. Therefore, 13.879 moles multiplied by Avogadro’s number (6.022141 x 10^23) = 8.358x 10^24 molecules in a 250 mL glass of water. Dividing 8.358 x 10^24 by 5.461 x 10^21 yields a quotient and resulting factor of around 1,530.5. It's not accurate because this isn't accounting for the salinity of the ocean water, nor atmospheric moisture, nor the remaining water retained in any of the living beings in the biosphere, which are using it for metabolic processes; so that numerical factor could waver a little more. For my intents and purposes here I’ll settle for rounding down to the factor of 1,500. Be thankful that I didn’t resort to putting both you and I through the misery of getting a more accurate figure through calculus.   

*****- Assuming we have a median depth for the world’s oceans (3900 meters = 3.9 km), and let’s suppose we used that same depth for pooling the volume of all our planet’s fresh water into one localized area on the globe. Given this depth, the surface area of this fresh water reservoir of Earth would be (3.5 x 10^19 L, which equals 3.5 x 10^7 cubic kilometers, divided by 3.9 km), roughly 8.97 million square kms: a gigantic lake averaging 4 km deep, and roughly the geographical size of Brazil, plus its neighbours Paraguay and Uruguay combined. That’s still a ridiculously small percentage compared to the remaining amount of ocean/marine water on the face of this planet. If it still doesn’t yet register just how, in actuality, really small that proportion is, just try and imagine now all the remaining terrestrial, aquatic (non-salt water dwelling) plant and animal organisms, and the seven billion humans living on this Earth all trying to compete for the water from this one lake.

More on the Zen of Running

"Running is about acceptance—of yourself and others. When you’re out on the trail sweating, it doesn’t matter if the guy or gal next to you works at a fast food joint or is a CEO. It’s doesn’t matter what color they are, or how old they are, or what religion they practice, if any" - BART YASSO

First of all, I’d like to thank my friend who sent this inspirational quote to me. When I looked outside this morning to see how it’s again windy, and everything outside is plastered with new, wet, sticky snow, it was so tempting to say, “Screw it!”, and spend the rest of the morning in bed, or putzing around with something else trivial. However, the quote was a reminder of why I shouldn’t give up today’s commitment to do my run. I know I’m tougher and more disciplined than that; even though it’s my less favoured option, I still have the indoor track at the Field House to use during times of this sort of inclemency.

Sometimes my friend; sometimes my nemesis.

Wild odometer reading
to end the day at the
track with. 178 kms to go
for the month's end.

Acceptance is honestly what it’s all about, as like through the course of performing any other form of focused meditation. When I start running, I become immediately conscious of how my legs and my lungs are trying to work together in synchrony, and it’s just natural to start getting tuned into the condition of the other elements of this collection of matter and energy I call my physical body during this feat, doing this together with some heightened awareness and sharpened focus. For me, little effort is used to think of much beyond the moment when I'm engaged in this, so then running then doesn’t really differ much from a session of sitting meditation. Aching, discomfort, pain: all these things that are creations of the mind, may come during or long after the circuit; accepting the fact that they are temporary conditions allows one push through them, and then these things somehow dissolve away and pass quicker than initially expected.

21:28 . . .my fastest 5 kms
so far.

It’s at some time, I’d say, at a point after the fifth kilometer when the body stops registering things as aching and discomfort, and then throws itself into some sort of autopilot mode. The breathing takes care of itself, and all the rhythms are set for allowing the whole system to work together efficiently and automatically: as if it “accepts” itself. I begin to feel like my legs are carrying me all by themselves, rather than me using any effort to make them move. I get so wrapped up in the momentum of all this happening that I lose sense of time; I actually risk failing to hydrate myself properly when this occurs because I don’t want to stop, or slow down, while I’m riding this wave. Luckily, I have vocal feedback of my status piped in from my pedometer app through my earphones every fifteen minutes, along with my favourite tunes, to help keep me grounded. I don’t know what else to say about this experience, if there is one. If there is no sense of time, likewise, there shouldn’t be a perceived event; therefore, no “experience” from that moment to reflect on, just “acceptance”. But hey, let’s not get too trippy now with that kind of logic.

Having the aforementioned quote in mind, thinking beyond any suffering I may be having, and being in the mode of acceptance I believe was a great help to me for breaking past my own pace record for five kilometers.

