Grappling With Postmodernism

Postmodernism is the driving theory behind a lot of this woke culture dividing our nation. Postmodernism posits that all reality is socially constructed. The theory says the only thing that we can know for sure is that there are systems of power that discriminate against people, and therefore, the moral action that should come from that is to create policy that levels out any inequality in society. The committed postmodernist will insist we can’t truly know anything because the mechanism for knowing something is often derived from a theoretical system of hierarchies that pollute reality. Even hard sciences like physics are thrown under the postmodern bus, as preeminent physicists work within a systemically problematic (i.e., racist, sexist, pick-your-phobic) framework. This prevents true knowledge from being known.

From where I’m standing, postmodern thinking is taken seriously only by people bound to the ivory towers of academia. Hierarchies exist in nature, and are obvious and observable to anybody familiar with Enlightenment thinking, e.g., the scientific method. It doesn’t take memorizing the scientific method to realize that reality is legitimate. You just need to get outside and move around. Jiujitsu may well be the tonic for woke It doesn’t take memorizing memorizing the scientific method to realize that reality is legitimate. You just need to get outside and move around.

I am writing this post as I sit in the drive-through of Beto’s ready to devour a bacon and egg burrito. I’m hungry because I just got my ass kicked for the last 90 minutes by my friends. That is the reality of what happened about one hour ago. Jiujitsu has an effective means for getting at the truth. Jiujitsu isn’t necessarily special as far as reality testing goes, as surfing, playing guitar, and gardening all have genuine realities to them as well. By the way, if it seems you’ve heard me talk about this before, it’s because you probably read my most recent post, “Seeking Truth on the Mat.”

Jiujitsu provides me with a sense of clarity, as my success or failure hinges on my performance and the performance of my opponent. I cannot blame anybody or any structural societal system for this. Hierarchy exists in this context, and there’s a purity to that. I paraphrased and borrowed the following excerpt from a book I’m listening to called, “A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century,” by Heather Heying and Brett Weinstein. I may have changed a couple words around to fit this post, but the inspiration for this post came from that book (along with getting smoked by my friends).

You can fool a person, and that person can fool you, but you cannot fool a double leg takedown or a well- executed choke. Seek out physical reality, not just social experience. Pursue feedback from the vast universe that exists beyond other human beings. Watch your reactions when the feedback comes in. The more time you spend pitting your intellect and physicality against the physical world; a world that can’t be manipulated or coerced by other people, the less likely you are to blame others for your own errors.

Do you find yourself wondering how so many people in our world seem to have lost the plot? Our political leaders, entertainers, celebrities, journalists, and university professors may well benefit from stepping on the mat. Russell Brand did just that. I’ll leave you with a suggestion. Listen to this ten minute excerpt and he’ll tell you the same thing, but with a cooler accent.

Seeking Truth on the Mat

Truth is a value most everybody will tell you they endorse. Truth is important, as it is likely the one constant found in any scientific discovery and advancement. The truth can help guide career choice, relationship dynamics, and pretty well any other life decision. Truth got us to the moon. Truth also provides the backbone for the programming in the very device you’re using to read this post. Most people will agree with this, and yet, I can’t think of a time in my life in which we’ve been more divided on what is true. What is true now largely seems guided by the mouthpieces on the television and the internet, and wholly dependent on the underlying political belief system of the person delivering the “truth.” People have confidence in the beliefs they use to structure their life. Truth cannot be solely guided by belief. Our beliefs are influenced by a variety of factors, and many of those factors are subjective and not based on evidence. For example, “faith” is a driving force behind many people’s belief system. While faith provides a value to the people that have it, it must be acknowledged that faith is belief without evidence. Evidence is a key ingredient to discovering what is true.

