Death without Dying

For the last few years of my life I've had the urge to die. Not leave this world kind of die, but death of ego. How? I don't know. Why? I don't know. I feel like everyone in the world has their head buried so deep in distractions that their calling goes unheard. People are addicted to drama. If there isn't enough drama in their life they seek it out by either creating it or turning on the television. Drama gives their life meaning and the ego is what demands this meaning.

Is this what we're supposed to be doing? Finding ways to build our ego? What does death of ego even mean? Can we live without our ego? Is it so tied to our consciousness that we simply would not exist without it? Is that what I want? To not exist? I don't want that.

What's my goal in life? What am I running towards? Why am I running?

Am I running in the direction my ego is pulling me? If I could kill the ego, would I be running? Would the direction change? Would I simply be sitting there observing the world around me?

I won't know until it's dead. Is that possible? Even if it was possible, how can it be done? How can I die without dying?

Here's my plan - Go spend the night out in nature. I always want to do this, but I'm scared. I'm scared of all the crazy animals that could attack me in my sleep.

If my life was a book and I read it 50 years from now. I would be thinking, "How on earth was I scared to spend the night out in the woods?"

I feel like I'm risking my life to go out there alone, but truth is it's pretty safe. It sounds like a great opportunity to grow and to learn. Ever heard something like this?

"It is better to have lived and die than to die never having lived."

I hear it all the time and say, "Yeah! Right on! I couldn't agree more!" But do I really agree? I'm not really living life. I've living the way I'm expected to live.   I'm on the path of least resistance. Robert Frost wrote a poem about taking the road less traveled. I love that idea. The idea. Apparently not the application of the idea because my life would be a lot different if I did. For better or worse I don't know.

You know deep inside what the right thing to do is. It's the thing that scares you. Go do it.

If I ever decide to saddle up, I'm going to hike out into the woods. Alone. Turn my cell phone off. Sit and listen.

Sit and listen.

The Float Tank

I finally did it. I finally got to spend some time in a sensory deprivation tank. It was a great experience. I've been wanting to do this for a while now since I heard mention of it on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. I went to a place called The Float Shoppe in Portland. It's a pretty cool place. Super friendly. I did it with two of my friends. All first timers. We checked in and then went into the waiting room which had a heated foot bath. They had tea available as well to help calm your mind. We signed the paperwork and got the run down. A woman gave us a tour of the three different tanks they had available. Two of them were closed and one was open. I chose the open one thinking it might be a little more comfortable. She said it was the staff favorite.

I showered, climbed in and hit the light. I couldn't relax my neck so I sat up to grab the neck pillow. Oops. Salt water dripped down into my eyes and mouth. It wasn't too bothersome. They give you a small vile of water to rinse your eyes out just in case something like that happens.

I probably spent the first 15-20 minutes trying to figure out what I should be doing. My mind was all over the place. "What should I be thinking?" "That's not a good thought, I'm wasting time on that thought." "Let me get philosophical." "No, not work!" "No, not them!"

They say don't drink caffeine before you float. That's why. Your brain won't shut up. I took Alpha Brain from Onnit Labs before hand as well. That I would do again, but definitely going to stay away form the coffee.

Finally I settled on a bit of breath meditation. And..... I was out. I started dreaming about work and woke up in a weird state of mind. I woke up feeling strangely good, but as soon as I made sense of my dream that feeling quickly dissipated. When I finally got that thought out of my head I probably had 20 minutes left. Again I went back to the breathing. You know those flashes or quick visions you get before you fall asleep? I started having those. More vivid than usual which got me excited and caused me to snap out of them quickly.

The music came on slowly signifying the end of the session. I got out, showered off, went down stairs and drank tea while I waited for the others.

I definitely would like to do it again. I'm considering signing up for a membership. Knowing that I'll be back in a week or two will decrease the faux urgency of the float. I would be free to think what ever I wanted. If I were to do it again (which I plan on) I would do the following:

• Fast the day of the float if not also the day before
• Avoid caffeine consumption
• Find a question so think of while I'm in there

The question would be of spiritual nature. One that brings me back to what's important. One that connects me. I would need to spend a fair amount of time before the float contemplating the question. Or... maybe I'm over thinking it and I should just get in the tank and focus on my breathing.

Dreams. They amaze me. I've had two alien dreams in the last few weeks. Possibly the only two alien dreams I've ever had. They are very vivid and leave strange feelings after I wake up. The first one made me feel strange all day. I was playing guitar and looping it. I was playing The Scientist by Coldplay. I was getting tired and fell asleep with my headphones on. It looped over and over and over. The dream was beautiful. It was a movie. It showed Earth being created, the different wonders of the world forming and civilizations rising. And then the aliens came to invade. We fought them but were absolutely no match.

