Fall 25 Running Cycle Kickoff: New Roles

 

Jogging with Friends and Taking on Extra Responsibilities

Today was the first day of another group training cycle with Runner’s World Tulsa.

This is always the longest break between sessions. The spring session ends in April right before the Oklahoma City Memorial marathon. There aren’t any Saturday runs again until mid-July. It's best to put your own plan together for the off season or face hot temps with an out of shape body.

The Price of 'Leadership'

I was asked to be a run lead this year. We get a voucher for new shoes and if you’ve seen the price of running shoes lately, you wouldn’t refuse either. I’ve been a De Facto leader the last few years anyway. I memorize the route every week and show up through any type of weather. The one exception was near the end of the cycle, just last year. Tulsa had a brutal storm come through. I checked out on that one. I’ll run in the rain, but those conditions were nuts. I talked to someone from the group the next week about it. Very few people showed up and the ones that did--cut their distance to just a few miles.

The thinking from Runner’s World is this, we don’t cancel because races don’t cancel. You’ll have to run in difficult conditions so get used to it.

The second marathon in Fort Worth that I ran had a similar storm the night before. It was bad enough for them to push the start time back a few hours. That seemed like the best option. Marathons are fund raisers after all. Without tornadoes and lightning it’s not likely they’ll cancel. About the best you can hope for is a delay. We did eventually start and finish the race. The course was soaking wet and sloppy, but also clear. On sunny days it’s packed full of pedestrians walking the path and getting in the way. A clear, albeit messy, track was a silver lining to a race that a lot people didn’t show up for due to poor weather.

A summer rain on a Saturday morning isn’t the worst thing anyway.

The Price of Being Out of Shape

The summer heat is rough on new joggers especially. Starting early helps, but eventually it slows you down if you aren’t acclimated. I’ve spent the last few months staying in running shape. I’m not in the kind of condition needed to run a marathon yet. I’ll run more during the season and get my mileage above 20 for the week. But I kept at it all summer. Conditioning your legs to hold up in the heat and your lungs to breathe will pay off. I told someone today that I enjoyed the heat. It’s only partially true. I enjoy the results that come from training in the heat. There isn’t a good way to replicate that on a treadmill.

Whether jogging indoors or outside, I’m busier this year than ever before.

 I have a full schedule of clients for my personal training position. For the last couple of months I’ve been doing part time work through a gym. This is in addition to my regular 9-5 at the sporting goods store. I’ve had this idea about working sales and doing personal training on my own at some point. I mean working for myself of course. For now I just need to experience practicing with various groups and putting together work out plans for them. Gyms are good places to find a mix of people of all ages and stations. Some need rudimentary functional exercise and others need a high intensity challenge. Others are retirement age and hoping to increase muscle endurance. It allows me to do a little research and practice techniques and sharpen my methods.

Conclusion

For now at least I don't have time for anything else. In previous years I would've have passed on the chance to be a run lead. But it’s not a lot of responsibility and I’ve been halfway there, responsibility wise. Besides, it feels like I’m in a season of new responsibilities across the board. From the new accounts I’m managing to the new people I’m training. It’s all moving toward larger roles. I won’t make more of it than that. It’s just an interesting development that I’ve noticed. Some people collect responsibilities the way others collect seashells. Organization is practically their love language. Not me. I’ve never been one to take on projects or teams on a voluntary basis. That’s probably more a function of not wanting to be bothered, than about some lack of organization. Maybe that’s finally changing.

I am finding out that I prefer to be busy than have a lot of free time. Weird.

 

 

 

Love Day 25: God Works Through Community

 

We Grow in Community: Love Day 25

Today was “Love Day” for Church on the Movers in Tulsa. 

Love is a Verb

It’s an annual community serve day in July where we offer help to our neighbors. Opportunities exist all over the city to clean up, renovate and remake a lot of our common areas. Not everything is about hard, manual work though. Some require prayer and relational help. Most Love Day serving requires gloves and elbow grease. I signed up for the Food on the Move nonprofit that grows vegetables for the community. They have a lot of indoor and outdoor farmland. It benefits the residents who often, don’t have enough money for basic groceries.

At the start of the day, the director gave the volunteers a short history of the facility. Started by Taylor Hanson, the 90’s pop star from Tulsa, after a Q&A with a former ambassador to South Africa. The diplomat told Taylor to engage the community instead of going through the official channels. Locals needed food. I’m not familiar with how the Apartheid regime handled food, but it sounds like it was withheld because of politics.