Jiujitsu is so damn satisfying because you can test, in real time, the truth behind a given technique. When rolling with somebody, many variables that complicate our day to day life are irrelevant. Political beliefs, faith based beliefs, and hypothetical beliefs are irrelevant on the mat. This means neither you nor your opponent can rely on anything other than the truth behind the techniques you possess, and your implementation of those techniques. You cannot hide behind obfuscation of facts, moral grandstanding, or anything that sniffs of “belief without evidence.” The evidence of what happens to be true shows up in the results. Either you did, or you didn’t. Either you win or you lose. This is different from other sports, as luck plays a role in many other sports. I might be able to make a half court shot (if I’m lucky) or land a wild haymaker against a pro boxer (again, if I’m lucky). There is no such thing as a lucky rear naked choke. There is something very reassuring about the truth existing in full view, and being able to access that truth through simply stepping on the mat with my friends and competitors.

Prepared for 2021

At this point, it’s cliché to point out how bad 2020 sucked. The silver lining of 2020 is it helped me realize how unprepared I am for when shit hits the fan. I’m lucky enough, personally, to have come out of it fairly unscathed, but the lives of many of those around me took quite a hit. For one thing, I didn’t get sick. I didn’t get mugged. My house wasn’t robbed. My business stayed afloat and didn’t get vandalized by rioters. My wife still thinks I’m groovy, and my immediate family is alive and well. I got lucky.

My wife and I caught a few episodes of Doomsday Preppers during one of the stretches of quarantine early into the pandemic. Some of those people are seriously nuts, but with that said, they’re on to something. If Covid happened to have a mortality rate of 60%, it’s those “crazy preppers” that would survive. One of my friends is a bit of a prepper when it comes to home security. If the rioters hit Ogden as hard as they hit Portland, it’d have been the door to his house my wife and I would have knocked on.

I want to be better prepared for 2021. I want to get the jump on whatever crisis may be coming down the pipe. I must first acknowledge my wife here for a minute. She had a bead on Covid within the first week of January, and well before Covid hit the USA, she’d stocked up on food, N95 masks and yes, toilet paper. For 2021, I want to take it a step further. Without getting in to specifics, by the end of 2021 I want to have made substantial improvement in several domains of preparedness. I have already made strides in this effort, but ultimately this will be ongoing. Here are the domains I’m looking into:

• Home security (lighting, alarms, door reinforcement, video)
• Personal security (Every Day Carry “EDC” improvements, CCW 24/7, bug-out bag)
• Food storage (food and water; high calorie and long shelf life)
• CPR/First Aid (learn emergency trauma first aid, stop the bleed/tourniquet use)
• Vehicle Set up (keep essentials to live out of vehicle, regular maintenance/upkeep, personal security options)
• Networking (connect with like-minded people to learn from them, options for when “it” hits the fan)
• Personal preparedness improvement (improve mind and body, become an all around ninja, train adaptability)

So, I want to learn a little about everything. I don’t plan on doing a cannon-ball off the deep end into being a Doomsday Prepper type of guy, but I really don’t want to find myself in an emergency situation and think to myself, “If only I’d learned how to (___________) or remembered to keep my (____________) on me, I wouldn’t be in this situation” moments before my life or the life of somebody I love is changed forever.

I want to be ready. You with me?

Some Say Black, Some Say White

Remember when the world got into an argument on the Internet a few years back, but it was much more innocent than today’s arguments?

What color is this dress? What do your eyes see? Is it black with blue, or is it white with gold? Some say black, some say white.

What do you hear? 👈click that link, Dearest Boomer reader of mine! 😉

What name did your ears hear in that clip? Yanny? Or Laurel?

There are actual answers to these questions based on science. The answers, in reality, are not subjective or based on perception. You can find the actual answers here and here.

So, how accurate were you based on your original perception? I was correct about the dress but wrong about the name. Although, I am able to hear the correct name if I concentrate. I really have to try to hear the other side. The other point of view. The CORRECT point of view, that is. You know; reality.

Are you able to see and hear both sides? When you are confronted with information that does not align with your view, do you try to see the other side or do you remain steadfast in your conviction? What if the science agrees with you? What if it disagrees?

The truth is important to me,but I still love those of you that remain steadfast in the illusion of perception. I just hope you embrace reality before our nation burns.