4' 19"/km. . . getting better

To expand more on Yasso’s quote, I really do get a better sense of connection between myself and the others I see running near me: be it on the track, streets, or the park trails. We do it to push ourselves harder to perhaps make ourselves more resilient and seasoned to handle the other harsher realities of life, or to claim some time for ourselves to be active, and yet remain meditatively centred and peaceful. Running, like Zen, shouldn’t be thought of as a religion, but a long and sweaty fast-paced trip towards having a glimpse, for even a small moment, at a natural form of ecstasy from the simple pleasure of being able to move, breathe, and be alive.

Happy Easter, Happy Birthday Buddha!

The great menacing freak snowstorm fronts coming from Alberta and the south that we were originally destined to get had dissipated, at least for our area, and luckily there remained a completely snow-free corridor along the stretch of highway that I needed to drive through. Other areas of the province weren’t so lucky. For instance, my brother’s community in the Southeast got nailed hard. They awoke to 30 centimetres of new snow covering everything: more than they had all winter. It was a miracle that we somehow weren’t affected, and that this miserable stuff dodged us. It’s still really cold, but I’m so thankful that I didn’t have to travel through any of that kind of inclemency.

I departed Saskatoon to visit my parents late Saturday afternoon. I took time to sort of attend to my own spiritual affairs in the city before I left to join them for Easter. I attended a dharma lecture presented by a visiting Buddhist monk. He was of the Tibetan school of Buddhism, and he came from Ontario. His name was Gen Kelsang Rabgye. I gleaned so much from his three hour lecture, which included a fabulous lesson on having a quality session of meditation. Since I’ve been studying Buddhism, more specifically Zen, I’ve found that the concepts of no inherent existence and non-self were always hard concepts to grasp. Rabgye provided good examples that brought so much clarity for me.

The Tibetan word for "prayer" translates to "wish path"

Gen Kelsang Rabgye

Today is not only Easter Sunday; it is also Buddha’s birthday. Since this is so, I thought I’d share my thoughts about Buddhism, and why it has become a bigger part of my life in the past few years. I am quite truthful in saying that I don’t currently practice any sort religion.* Generally, religions focus on the subjugation of people for some purpose of ultimately appeasing the supposed super-imposed will of some God figure: commonly represented in the West as some sort of cosmic, law-giving, super-entity that smites or forsakes people who don't accept, nor yield to, nor cower to the power of this almighty being. That’s not what Buddhism is about. Buddhism isn’t so much a religion as it is a more of a spiritual method of psychoanalysis: gaining insight about the truth of nature in an empirical manner, and gaining sounder sense of the world through a tamer, tranquil, and happier mind; extinguishing the hatred, greed, and delusions that ultimately bring about one’s suffering; and being mindful about the nature of the forces of cause and effect (karma). It allows you to deeply and directly cultivate wisdom, happiness, and compassion because it's already innate and natural for you to want to rid yourself of suffering anyway. All happiness/suffering originates in your own mind, and it's ultimately your own choice and responsibility as to which paths you'll take. In such a paradigm, things aren't due to anything else supernatural, like some god's grace/wrath, or whim for your salvation/damnation. You can have any kind of heritage, or believe whatever faith it is you (think you) have, and still practice Buddhism. There is no conflict within me studying Buddhism and celebrating and enjoying "religious" holidays like Christmas and Easter with my family. If one does have such conflict or personal upheaval, I’d say one wasn’t doing their practice right. I like Buddhism because it has nothing to sell me. I like the fact that it invites the disciple to freely explore the world, applying the teachings of the eightfold path and seeing the results, and to not just blindly accept the teachings as they are. It’s non-dogmatic, welcoming you to freely discard it if it all turns out to be bullshit for you: as in not genuinely bringing you happiness (less suffering) in helping out yourself and others. If you don’t like it, you are free to find something else that does the trick. I highly doubt if the big three western Abrahamic faiths, or even some of the newer "cults" are so confident as to state that without some caveat about dire consequences attached.

