Rob Mackay :: Notes from the edge

Our book this month is ’Before I Wake’. At the last meeting I mentioned that in our house we call it the…

MOOKCLUB (book club for men). One of the mookclubbers mentioned that ’Mook’ is slang for punk.

I looked this definition up at urbandictionary and it sums up the club nicely.
‘(noun) 1: A male adolescent or young adult exhibiting an unpleasant, self-centered attitude, formed during a sheltered upbringing. 2: One who revels in their own ignorance.

I don’t like that club; it’s full of mooks.’

Yes it is.

I have been struggling the last few weeks. Maybe it’s post-Gobi let down. I come from a goal oriented family and as such we are often focused on ‘the next thing’. When there isn’t a ‘next thing’ we are often floundering. My usual response to this is to write out a list of things I want to accomplish, get a plan of action in place and start hammering.

This morning, I tried a much more difficult method of balancing. I woke early and attempted to meditate. I’ve been reading a good book recently called, “It’s a Meaningful Life, It Just Takes Practice” by Bo Lozoff - http://www.humankindness.org/BoSita.html

Bo Lozoff and his wife started the Prison Ashram Project in the states. Most of the new age books are lost on me but this one is different in a few important ways. One, it’s action/practice focused. It pushes you to into action rather than just contemplation. Two, Bo Lozoff has worked in the worst conditions (North American Prisons) and has shown great success in teaching prisoners to understand themselves, their behaviour and their affect on society.

The core of this is learning to ‘quiet the mind’ through meditation. (I suppose that cognitive therapy or prozac would work as well…)

In any case, it’s hard. I tried for 22 minutes (goal was 25) and my mind was screaming by the end. I used his suggestion to just focus on my breath and used a simple word ‘one’ to repeat over and over. I am blown away by how much chatter is going on, things to do, work issues, life issues and so on. Lozoff proposes that you do it for 30 days and not get discouraged so I am commiting myself to that and will post how I am managing it.

I’ve been distracted to say the least these past few days.

Back from camping but deep in my head.

A full report is coming soon…

I don’t know about you but living in Victoria can be a challenge. The cost of housing and a limited job market make it tough for young families.

Probably if we were using our heads we would have thought to buy a house with a suite.

Anyway, last night we talked about moving overseas and what that would entail. We would move at least for 2 years, rent the house out and then come home as the Olympics start.

Action noted and required to get this moving…

I’ve made an appointment to get a referal - crazy how this all works - to see a Sports med doc about the clicking in my knee. It’s not stopping me from running but it seems to be starting from my hip and I am experiencing ropey quads. Yes, yoga is definately an option along with stretching, foam roller, etc. I’ve done it all and have had limited success.

Or as one doctor said to a competitor at the Gobi March complaining about his knee pain, “Stop running.”

I’ve learned many lessons from running ultras. Following are 5 simple life lessons…using the ultra as a metaphor, of course!;

1) In the end, the true struggle exists not between competitors, but within them.

2) An ultra race, like life, will send you through peaks and valleys. You need to learn how to ‘hold 0n’ when your legs are burning - the pain is temporary and your energy will return.

3) You won’t find happiness at the Finish line. Happiness you find during the race and forming relationships with others along the way.

4) To do well, you need to pay attention to all aspects of your preparation.

5) Sometimes even the best prepared and trained competitors falter. The least trained and prepared always falter.

I came to the conclusion this weekend that mediocrity is the source of much of my discontent. We loose any real edge living a middle class life partly because life is so comfortable and it’s just so easy to plug in to something electric and disconnect from the day-to-day reality (if not TV, then Youtube). With only 168 hours in a week, why are we not optimizing the time?

For that matter, why am I sitting here banging on the keys?

Ideas sometimes just flash across the ticker tape in my mind. Like yesterday it was, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could be learning about something on your commutes rather than just zoning out listening to music…” I remembered that MIT provides Open Courseware (free access to a limited selection of MIT classes) I checked for lecture podcasts, no luck. As a side note look at their site - looks like it was developed by Google.

Then I went to CBC radio (online) to see if I could find some past shows and found that they include archived shows from ‘Ideas’

Loaded up my mp3 and I am good to go for about 2 hours of great content.

We had the first post Gobi March presentation last night with many more people than we expected - thanks for coming out!
Man, I love doing presentations (I used to HATE doing them). Sometimes the hardest part is articulating the experience in a way that people can relate. How do you answer, “So, how was it?”

We had a great/interactive audience last night and the three of us were ‘on’ so it was so much fun. I had a little bit of post-presentation let down once the adrenaline subsided.

Best question of the night: “How would you describe the experience in one word?” This one caught me off guard and I came up with the lame ‘life-changing’ - how could it not be? After the presentation M grabbed me and said that she thought I would say ‘complicated’. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it at the time because ‘complicated’ is how I’ve described the experience since landing in Thailand.

Lately my bedtime reading has been unsatisfying. Not that I haven’t been reading just that my choices have been poor and when you have kids and don’t watch the telly, bedside reading is precious time not to squander. 

The last book I read was ’Planet of Slums‘ a well researched and highly technical rant on the evolution of cities. (You can guess what Mike Davis regards as the eventual outcome of all megacities by the title)

I am tired of the environmental doom and gloom (like ‘compassion fatigue’ only earth focused, not human focused) so as I was in the library yesterday, I decided to take a look at the other non-fiction ‘fast reads’. These are the books that you can borrow for only 7 days so you have to get it in gear and read! Going in a somewhat new direction, I got out ‘The God Delusion‘ written by Richard Dawkins. So far, I am finding it fascinating. It is rare that we question theology this way and with such candor.