Is It Time to Defund the Police?

Is it time to defund the police?  This article asserts the ‘defund the police’ movement suggests law enforcement is expected to do too much, and that the movement would encourage, “delegating many of those responsibilities to unarmed social workers and other behavioral health specialists.”

I can see some value in this.  I’ve always favored the idea of proactively addressing crime before it happens.  Does this mean I’ll be called in to action late at night and asked to knock on somebody’s door engaged in an alcohol and anger-fueled domestic disturbance?

In case you didn’t know, I am a forensic social worker.  That means I provide mental health treatment to folks after they commit a crime.  I know I am really good at deescalating heated situations.  I’ve succeeded in doing that effectively my entire career, and I’m getting better.  I am confident in my ability to talk people down off the ledge, but not confident enough to knock on that door without my CCW holstered on my jiujitsu black belt.   Cops have a hard job, and I don’t want it.

Police do not get enough training in hand-to-hand combat or deescalation techniques.  If police were paid to train, or required to train as a part of their salaried position, they’d be more confident in their ability to restrain a suspect without resorting to their weapon.  When they do restrain a suspect, the fully trained officer will know exactly how much pressure to apply, when and how to apply a choke, the best means for manipulating a suspect’s limbs to ease the process of handcuffing, and how to maintain position on a bigger, stronger, violent suspect.  A fully trained police officer will be much more confident, and confident people make good decisions when shit hits the fan.  This is what we want.

If you don’t take my word for it, consider what former 2020 Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang had to say.  From the article: When asked if it should be mandatory for all police officers to be BJJ purple belts, Yang said that it “definitely” should be and that “it would make us all safer,” adding that it could help the cops be healthier as well.

Future President Yang

Yang Trains Jiujitsu

Navy SEAL Jocko Willink

Jocko Trains Jiujitsu

Retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink referenced Yang’s recommendation on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and also reports how little police train compared to SEALs.  Jocko mentioned SEALs train eighteen months in order to go on a six month deployment, and he compared that to the four hours of combatives training cops receive on average, per year. Jocko went on to state that, “Cops should train 1/5th of the time.”  Meaning, in a forty hour work week, police should be training for eight of those hours. Go to 10:38 in the video for Jocko’s recommendation.

The “Defund the Police” platform is untenable, and I think most rational people realize this. If you subsidize something, you get more of it. Police need to be funded so that they get the training they need, and then mandated to train as a regular component to their work week.   There’s a lot more to say on this issue, but if regularly training jiujitsu is recommended by two of the most impressive American citizens alive today; Jocko and Andrew Yang, then maybe we all need to spend more time on the mat.

Welcome Threat

“It feels good to be threatened.”

That off-the-cuff comment was made by my buddy; retired professional fighter Dave Castillo once the stop watch timer went off at our gym; Competitive Edge.  Our grappling training round had just ended, and Dave narrowly avoided his training partner’s aggressive submission hold.  I nodded my agreement while wiping my hand across my face in an attempt to determine if the blood on the mat was mine (it was) and if it was coming from my face (it was).  I, too, had just survived a fairly intense match with my long-time training partner, Arlo.

Dave was referencing the emotional payoff most fighters experience after a competitive sparring session.  Actively confronting the threat of losing in a very real way is a bit of a rush; especially when you make it through the threat and wind up on top.  I’d just made it through a friendly, albeit competitive roll unscathed.  Well, save for the bloody lip Arlo gifted me.  It felt great!  I recognize while typing this it might come across like I’m posturing as some type of “tough guy.”

Rest assured; I am not a tough guy and I don’t “have it rough” by any stretch. I sleep on Minky Couture blankets, sip the occasional mocha latte, and I make a good living sitting on my butt in an air conditioned office.  I come home every night to a loving wife, my parents never abused me, and I sat down to pee this morning.  I’m no Gladiator.

