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Becoming Athletic After 30

I've never been an athlete, I've actually despised it most of my life. Most of the people that seem to enjoy it, do so because they were already good at it. It seemed like it took luck, it seemed like required natural born talent, it seemed like a lot of things that were out of my reach. At this point, I could laundry list reasons why I've never felt I could do anything out of my element.

I’m sitting here writing this before my first 5k ever. I realized, I don’t want to say that my best years are behind me. I never want to say that I didn't, not because I can’t, but because I haven’t tried. It’s such an easy buy in to that line of thinking, just simply do nothing. Wait. Look, but don’t touch.

Eventually, I realized the reason why I've always had an aversion to athletics is the reward system. If you have talent, you want to use that to help out a friend, the reward comes when you deliver the final product. If you’re an artist, you draw a sketch, paint a house, once you can sit back and see your achievement, and other people can see it too and say, “Wow, that’s fantastic!” That’s when you feel good about your hard work. In your job, the reward is in the paycheck that comes every two weeks. If you cook and people enjoy that meal they shared with you, and want to come back, that’s what drives you. 

With running, there is no such initial reward. There’s no immediate result. There’s this long term playing of a game, and the long term game is getting to know your friend pain.

Now, I’m not taking like paper cut sting, or bending your arm the wrong way awkward injury pain. I mean this slow dull aching. Pain says to your brain, “You can stop anytime you want to, and end this misery.” The longer you can delay listening to that is how you make progress. The reward for delaying pain the day before, is less pain to get to that same point, but once again more pain to get beyond that. 

I know, it pains me to hear that too. 

I don’t really know of any other activity that works in this backwards ass way. Also there is no real drive from any external source other than yourself, the creator of said pain. Even when you reach a goal, you have to still endure pain to stay there.

I actually ended up finishing this after my 5k. To be honest I didn't meet my goal. I've been training, which means just sticking to a regular run schedule (a.k.a regularly scheduled pain) to run the 5k in under 30 minutes (sub-30). 

Not hitting your goal is also a devastating blow you psyche as well. Emotional pain. Mental anguish. The keys to any great lawsuit. 

So why do I do this again? 

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The Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance

For a moment, I forgot that Birdman was now an Oscar and umpteenth award winning movie. I finished watching it the other nite. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before then, I should have seen it in the theaters. 

There are countless other articles and writings that review the movie, that’s not what this is. This is more of a personal reflection and essay on the movie. As a cinematic masterpiece, it’s every bit self-aware and over-the-top while maintaining a complexity of multi-layered execution as they say it is. I've been a big fan of all of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s movies, and I was completely overtaken and emotionally hijacked by his last one, Biutiful. So I had a bias going in.

To be clear, yes, the acting is the latest best work by Ed Norton and Michael Keaton, and yes, it parallels Keaton, Batman and the current state of the entertainment industry on subatomic meta levels so much that it creates a singularity. The writing allows each of the minor characters to have a moment to shine, the music through the movie is pensive barebones drums that compliments the mood flawlessly, and the “one-cut” cinematography and editing services the experience, rather than just looking cool. The guy that did the cameras for this movie also did Children of Men, and that movie is worth watching just for the visual experience alone.

What I really took away, and still take is how the story feels. Not just the writing, as the story in a movie to me, encapsulates a lot more than just the script. Keaton plays Riggan Thompson, an actor who played in a superhero franchise twenty years earlier, and is now trying to salvage relevancy by writing, directing and acting in a Broadway he adapted from a short story. From the opening of the movie, he is under duress because the play is due to open in a couple days, and knows its falling flat. The rest of the movie is him grasping at straws trying to make this dream come alive. It’s a creative work that he’s put everything he has into it.

There is this internal trifecta that Keaton’s character is struggling with the whole time: How do I recapture how I felt in the past, how do I distance myself from who I was in the past, and how do I become something more? Most of it is summed up as “washed up actor, trying to reclaim fame,” but I feel the past in our lives and in the movie is much more of a compound adversary then simply reliving the golden years.  

For me, I've always had this oscillating connection with my past. There are days where I felt that the version of me 10 years ago was the very best version of me, and I have struggled to feel as I did then. I lived in California, I had my own place and roommates, I had a large group of friends that all played in local music bands, I went to shows all the time, I created the art for the albums and designed the t-shirts and merch. I did graphic and web design for a small business by day. I had a group of online digital artist’s friends and message boards I was involved in. I stayed out late, and drank bottomless coffee in an all-night diner down the street four or five nites out of the week. I had a community, and I had a place in it. Meaning and purpose, projects and plans. I was writing all the time, discovering new music and inspiring people, becoming inspired by other people. I didn't just want to create things, I had to; it was a necessity, and I was. I was writing more than I ever did, making more art, creatively and professionally.