Zen, or any other form of Buddhism, is not merely an intellectual pursuit. It only works for you if you practice it, and put it into action. I don't claim to be the best at doing this, but I think I prefer Zen, apart from the meditation, for the fact that there is, by the example of some of its own teachers, a little more leeway for using some spontaneity, wildness, humour, and shock value to snap people (including yourself) to their senses. It’s very down to earth in that respect. Some of the best teachers of it (some achieving enlightenment, others not) have varying backgrounds. They include noblemen, beggars, former criminals, artisans, warriors, and even a punk rock bass player (in contemporary writings, of course). Zen’s teachings of compassion fit better to my definition of it more than other schools. I admit, my patience still very taxed sometimes in engaging with some people with more drama-oriented personalities, but with Zen on my side I have gained more courage to confront them and help them as needed, and less inclination of avoiding them altogether. Sometimes they get my humour, other times they get a question that makes them think about their sensibility of their drama/actions or behaviour. Sometimes it comes out with less-than-tactful, colourful, and even profane sounding language, but sometimes I have to lower/raise myself to someone else’s operating level to make them see my point**: if they can’t deal with, or process my first suggestion or response. A little embarrassing laughter may result; sometimes I have to use a little self-effacing humour to keep things from escalating. In either case, it’s better than dealing with the problem with full out anger, from either side, needlessly spinning things into a guilt trip for someone else. The base intention is still the same: to stop such people from edging themselves into a bigger heap of greater suffering. The people I deal with have a big enough trial from day to day; they need not have their problems compounded with extra ignorance. I’m realistic in knowing that I won’t get through to all people, but it is my sincere wish and intent to help make others be at least a little more happy and comfortable; including myself. That’s the true goal in trying to attain enlightenment through Buddhism.

*-I tried and explored theistic religion(s) . . . sorry, but no thank you. I decided to grow up and think for myself instead, and divorce myself from any so-called “loving and peaceful” Abrahamic faith institutions that: do little to quell (and in fact often promote) sectarian violence, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, or sanction “holy wars”; endorse racial/ gender/sexual inequality/segregation and homophobia; forbid the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools; use disinformation about, or threaten harsh consequences for the use of birth control/condoms/STD protection; uphold and support death penalties for things like “blasphemy”; support capital punishment in general; harbour and give sanctuary to criminals of genocide while neglecting the actual victims of it; threaten me or others with reprisals, excommunication, or damnation for questioning or disagreeing with their particular creed or dogma; are actively involved with using guilt and shaming real victims of serious violations and abuse into silence.

** - Or, equally, to allow me to see theirs.

New Wheels and Operation Green Justice

It’s Good Friday. Today is my official rest day. Both as a statutory holiday and as a physical break from marathon training. I can’t remember the last time I had the spring stat days off. The leap year this year really has jumbled my schedule a bit. I have no agenda today, except to catch up on sleep, cook/preserve/freeze the rest of the unprocessed food in my fridge before it spoils, read, enjoy some tea, and reflect a little. Today was also the typically kind of day to begin Operation Green Justice (read on for explanation), and it was best to do it today before the freak mid-spring snowfall that they were predicting for this weekend comes along.

Bye bye purple pony, here's the new stallion.

 When spring comes, I’m usually switching my gears into thinking more with the mindset of a frugal environmentalist. For some reason, I begin finding any needless squandering, and waste of material, space, and energy abhorrent. I economize more appropriately and fervently to avoid such things. I become much, much more shrewd before committing to any purchases; if any expense ultimately doesn’t serve any greater good, or generate any other repercussive benefits, then I only become even more parsimonious. I challenge myself with experiments in frugality. This mode usually starts around Easter when (most years) spring is soundly established. Yesterday, I invested in a new bike. With gasoline prices predicted to soar to new all time highs during this summer, I know I’ll be driving my car a lot less. My old one was reaching its twentieth year of service. It was a damn good warhorse of a bike. It was a great model that was an awesome long term investment, and during the time that I had it, it saved me a hell of a lot more money than it cost. I remember paying a few dollars more for some high quality features, like its frame, at this specialty store. But those few extra dollars bought me twice the bike which outlasted any cheaper model by several years. However, the teeth on the front sprockets on it now are so worn down that they barely catch the drive chain. It needs new brake pads, and no doubt replacement brake and shifting cables as well. The cost of parts and labour to fix the old relic would probably be more than one and a half times the cost of the same style of this old model were it bought new (at the price back in the day when I bought it new, I didn’t account for inflation). I needed something more reliable, clean-shifting, speedy, and even more utilitarian than the old guy. I returned to the same place to get my new one. Again, I did spend extra money to get the new one, but to an optimal degree. I got one of better quality for an extra few dollars over the cheaper utility model in a big box store like Walmart or Canadian Tire, but like the last case, I’m sure have one that would last three times longer, plus this dealer offers an extended service package that the big box stores don’t. As for my old one, I’m making provisions to donate it to a local charity that fixes up used bikes and sends them to the needy in Africa.