With that said, Dave’s remark about a physical threat feeling good landed with me. I thought about it all day.  I have spent well over a decade sparring with my friends at least a couple times every week.  Fighting and getting roughed up is normal and enjoyable; at least when I’m the one roughing folks up. Then, along comes Covid 19 and that outlet gets cut off for two months due to social distancing.  The absence of a physical threat in my life had made my heart grow fond.  I’d missed it!  The value that comes from challenging yourself, within reason, is optimal for well-being. Tyler Durden was on to something.

Do you, dear reader, think this might be true for  you?

Grappling with Corona Chaos

I have never experienced anything like the effect Covid 19 has had on all of us. There are times in my life that have been scary, and day-to-day living has been altered, but not like this. Most of us don’t have a frame of reference for Covid 19. I was young, but I remember the fear of nuclear attack towards the end of the Cold War. Y2K generated a lot of anticipatory fear, but the smart folks of the world remedied that. 9/11 ramped up fear, uncertainty, and certainly generated world-wide changes that continue today. I’m not proclaiming Covid 19 as worse or better than the other events I mentioned, but it does set a new social-behavioral precedence for every living person on Earth.

People that know I am a mental health therapist often ask my take on various things that we are confronted with in society. I have been asked my opinion on mass shooters, terrorists, sexual abuse, substance abuse and addiction in general; a little bit of everything. There are actual experts way more qualified than I am in those fields, but several people in my life still seem interested in my take on the darker side of contemporary life. Nobody has asked me my opinion about Covid 19 from a mental health perspective, yet. Once again, I’m not qualified to give an informative answer because I am right in the middle of it. I haven’t had the luxury of being well outside the perimeter of a given event; like a mass shooting. The perimeter or “blast zone” of Covid 19 is global. I couldn’t possibly render an objective, informed opinion on the toll this has taken on mental health worldwide, so I’ll just share my personal experience.

First and foremost, I’m lucky enough thus far that my loved ones have not been directly impacted by the disease caused by the Corona Virus. I assume my luck to be short lived, based on the forecast of the epidemiological prognosticators. As of March 26th of 2020, I have lived in a bubble that has been free from the virus. That gives the illusion of being outside the perimeter of the disaster; akin to being on the outside, looking in. Most of us were on the outside looking in to disasters such as the Twin Towers collapsing or the Columbine High School mass shooting. There are a lot of people in my personal life still fooled in to thinking they are outside the perimeter of this growing disaster. Lots of scoffing and eye-rolling at those of us taking heed of the advice of epidemiologists. I absolutely understand this skepticism, as I’m usually right at the tip of the skeptical spear when the media tells me to be afraid of something. I still grapple with competing thoughts that generate ambivalence, i.e. “I’m not falling for the media’s bullshit.” and then minutes later, “Brace yourselves!

… and then, back to, “Nah, it’s probably bullshit.”Unfortunately, the psychological buffer provided by “being on the outside looking in” to this particular disaster will be short-lived. We are all within the perimeter of this growing disaster; Covid 19. While I do recognize my own ambivalence about the seriousness of Covid 19, my wife and I are erring on the side of caution. We have both let fear and anxiety guide our behaviors; albeit in a fairly measured way. Letting fear guide behavior sounds bad, and a good chunk of my career is spent helping people work through irrational self-limiting fear.

With that said, tuning in to what’s driving the fear is not necessarily a bad thing. Fear is a survival response. Fear tells us to make changes; to be prepared. My wife was on top of this pandemic well before it ever came to the United States, so we saw it coming. Fear allowed for us to prepare. Fear led to hitting the grocery store well before everybody else. Yes, we got a reasonable amount of toilet paper. Despite the financial hit, fear encouraged me to temporarily shut down a lot of our company’s services so as to not contribute to the spread. Fear has led to me consuming massive amounts of data on Covid 19. Feeding my need for the most up-to-date knowledge temporarily abates that fear. Fear led to my second firearm purchase, and then fear of my inadequate knowledge of how to win a gun fight led to my mass consumption of information on laws, tactics, and home defense preparedness. While consuming all this information, I quickly realized those Doomsday Prepper-type folks are sitting pretty right now. My observation of the “Prepper’s” preparedness juxtaposed with my overall reliance on the luxury of living in a First World country generated more fear. Yet again, I’m trying to use that fear as motivation to access needed knowledge and make arrangements for the worst case scenario.