I'm scared to admit I have dreams about aliens. I'm afraid people might think I'm crazy. There. I said it.

At this point in time I believe that dreams are a manifestation of feelings. What ever feeling you experience during the dream is a reflection of conscious or subconscious emotions.

UPDATE:

I don't believe that the dream interpretations you find online are accurate or meaningful, but wow. I just found this. A little background. I'm living in a new state, away from family, friends and everything I've considered home for the last 26 years. I moved from Michigan to Washington in search of adventure. Truth be told, I had an opportunity to work with a friend so it kind of fell into my lap. I can't claim it was solely to find adventure. Very interesting. Goodnight!

Reading The War of Art

The War of Art is a fantastic book by Steven Pressfield. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it. The audio book is less than 3 hours if I recall correctly. It's definitely a book I'll listen to more than once. I'm on chapter 16 so far and want to share what I've learned (not necessarily from the book):

1.) Stop sharing your thoughts and dreams with other people unless it's going to help them. Keep your goals to yourself as they only concern you. I believe you give a away a certain amount of power when you share your goals with other people. I've felt this. I decided I was going to run a marathon. I told everyone, "So I think I'm going to run a marathon in August." I then waited for their adoration, "Wow that's crazy, I don't understand how you do that." Later on I got lazy with my training and ended up with an overuse injury. I wasn't driven to run the actual race because I got enough praise from just telling people. I traded my credibility for a bout of immediate glory (at least that's what it felt like). I'm not going to tell my kids someday, "I started to train for a marathon once." Unless you think your thought or dream is going to be beneficial in telling it to someone else, keep it to yourself. Otherwise telling others is just another way to stroke your ego.

2.) I don't think this one was in the book, but it's something I have to come to terms with. Not everything is your fault. Ever notice that when someone is upset, you automatically assume you did something wrong? Ever find yourself asking, "Hey, is everything OK between us? Did I do anything to upset you?" All you want to hear is "No." We don't really care if they are OK, we just want to make sure we're OK. That doesn't really help the person. We should be more concerned with whether they are all right. What I'm slowly learning to do is observe myself when I'm in a bad mood. Just because I don't want to talk to anyone or I might snap at them doesn't mean I'm upset with them. I need to use the same logic when they're in my shoes. The lens you view yourself through is the same lens you view the world through. For example, I am a perfectionist in many ways. I expect this same level of perfection in everyone else that I am to consider a friend. That's pretty messed up. A couple doses of kill my ego could help with that. It's not all about you.

3.) Face your fears. You hear it all the time, yet how often do you take the scarier/rougher path? What you fear most in life is where there's the most opportunity to grow. You get out what you put in. You fight the bigger scarier monsters you get more XP. Remember those thoughts that surface every once in a late night? The little fantasies you have about traveling around the world, pursuing a different career, or even dating a different person because you're unhappy with your relationship. What would you gain if you risked it all to make those fantasies a reality? Unless you're actively fighting resistance then you are on the path of least resistance.

4.) Don't take yourself too seriously. Look dude or dudette, sometimes you need to chill out and stop taking yourself so seriously. You aren't God's gift to man, you aren't special and you surely aren't better than anyone else. We are in this world together and when you think you're special, you separate yourself from the rest of us. Professionals don't take themselves seriously. They take their profession seriously, but not themselves. Take Jennifer Lawrence for instance. She clearly doesn't take herself seriously, but she's a pro at what she does. I could name a slew of celebrities who take themselves too seriously and that's usually why their career fades into nothing. Although to their defense I couldn't imagine not taking yourself too seriously when you have the whole world watching you. I love the saying, "I take myself seriously so others don't have to." or "Take yourself too seriously and you become a joke."

5.) "It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." By far my favorite quote. There's lots of variations, "When life gives you lemons..." or "Play it as it lies". OK, that's not really a quote, but you get the point. That's one of the examples he uses in the book. Life isn't fair. No one said it would be (although I suppose some could argue that life is fair). Steven Pressfield Makes a comparison between fundamentalists and artists. He mentions how fundamentalists are concerned with the past and what is. Artists are concerned with what could be. It's the what could be that's scary. But that's where you grow the most. Not rehashing the past, but experiencing. I just found this quote by Robert Kennedy, "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" Maybe we should stop asking why.

Here's a quote I don't fully stand behind, but am thinking about it.