Today, I took my dog out for her morning constitutional, and just like during this time of the year when I lived in the old district, I found lots of evidence of the adolescent shenanigans in the neighbourhood with this start of the Easter spring break. It’s so predictable: to see them abusing themselves in a public park or school playground at night (just to be extra rebellious). I live close to both such kinds of places now, just as I did back in Nutana. They congregate, they drink illicitly, and they fuck around. Thankfully, there weren’t any syringes or any other evidence of hardcore drug use about. They’re still at that age where they are so naïve and stupid as to think they won’t get caught. Along with the empties I found and collected, I also found the remaining full bottles of beer from an abandoned twelve pack, which tells me the cops were doing a focused patrol of the area. They, of course, were well acquainted with this cycle; expecting these rascals to be there as well. The police must have appeared and the kids scattered, and perhaps there was even a pursuit. The bottles were apparently ditched as they left in haste, and no one came back for them. It was cheap, sissy-boy, Yankee piss water beer that they left behind: the only kind that those with little money, and uninitiated and unrefined taste, would tend to get around here. I found a couple more unopened bottles of Corona, in some juniper bushes. The Corona had turned skunky (I can’t believe they dared to themselves to try drink this stuff); and even though I knew they were fresh, I didn’t bother with testing the Miller Lite. It went straight down the sink*.

It’s getting to be like my own private Good Friday morning tradition: the collecting of the empties from the Maundy Thursday night outdoor high school party/screw-fests** around the neighbourhood park areas. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are occasions that stem off well from the weird theme of my entries from this past while, involving some sort of consideration for healthy chiropody: on the day prior to his crucifixion, Jesus washed and anointed the feet of his disciples; on Good Friday, I lessen the risk of having to wash and treat my own (or Ella’s) bleeding feet, which could be shredded from the shards of glass that came from any of the extra beer and liquor bottles lying around. Spring is generally the beginning of what I call Operation Green Justice. Through the snow free months, as I walk the dog in the morning, I find and collect any empty bottles and cans left by the idiots trooping around the neighbour who leave them in the parks, schoolyards, alleys, and streets***. I recycle them at SARCAN, and use the funds for my own planting/gardening projects. Since this I took on this initiative and balancing the numbers, I can honestly say that I never had to spend a single dime of my own money for tending my yard/green space, and purchasing garden plants and seedlings. I can always rely on the stupidity of others to fund this stuff for me. Yes, there is no shortage of stupid and mindless people around to allow me to do this. I take garbage/waste energy and, in a roundabout way, I try to convert it into life energy that suits my needs. If I’m already obligated by city bylaw to pick up my dog’s crap (something with no value) off the sidewalk, having to stoop down, collect it, and dispose of it to “protect the civic environment” is it really a big crazy deal to take the time to stoop down and collect a piece of refuse that can be exchanged for money and be reused, again for the benefit of the environment? A disgusting example I know, but the rhetoric holds logic. Whether or not there is some great karmic reward for me for doing this isn’t important, or significant to me. All I know is that I hate litter and waste, and this is one way I use my energy to be a better environmental steward. It’s taking lemons and turning them into lemonade: an effort to take a result of idiotic delinquency that peeves me and actively reversing or rectifying it into an advantage or benefit, instead of sitting around bitching about the problem. I’m no David Suzuki; but at the very least, I try to not be one more asshole who is indifferent to the decay and destruction of our urban green spaces.

Living without an actual yard space in the past few years, and doing more outdoor running, has made me much more appreciative of my local parks, the river trails, and other public green spaces. Seeing them being senselessly vandalized, used for untamed public debauchery, and being left strewn with litter, annoys me more so now than it ever did. Having a more pristine natural spaces to calm me, free of cans and trash to slip on, and no smashed glass bottles around to slash open my feet or bike tires, is even more important to me now. I remember that was a major issue of culture shock for me to get used to during my brief season of living in South America. I was very revolted and disgusted as I watched people nonchalantly throw their garbage right on the street and walk away. I remember escorting a couple of visitors who came from the region I stayed in, and were visiting my city here, and their reaction of a combination of both shock and surprise at how relatively cleaner the streets were here; and the noticeable shame they sort of felt, knowing that the “poorer” areas here were cleaner than their own “upper class” neighbourhood that they came from in their city.