My .45

I have definitely experienced some of the downsides to fear as well. I was two hours in to a YouTube rabbit-hole consisting of survivalist and self-defense videos when I hit pause on the video I was watching, rubbed my screen-strained eyes, and had a good laugh at my own expense. I was rewatching a video made by some Green Beret bad ass called something like, “How to RELOAD on the RUN!” What is this, Mad Max? Not quite. Entertaining, to be sure; but productive? No.

Fear has also turned me in to a fat-boy. I wasn’t eating great the last few months as it is, but my diet is worse now more than ever. Food provides comfort. The more fat and sugar in the food, the more comfort that food seems to generate. Oreos are becoming a problem. I need to make better food choices.

Fear has also led to me resenting those people with a cavalier, dismissive attitude towards Covid 19. Resenting the “it’s all media hype” people in my life is not helpful if they pick up on my resentment. If I let my irritation color my interactions with the less-worried loved ones in my life, what are the chances they’ll come around and see it my way? Not very good. People push back and become defensive when others angrily accuse them of not behaving a particular way. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, therefore, force-feeding somebody the moral virtue of “social distancing” predictably leads to the rebound effect of toilet-seat licking Spring breakers “bravely” posting their exploits to Instagram. Fear is at the core of my impulse to give those folks a Purell-soaked slap across the face; but that isn’t effective.

So, what is effective? What can we do to mitigate fear, remain productive, and not lose the core of who we are? What can be done to retain normalcy and generate productivity as we upend our lives in this global call for social distancing? The answer is to reestablish your routine. How do we establish a routine when so much has changed? We are being called upon to stay home. This has wreaked havoc on all of our day-to-day routines. Our employment routine has changed. Work is different, now. Leisure is different. Family events are different. Everything familiar has been upended. When all that you know is topsy-turvy, fear becomes our default setting. The unpredictability and lack of answers tend to make fear the lens through which we process our daily reality. Fear becomes the scaffolding upon which we construct our plans for the future. Ultimately, chaos is what we fear.

Order is the antidote to chaos. Structured routines and behavioral patterns create the foundation of order. Find some way, small as it may be, to plug a routine in to your life. This routine needs to be something that helps you feel happy and productive. This sounds obvious, but is tough in our current Covid-climate. If you know me or have been a reader of Killer J for any amount of time, you probably know I like lifting weights and love submission grappling/jiu jitsu. Well, as you know, everything is shut down. Two of the things that bring passion and enjoyment to my life are now more difficult to accomplish. If not for my belief in the value of establishing a routine, it’d be easy for me to rationalize my inability to train jiujitsu with my friends as “non essential” and just wait until this blows over. I’d be miserable within a week.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to establish a routine in spite of these barriers. This routine has been made possible with a little bit of ingenuity on my end, and a whole lot of generosity coming my way from friends, family, and complete strangers. My good friend Arlo owns a gym (Competitive Edge Fitness), and he let me borrow mats and a Kettlebell. My parents contributed further by letting me scavenge some of their home gym, which provided me an Olympic bar, a flat bench, and roughly 200 lbs. in weight. Legendary jiujitsu coach, John Danaher, rounded things out for me. In response to this Covid 19 pandemic, he released a free, four volume video on solo jiujitsu drills for all of us rendered unable to train together. My wife and I now have the ability to keep with our routine of going to the gym, and even better, she’s actually started to get on the mat with me and learn jiujitsu!

Although we live in uncertain times, routine provides us solace, normalcy, and fun. Our future success depends on it.

Katchie pushing my vehicle while rocking flip flops! Savage.

Democrats: Tuck Your Chin!