"You're never wrong until you know you're right."

It's a very subjective and conditional statement.

Maybe I'll write again.

Connected

Surrounded by all but the familiar,
All the souls interconnected from within chambers unknown,
All so distant, yet all so close, still unaware
Spirits bouncing to and fro, meshing and pulling away,
A million words, a thousand phrases cannot portray the ties within,
Time exists, differently to all,
The flora, the fauna, intertwined only to those who see,
All in existence, not bound by this physical world,
All in existence bound, only by the urge to sleep,
Answers to all, lay not in our dreams, but only in what we refuse to perceive,
Hatred, war, fear, wealth, lies, ego,
All distractions from what resonates beneath,
All distractions to remove ourselves,
A single moment is all it takes, a breeze to remove the haze,
To understand, to be free, to be.

Time is Valuable. How are You Spending Yours?

Time is something that a lot of us are terrible at managing. Unfortunately, time is one of the most valuable commodities in life. Why is it so valuable? It's valuable because once we spend it we can't get it back. We can't collect time and we can't trade time. We constantly spend it and as we get older we spend it faster and faster.

If you're like me and have no idea what you want to spend your time on, it doesn't mean you can't use it wisely. I forget sometimes that I get to choose what I do. Even if it's a favor or a chore, it's something I've chosen to do.

Whatever we're doing is what we're spending our time on. So here's the problem I run into all the time: I often find myself complaining about what I'm doing. I'm guessing you've been in the middle of something when you've said to yourself, "I'd rather be doing anything else right now. Even cleaning my house."

There's a Chinese proverb that goes something like this:

"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

If you don't like what you're doing then do something about it. What I'm learning is that instead of finding something else to do, we can change our outlook and approach on what we're doing.

Wouldn't it make sense to use our time to it's fullest potential? Why not go all in on everything we do? If you've chosen to do it, why not put your best effort into it?

For instance when you're at work and you dislike what you're doing - why not find a way to enjoy it? Time is too valuable to waste on complaining and self pity.

Don't be lazy. Don't watch TV just to pass time. Go do something and do it with intention. Smile when you do it. Think when you do it. Don't waste your time by just getting by. Don't give the bare minimum just to pass. Dedicate yourself. Push yourself. Grow yourself.

We grow from stretching ourselves. If we stretch ourselves in everything we do, won't we grow in every aspect of life? Whether you're at work, at home, at the gym or out in public. Put your best effort into everything you do. You might as well get something from your time if you HAVE to spend it.

Take professional athletes or musicians for example. They give their ALL in everything they do and it shows. They don't just get through their workouts or practices. They don't just throw a few words and notes together. They devote themselves, go all in and never look back.

I saw this video the other day. Pretty much sums it all up.


Put your all into everything you do.

Week Three

Alright, I'm like (almost) every other person that starts a blog: I bit off more than I can chew. I'm only updating now because I'm waiting for this computer to finish the set up process. It is week three and I am right on target (so far). I've only had 5 mile long runs so this week I believe I'm shooting for 7 miles. As far as the rest of the program, I've roughly stuck to it.

I have been replacing most of my running with biking. I'm hoping that will supplement my conditioning. I went to get my running form looked at the other day. I need to work on leaning farther forward and relaxing my shoulders. I'm not sure why my Garmin Connect feed over there isn't updating... I'll look in to that.

I can run 9:15 minute miles for 5 miles while keeping my heart beating at a reasonable rate. That's more than I could say 6 weeks back. I was struggling to keep my pace under 13 minute miles. I suppose muscle conditioning has a lot to do with that.

I've been struggling to keep my weight lifting up (big surprise). Everyone told me that would be difficult and they weren't lying. You have to eat a ton of food. I had to start eating bread and carbs again because I can't afford that much protein and fat. I want my deadlift at 315lbs and my dumbbell press at 100lbs, but that's going to be a stretch.

Speaking of stretching. I can't stress how important it is to stretch. I use a foam roller and then stretch a bit after. If I don't I get pain in my knees, calves and heels. I think I have to face the fact that my body was not born to run even though after reading the book (Born to Run) I was convinced that everyone was born to run.

I'm going to the gym tonight to do my usual deadlift, squat, leg curls, leg extensions and abs. I don't recommend squatting and deadlifting on the same day unless you are doing some sort of training that makes use of your legs (like running or biking) during the week.

Training takes (unseen) dedication...

HR Training Is Working (so far...)

So far, training by heart rate is working out for me. I've lowered my heart rate while maintaining a faster pace. My official training starts next week. I'm excited.