Operation Green Justice will be a little different this year, as I realized back in my Gardenscape entry that my growing space will be compromised pending this summer’s renovations, therefore no need to bother with buying plants. I’ll still turn it into an experiment in frugality and self-sufficiency. I do have an ideal yeast growing environment remaining. Just for this year, I think I’ll see if the recycling receipts could yield enough to fund another favourite home economics hobby: brewing. I’ll exchange the bottles and cans I find for a brew kit to refill my own bottles at home. I think those costs could easily be covered by this. Come to think of it, home brewing,  as it is for me, is an even more environmentally friendly and economically efficient system of recycling than gardening, at least fuel-wise, for the fact that one is only reusing and cleaning a limited personal set of bottles that one has at home, thereby avoiding the usage the extra fuel to haul them to a recycling centre, and the shipping involved in reprocessing, refilling, and back and forth redistribution. In terms of water use, the plants I’d have on my balcony would use much more in the three weeks than it takes during that same period to make a 23 litre carboy full of beer.****

Now that I’ve exposed my penchant for frugality, I freely confess that I’m one who believes that the best hobbies shouldn’t be expensive, and I think I’d enjoy them even more after considering that they are financed by a means and strategy that takes public stupidity and converts it to something that profits me and the environment I’d prefer to live in.

*- I know I hate waste, but more appropriately, I should have dumped the American beer in the toilet instead, treating it like the piss that it is. Ordinarily, when I come across unopened, untainted, abandoned beer this way, I do treat it as sort of a windfall. My best score (so far) was one season was three bottles of Heineken during one morning while walking the dog. They were no doubt previously stolen from some poor Daddy’s liquor stash.

**- I think it’s fair and accurate to call it a screw-fest when there are discarded condom packages (plus other stuff I’d rather not step on) along with the bottles and fast-food containers littered all over a public park. I see we have the makings of a really classy next generation of adults in a few years <sarcasm>. Oh well, at least they are using protection. God help the future human race if people with this combination of impulsivity and stupidity become the dominant “breeders”.

***- It’s certainly not a new career. I generally stick to only collecting recyclables that we find along our walking route, when I have a big enough bag for them. I’m not so gross as to make any special effort to crawl into a dumpster, or wade through garbage to collect a couple of stupid bottles. I’ll let the bums without a real job do that.

****- One could argue that it would be even more environmentally friendly to not brew at all . . . but hey, that’s starting to sound like crazy talk.

Cruising around Like Frodo

A couple of weeks ago, I was tuned into CBC, watching The Nature of Things, a science documentary program here in Canada. The episode I saw, The Perfect Runner, was about the physiology and biomechanics of human running. I learned some pretty interesting stuff about our evolution as a species. You wouldn’t think it to see the average person walking around today, but human beings are the creatures with the greatest running endurance out of all others in the animal kingdom. We evolved to be distance runners, not speed runners. It was interesting to see the origins and development of the people in the place with best natural marathon runners in the world: Africa, and what makes them unique at being so in an anthropological, and sociological perspective. Noting from that program some of the things that happen when people are running without the stress and confinement of a modern athletic shoe made me want to try to experiment with something.

FILA Skele-Toes, a.k.a. Hobbit Boots

I spoke of my imperfect foot development in my last entry, and my great challenge of finding properly fitting shoes. I forgot to mention my other shoe purchase. Well, not so much forgot to mention, but held off on saying anything about them until I had a chance to test them out. They are track shoes manufactured by FILA, and are called Skele-Toes. The idea of the design of these things is to provide your feet with enough of the traction and protection needed to function as a shoe, and yet allow as much of the natural mechanics of the foot to work as if one were running barefooted. That means freeing up the toes to have their natural flexion, and adjusting the heel and ball of the foot to hit the ground in the same manner as a bare foot would.  Just like we around here colloquially call sandals “Jesus boots”, I decided to call these things “Hobbit boots”: freaky looking shoes with separated toes that make your feet appear disproportionately big and wide, like the feet of the Hobbits of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

All I can say, after trying these babies out on the track today, is that I’m very impressed. I ran as long and as fast, if not more so, with these things than I have with shoes with orthotic inserts. Pain in the shins didn’t register in me until much later in the course of the run, compared to the times that I use regular runners/orthotics. New muscles were being tested on me, so I made a point of not overdoing it with my initial run with these things, but I see them serving as valuable element for strengthening and toning my legs better. Today, I felt like I was on par with the place I was at last year. At the very least, these things are novel enough to make me want to do more trials with them, which will keep me motivated to stick with doing something for my fitness.