Deep Roots

 Whether or not South Africa’s situation on food scarcity is relatable to America, I can’t say. But taking care of those in need is smart policy in any country. Communities thrive when they support each other. Like those vertical planting towers that are so ubiquitous at Food on the Move. Water and nutrients trickle down from the top and feed the seeds all the way down. It's an efficient system when space is limited. 

My task today was to power wash the planting towers. I got a close look at them. 

Eight-foot plastic tubes with holes in them, serve as a plant towers for vertical growing. I included a picture at the top. They're filled with dirt from top to bottom and the seeds are placed in the upward facing extensions. The roots develop inside the tower and the plant grows out the side. The towers get gunked with dirt after a planting cycle and need to be sprayed out. It sounds easy, but the tricky part was trying to pull out the remaining dry roots. They don’t want to leave.

 High pressure water gets most of it, but you need a ramrod to knock out the roots that made a comfortable home inside. It took us a few minutes to finds something like our ramrod, a shovel handle.

Rain Soaked Morning

I had two companions, a father and daughter. We worked outside on a concrete slab and cleaned one after the other, getting sloppy wet and dirty the whole time. At first we thought the volunteer day might not happen. Tulsans woke up to a heavy storm this morning. We've seen too many this year. For whatever reason it’s been a rainy year. The thunderstorm subsided shortly after 7:30 and everything went on as planned. I can’t say that every group went ahead though. 

While filling out the Love Day registration, I noticed a few landscaping options to sign up for. It wasn’t exactly a mowing kind of day. After the first 30 minutes of work, it started raining again. I’m not sure if we were more wet from the power washer or the rain. It didn’t matter in either case, we had a job to do.

Why We Serve

I think we could’ve stayed all day. The farm had more towers that needed to be cleaned. They had a whole trailer full of them. Since it only took 3 of us to share the power washing duties, the other volunteers pulled weeds and harvested some of the vegetables. I would’ve liked to see the operation a little closer. But our washing kept us away from seeing the rest of the place. I’m sure the regulars that worked the farm would’ve been happy to show me around. But after the cleaning and the rain, everyone headed for the parking lot. I didn’t want to be the only one hanging around.

Most of these Love Day’s are characterized by brutal heat. It’s July in Oklahoma after all. If there is a silver lining with rain, it’s that the temperatures stay low (70’s) and the sun hides behind the clouds. It might be humid but it’s manageable. As long as the lightning and monsoon rains don’t overwhelm, it’s possible to do a little outdoor work and not wilt like a daisy.

 These community volunteer efforts make everyone involved feel good about their service. I can’t speak for everyone, but I usually have a pang of guilt over doing this only once a year. It’s not like serve opportunities don’t exist. I think there is even a Saturday serve option available on the small group finder. Without even looking, I can promise it’s the least attended of any of the groups. Not because people are terrible and selfish and uncaring. But because it’s not glamorous. It’s labor intensive and messy. It’s a little too much like real work.

But it’s also appreciated in a way that food deliveries and car service and back to school shopping sprees aren’t.

Conclusion

Some people have a knack for building, repairing and cleaning. Remodeling a person’s home in particular, adds a kind of dignified thrill that isn’t possible any other way. Groceries are great too, but adding a bedroom, a deck or a bathroom is a gift that elevates the occupants. An old home with inefficient windows and paper thin walls can feel luxurious with a decent remodel. Your neighborhood is the same but the place you spend the most time is suddenly new. What could be better?

If it sounds like I’ve been there before, it’s because I have. Members of the church I attended as a kid did a full remodel on our family home. They asked electricians, roofers, plumbers, dry wall workers and general contractors to pitch in on a particular day. It took 2 full days but the result was impressive--a fully remodeled house from basement to attic. I was in the Army at the time, but I saw the full scale of it when I came for a visit. 

God works through communities. I’ll never forget that.   

“Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. 4Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.” Philippians 2:3-4

Bunker Busters and F Bombs: Iran isn't Going Away

 

Trump avoids War but Gets Sidetracked by Foreign Conflicts

The news is usually my source of writing inspiration, but I’m struggling to understand what’s going on in the Middle East right now. The only thing I have is my instincts and they’re telling me to pump the brakes on this ceasefire. Trump isn’t falling into the war trap that so many seem to be pushing him towards. He agreed to destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran with bunker busting bombs. That part was successful, we assume. But just before the ceasefire was supposed to begin, Iran broke the ceasefire.