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) ought to learn to tuck their chin if they plan on beating the Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2020.  The DNC needs to learn to effectively defend against the RNC; which is also an acronym for rear naked choke.  “Tuck your chin!”

Tuck your chin!

Jiujitsu’s true beauty lies in the reality that I cannot hide my weaknesses.  Not for long, at least.  Every time I step on the mat, my ability to perform is under the spotlight.  The culture of jiujitsu places significant emphasis on live competition. Whether it’s training or competition, I have found a competitive “roll” against somebody fully intent on beating me shines a spotlight on my strengths and weaknesses in decisive fashion.  I can’t help but recognize my glaring weaknesses every time I tap out.  There’s something very real about getting strangled, as I’m left with the options of tapping out or losing consciousness.  This is incredibly valuable because it allows me to quickly identify and fix any errors in my technique that allowed my opponent access to my neck. I’ve learned self deception, excuse making, and shifting blame for losing temporarily makes me feel okay about losing, but ultimately hinders me in the long run.  When I lose, it’s my fault. I’m doing something wrong and I need to fix it.  Simple concept.

Don’t get me wrong.  In no way are jiujitsu players somehow exempt from self-deception.  We have all made excuses to preserve our ego on the mat from time to time.  We manufacture reasons as to why we lost rather than taking accountability for having sub par technique.

“He was too aggressive.”
“He muscled that submission hold rather than using good technique.”
“The mat is too slippery.”
“That guy was physically fresher than me.”
“She was too sweaty to arm bar.”
“It’s too hot/cold/early/late for me to fight effectively.”
“I lifted weights before I came otherwise I’d do better.”
“I injured my _________ so that’s why I didn’t perform well.”
“I’m hungover today, so I’m not at my sharpest.”
“She only triangle choked me because she’s flexible.”

Everybody lies to themselves from time to time.  Training jiujitsu regularly, however, can really help with this. Many of the lessons learned on the mat have helped me transcend the lesson and apply it to my personal life.

This is why the democrats need to train jiujitsu. The current DNC front runners as well as most of the media make a habit out of slamming Donald Trump supporters as racist, sexist, Nazis, transphobes, and ultimately, deplorable people.  When Trump won in 2016, the explanation du jour was the USA is full of sexist racists.  If the democrats lose again, they will once again blame the bigotry of Trump supporters, and for that matter, the USA at-large.

A large percentage of moderates in this country are not on board with “woke” identity politics. The DNC would do well to realize a large portion of society does not necessarily agree with (or even like) Trump but absolutely do not endorse “woke” politics.  My vote is very much up for grabs.  A moderate, normal Democrat (RIP Tulsi and Yang) could, for the first time in my life, snag my vote.  The current DNC front runners, however, seem to be doing everything they can to deep-six a huge percentage of moderates like me in favor of catering to the small-yet-loud fringe.

Democrats, if you care to listen:

1. Quit focusing on Trump.  We get it.  He’s a dick.
2. Cease the incessant vitriol towards civilization’s boogeyman; the straight white male.
3. Being on the other side of the aisle from Trump doesn’t automatically grant you the moral high ground.  Listen and then Steel Man the arguments of your political opponents rather than construct a straw man of those arguments.
4. Reclaim the beautiful virtue of focusing “not on the color of skin but on the content of character” and unite our damaged country! Are there any remaining DNC candidates willing to do this?

United We Stand, Divided We Fall

In summary, if I blamed my opponent for having lanky arms that unfairly slipped under my chin every time he choked me, I’d never learn to tuck my damn chin!
Democrats: Focus on shoring up your own policies and understand woke identity politics will get you no closer than the front lawn of the White House.  There’s a lot of us out there waiting and willing to grant you the vote, but you haven’t earned it yet.  We’re listening.

Deep Time

 

Time is one of the most important resources we have. I value my time; a trait I share with most everybody I know. Anything regarded as a waste of time is often quickly dismissed, or met with disdain. Reebok taught us, “Life is short, play hard.”