I think that’s a bit of a simplification of a very trying time. If sift through the glorified version of it-- but, It was also a very troubled time. I was very unhappy. Even thought I had all those things, I didn't take care of myself. It’s not like it is now, now I have responsibility. I can’t go crazy today, I just don’t have the time anymore for that. But back then, I was surrounded by people, people who cared and I still felt alone. I was reckless and I rejected a lot of the love I had. I hurt people by not taking care of myself. I was immature and very vocal about that pain, because then again, what is suffering without an audience? I was dead set on testing and driving people away in California. Until one day, I did.

The day that I realized that I succeeded in being miserable and instead of just feeling alone, I left. I packed up everything I had in a 92’ Honda station wagon which I was driving at the time, and I just started driving. I didn't tell anyone, just packed up and went. I left because I was mad at myself for the self-sabotaging attitude I had, and what it cost me. I left because I was tired of people leaving me, I left because I kept creating tests of friendship and love that no one would pass. I left because I wanted to reinvent myself, but I never fully achieved that. I left, but I never stopped looking back.

In the movie, Keaton struggles with the glorified version of his past in the form of a voice in his head. Its a Birdman McGruff-voice hype man, as they pan to the poster, and in later scenes, personified as the costumed hero hovering or following behind him. After the play has started gotten a bit of notoriety, but still thinly veiled from all coming unraveled, the voice is trying to remind him of that splendor youth, how he could have ridden that fame to soar to bigger heights, had he only, if he only…. and then he vocally admits to himself that even with all of that being true, he was miserable. That’s the tipping point into Act 3 of the movie.

Once what I had was gone, that was all I wanted, but it’s only now that I realize that what I wanted back wasn't that great to begin with.

A few handful of people I still keep in touch with, not as much as I’d like. The one’s that matter I can still get together with from time to time, and catch up in a very positive way. It’s enjoying the company of my old friends, rather than feeling guilty about the past. “Hey, now that I’m not a completely lunatic and I have my shit together, let me make up for the lost time by being the friend I never was.” With the good friends, it will never be like that. It only feels like it may have to be, but in the end, it doesn't work that way. 

It’s only after Keaton’s character Riggan has realized what the past really is, that he’s able to let it go, he’s able to actually embrace the present, and what it is, what it means. In fact, all of the characters in the movie from the get go are very self-aware of their flaws, they just don’t know what to do with it. That’s exactly how I've felt about my own previous days for a long time  

The next step is realizing it’s not enough to just let go of the past, or recreate a feeling of accomplishment that you once had. It’s not enough to just be different from who you once were. You have to become more. More than the sum of your parts. More than the sum of what has been done to you, or what you have done.

I know I know, NO SPOILERS! So I won’t go into the details of how the movie unfolds, as it has its own message on the characters advancing from a cynical but observant attitude they start with at the beginning of the movie. Looking, but not touching, as what good is awareness if you do nothing with it? 

Birdman has a “secondary title” called The Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance. By being unaware, look at what you've actually accomplished. Look at what the people who have limited themselves by sticking to the same channels, the same paths. There are countless and countless examples of people “staying in their lanes,” so to speak. By staying only with what they know, and never challenging life to become anything other than what they are already good at, or have been good at. 

 In my own life, is that somehow I find myself at this tipping point. I have gotten to where I am at trying my best to not to re-create the past, while at the same time coveting it in a polished over manner. Lamenting a time and a place that existed, but not in the way it happened, the way I imagined it to be.  It has to be more than just coming to terms with the past, more than just getting past it. It’s embracing it and marching on anyways. The good and the bad, the shame, and the praise. Not just the guilt I've had, but the renewed dreams I've yet to have.

[buggzero]

It’s been a week since my Sister’s birthday, it’s been 6 months since she died. I thought I would start being able to feel like I've made peace with it, but I haven’t. It still pisses me off, it still frustrates me to no end. The worst part is who this frustration has turned me into. Someone I despise, if not downright loathe.

My relationship with my sister was rocky at best. It wasn't always that way, but it was at the end. Hell, I even wrote about it while it was happening. If I knew she was going to be gone months later, I tell myself I would have done so much differently, but even now, I don’t know what that is. I suppose anything to change the outcome. 