Israel retaliated. It’s not clear to me if Israel retaliated for the missiles that hit a US airbase in Qatar, or if they retaliated for an attack on their own soil. Trump was pissed when reporters asked him about it. He said Israel and Iran don’t know what the ‘F’ they’re doing. After supposedly getting both countries to agree to a ceasefire, they unloaded their munitions. After Trump’s tweet the internet got silly. MAGA types started posting the tweet and bragging about DJT’s “Skillz”. I count myself among the MAGA faithful but this was seriously stupid. I wanted to scream “This is the Middle East; it’s never over!”. Frankly Trump was a bit too eager to claim victory himself. Using dopey language about no more hate and peace and harmony in the region. 

He wants to move past this quickly and I don't blame him.

Trump believes everyone can move past old hatreds. Just toss in a few incentives and get the business interests on board. Who wouldn’t want to make a deal and start developing condo’s in the Levant eh? For all of his straight talk and no nonsense attitude, he seems to genuinely think he can make lasting peace. But the US should be done with the Middle East if the military is asked to intervene. Israel should remain and ally. Saudi Arabia should be a business partner that we keep at a distance. There is a mess to deal with in Ukraine after the last administration, foolishly pushed that country into an unwinnable war.

Trump told the world that the Ukraine was would be over as shortly after his term started. That’s probably the biggest misstep of his presidency so far. It’s clear to me that he wants to be a domestic president and focus on spending, immigration and law enforcement. He gets very irritated with these foreign conflicts and sees them as a distraction from his domestic agenda. A president that wants to focus on his own country is a welcome relief, but these foreign conflicts keep pulling his attention away. Like Michael Corleone, every time he thinks he's out...they pull him right back in. 

But the good news from this so called '12 day war' is that he seems to have sidelined the neocons this time. He agreed to destroy the nuclear facility in Fordow but not do the regime change that the Israelis wanted.

Israel has every right to demand regime change in the region. But they must do it alone, and they clearly won’t. As time frame’s go, it’s probably right for it. Iran is weak, their proxies in Yemen are beaten and their army in Lebanon (Hezbollah) was destroyed by the IDF. But we’ve given so much blood in the Middle East that I think it’s time for someone else. The Israelis are natural allies, but Trump made the right call to avoid doing more that bombing the facilities. As a concession to not demanding regime change, it’s a better option. 

I hope this latest cease fire and subsequent bombing shakes Trump out of his naivete. At the very least, stop calling every minor statement from world leaders a win. Foreign leaders lie. There is a reason why president’s avoid doing “deals” in the Middle East. Those people are full of ancient hatreds and deep resentment going back thousands of years. I’m making a cultural statement, not a racial one.

I recognize that America is deeply involved and ignoring these conflicts isn’t possible. But the president should be above grandiose statements that fall apart in less than 24 hours. The worst part is that anyone older than 30 could tell you this would likely happen. But even MAGA voters get over their skis all the time on this stuff. They love their big Trump-as-badass memes. But they look silly in no time flat. I think it’s time for some humility all around.  

On Blogging and the World since 2020

 Complaining About the Deep State and the Nature of Blogging

I’ve lost my nerve a bit on writing. Not that I’m not doing it. I am, but my blog pieces are getting further and further apart. 

Putting something on my website happens like twice a month now. It’s a serious fall from the previous 10 years or so. The first couple of years I was still finding my footing. I don’t count 2014 or 2015. They’re both a blip on the radar of a blog that was still finding an identity. Did it ever find it? I’m sure a clever person could scan it and find similar points of interest or a singular ‘voice’ as the writers say. The topics changed quite a bit, or at least I thought. Politics, especially foreign policy, held my interest so much in the early days that I shared my thoughts. Like most bloggers most of my opinions were like anyone else’s, off the mark by a wider margin than I’d like to admit.

That’s hardly the point. It’s really the experience and accountability I was after.

Know It All

I don’t think you’ll find a persistent arrogant or obtuse tone throughout. I tried to clean up most of pieces though the editing process. Smugness is a crutch for young writers fresh off their media studies class. I won’t deny that I had a touch of that. I will deny that they overwhelmed my writing as to make it sickening for the reader to consume, like a fountain coke mixed with too much syrup. There are times when I went too hard I’m sure. But I always tried to sound reasonable. I hope I do in real life as well. Hopefully I was smart enough to recognize that not all writing holds up well over the years. One day’s ‘SOB’ is another day’s ‘Honest Abe’. How many times has public opinion shifted on Kayne West? In the last 5 years or so the world’s changed a lot and I’m thinking differently about everything.