As it turns out, I am a pretty efficient guy. I have most of my week planned out in advance in terms of appointments, meetings, and tasks.  All the things I have decided matter to me are structured and prioritized so that I have the time to get them done.  There’s a lot of stuff I’m trying to cram in to the 80’ish years I have on this planet.

All of that seems to count for nothing when I consider time from a geological perspective. 14 billion years. That is just about how long the universe has existed; at least from what the current best and brightest say. I was a dinosaur nerd when I was little, so I have had that number bouncing around my orange dome for most of my life.  The thing is, this staggering amount of years isn’t really comprehensible to us because we just don’t have the ability to truly contemplate how long 14 billion years is. I have been doing some reading the last couple years and have come across various explanations that truly paint the picture of deep time.

Try this exercise as you are reading this: fully extend one of your arms out to the side of your body. Your arm represents the timeline starting from the beginning of the universe until today. Let your chin demarcate the beginning of the universe, and the very tip of your finger tip as today. Dinosaurs didn’t even come into existence until about where your wrist is. Humans showed up about halfway up your fingernail. Here is where things get a little nutty. If you were to run a fingernail file one time over your fingernail , the filings from that one stroke of the file would capture the whole of recorded history, including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans,, etc, up through the present day. Just one stroke of the nail file captures humanity’s entire written historical record.

Here’s another one. If we mapped all of time on to a calendar, meaning that the Big Bang happened on January 1st at midnight, then dinosaurs didn’t come into existence until mid-December, modern humans showed up December 28th, and all of humanity’s recorded history happened about 90 seconds before the end of the year on December 31st.

It is cliche to say that life is short, but cliches exist for a reason. If I play my cards right, I might have another 40 to 50 years left. Life is truly over in less than a blink of an eye on the geological time scale. When I consider my life span stacked up against deep time, it is pretty easy to feel insignificant. Humans like to feel as though they matter and I am no different.

At the same time, there is a palpable release of pressure when I consider just how little the things I am currently stressing about actually matter in the grand scheme of things. Trying to comprehend deep time is dizzying when considering the sheer magnitude of it all. Can we learn to embrace this disorienting effect?

Crazier still is the realization that the universe will eventually come to an end. One day, the last star in the universe will expend its fuel, collapsing in on itself. The remaining light trapped at the final event horizon will serve as the universe’s last call. That light, too, will eventually extinguish, and with it, all that ever was.

We must accept this reality, however, the value is in the way we process it. At first glance, the magnitude of deep time juxtaposed with our blink of an eye lifespan is some pretty depressing shit. If the whole of written human history can be visualized in whatever filings come from the scrape of a nail file, then the biggest potential accomplishment I will ever achieve will likely never transcend the subatomic level.

Thinking about this has me even more convinced that time is the most important resource we have.  Reebok had it right. Life is short.  Play hard!

 

Shower Thoughts

Animals smell better than us. We just think we smell good because we shower. Can you imagine what people would smell like if they had the same access to a shower that a raccoon has? The thing is, you really can’t smell a raccoon until you are right up close to it, and then you get the musty forest animal smell. What would you smell like if you never rinsed off in the shower other than whatever the occasional rainstorm rinsed off? I know from working at the jail that once somebody starts to get into the one to two week range without a shower, I smell them from ten feet away, and it’s ghastly. If it only takes a human a couple weeks to become entirely rancid smelling to the rest of us humans, then how do we smell to our olfactory enhanced animal friends? Can you IMAGINE how our unshowered ancestors must have smelled to a fox or a bear?

Animals just don’t get quite that smelly. You can’t count a skunk because that is a defense mechanism for which they have control. Don’t say a pig because the only reason they are covered in shit is because we stick them in an enclosure with a bunch of other pigs unloading their bowels everywhere. In the wilderness, Hogs have room to roam and therefore not be covered in shit in its natural state.

That leaves, what, ferrets? They smell pretty bad. The thing is, I will cuddle a ferret, but I’m not cuddling the smelly guy that lives in a tent by my office. I might throw him a ten spot, but I’m keeping my distance.