The thing I have a hard time accepting was just how much was left unanswered and unresolved. Mostly to my parents, but a lot on my own part. I try to tell myself that I did my best, but deep down I feel like she died miserable, unhappy, feeling unloved, trying to convince herself that everyone was against her. That is what tears me up. There’s nothing I can do to change that or take it back, and even just typing it out gives me chills that run down the bottom of my spine. I kept telling her that things would get better with time, I said that over and over. I was wrong, time is the one thing she didn't have. It’s the one thing we can’t rely on other than its passing, with or without us.

And a little guilt goes a long way. I feel like I have no way of getting rid of these feeling, expelling it through some outlet. Hell, I don’t even know if writing this out is the best way. It would feel so trite to hash-tag this. #depressed #movingon #death. It feel so stupid and trivial. Like not just putting things out there but advertising misery to solicit pity. That’s not what this is. This is me trying to turn something around. I couldn't put all this Facebook , that place is already an ocean of complaining, I didn't want to it to all be a one-sided story. I've been there before and that’s a quick way to lose people. I try to balance it with reality, and perception. I guess this is being a little bit more honest with myself.

I tried writing a novel, I failed. I used to make art, i suppose I gave up on that. I don’t have time to play games, I don’t watch many movies, I don’t get excited over tv show story archs, I don’t get wrapped up in following musicians, I don’t get lost in books. I have no way expressing any of this in healthy ways.

Except running, but I’m not even that good at it. I try, but the reprieve is brief. It also seems to irritate the schedule trying to find ways to fit it in. Most people that are into running do like half marathons and shit. I’m struggling for just a couple miles. I've dived myself into trying to live more healthy, thinking that I could feel better if I exerted a bit more control over my life, but that’s not exactly paying back in spades. 

So now I've become this miserable, frustrated, angry person. Turned into a terrible parent with no patience. A short tempered boyfriend. An unmotivated friend who doesn't follow up with anyone. Little dreams, no aspirations, and no where to go. So i write it out, since I can’t talk it though. That’s somewhere to start.

[buggzero]

This reminds me of my favorite game. It's where you read headlines and you try to guess if it's from Fox News or The Onion. 

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This news is so shocking that it may even make us question our own existence.

WHAT? This world no makes sense. 

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It IS a full time job

Me: One of my co-workers said you look "studious" and she thought you were an engineer Jacen: Did I look okay or sloppy at your company's picnic? I don't remember what I wore and I am an engineer. Engineer of DAT BOOTY.

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fox2now.com/2014/08/15/store-owners-talk-about-surveillance-released/

The lawyer of the store made the statement last Friday.

IMPORTANT FERGUSON UPDATE - WATCH THIS VIDEO BEFORE YOUTUBE TAKES IT DOWN

CNN REPORTER Fredricka Whitfield interviews the Store Owner’s Lawyer (from the store that was “”“”“”“robbed”“”“”“”“”“”” by “”“”“”“”“”mike brown”“”“”“”“”“)

As the lawyer begins to explain what really happened, cnn “”“”“loses the feed”“”“”“

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This is what needed to be said.

According to a Pew Research survey, only 37% of white Americans think the events in #Ferguson raise important issues about race.

Okay, fellow white people. We need to talk.

Let me tell you a story: I was an angry punk teenager. Not violent, but I did a shitton of trespassing, and I got into a...

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What happened last night in Ferguson, Missouri was a disgrace for us all. It was also what happens when you let a kettle of unresolved racial issues boil over after years of neglect.

I’m not talking about the “rioting and looting”—that happened on all of one night and any sane response from...

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Most of the time this is my face when any of those posts on Facebook.

But every now and then you have to chime in with our leftist propaganda rhetoric. Just to keep things fresh you know?

sometimes i wonder if i should share less [on social media] about how i feel when it comes to issues. it doesn’t take much to look at my facebook or my twitter or my tumblr to determine where i stand on racism or illnesses or vaccinations or political buffoonery. but somehow keeping everything to…

[buggzero]

Birdman

[buggzero]

Brenda, we have another movie to watch this weekend :]

The Big Sleep | 1946 | dir. Howard Hawks

"What’s wrong with you?" "Nothing you can’t fix."

R.I.P. Lauren Bacall, 1924-2014.

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Haven't had enough Lee Pace after Watching Guardians of the Galaxy. Watch this rare flick. Its an eye orgasm. 

The Fall

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