Know Even Less

I said 5 years because it’s about when Covid hit and we were never the same. The world didn’t change really, it just got revealed to be something darker and uglier than I think I understood before. The stolen election of 2020 was the first pillar of American greatness to fall. Such an obvious theft should have been a wake up for all Americans. For many it was, but it’s hard to believe that when your guy won the election. I’m not sure I would’ve listened either if Trump had won on such shaky grounds. But to me it showed that the deep state runs the ‘important’ affairs of life. The president doesn’t (can’t) do much in the way of changing policy. Congress doesn’t either, by the way. An Executive Order (EO) does not a policy make. Someone needs to put it into practice.

 The Constitution was a brilliant piece of legislation and even worked for a time. We’re off it now, same as the gold standard. The language persists, we still use phrases like separation of powers and judicial review. But they’re applied haphazardly if at all.  

Know For Sure

We say deep state now because it sounds more sinister. It’s also a better phrase than bureaucracy because it suggests an entrenched, network of shadowy figures with malice and greed in their hearts. A bureaucracy is just an inefficient blob of well-meaning civil servants. It’s the guy at the DMV who didn’t approve your permit because you didn’t fill out form 1455 correctly. The deep state includes those people and adds NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) and private companies. A lot aren’t even government employees. They contract with certain federal authorities and pull down millions of dollars through various cut outs. The exposure of the USAID, via DODGE, and its nefarious dealings is one such example.

The deep state is an impossible network to quantify but it does have access to a lot of money. In that way they’re a bit like the KnightsTemplar in the Middle Ages. A group of professional soldiers started a small Christian army to protected the territory acquired by the Crusaders. They provided safe passage for traveling Knights who warred against Muslims in the Holy Land. They set up banking houses and issued legal tender all over Europe so Crusaders didn’t have to carry large sums of money. They became incredibly wealthy with their private army and land holdings. Eventually they emerged with their own order, customs and ceremonies. They were a government unto themselves. What started out as charity of the church, turned into a group of wealthy mercenaries who dictated terms to kings and rulers through their banks. Philip IV eventually had them arrested on charges of blasphemy and sodomy. He pillaged their holdings and dissolved the order.

Conclusion

It's not a perfect comparison but it works. Like the knights, the deep state has a vast network that expands to a vast number of interests. The only way to get at unraveling their influence is to hold individuals accountable for their crimes. Or at the very least, threaten someone who is obviously guilty and make them give up names the way the cops do in mob movies. The lack of any real punishment is why the deep corruption persists. I’m not suggesting they be held accountable for false crimes the way the Templars were. But their power should be reined in and their kingdom taken away.

The Knights Templar didn’t lose their power until Jerusalem fell in the 13^th century. Without a controlling army in the Holy Land, the Templars lost their reason for being. The deep state is full of little fiefdoms with a ready supply of funding and a legal system that covers their flank. I had hoped Dodge would be the beginning of the end of their reason for being. Sadly, it’s going to take more than that. But it will happen.

The lack of real understanding about political issues is why the blog has changed so much. It’s hard to write about things you don’t fully understand. I do feel like 'first principles' will focus less on day to day politicking going forward.

 

 

 

 

"A Runner's High: My Life in Motion" A Review

 

 

Dean Karnazes and the Crazy World of Ultramarathon Running

I had to google Dean Karnazes after I read his book “A Runner’s High: My Life In Motion”. I picked it up off the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble on whim. I wasn’t particularly looking for a book on running or even a book with a sports theme. But after getting lost in fiction and checking out the new authors, I traipsed back to the sports section. Sport themed books can be a mix of biography and history, business and self-help. I wanted something easy to absorb, not a deep dive. Golf had the most authors per square inch but running managed a few slots. The first one I grabbed turned out to be a textbook. It was a detailed plan for a running program with tips in between. Nothing against schedules and planning but I wanted something more personal.

That’s when I grabbed this Dean Karnazes book on ultramarathon running, his 4^th to date.

Looking Back 

Now I’m not an ultramarathon runner and I have no interest in it. But I love jogging and even marathon running. I wanted to know what got him started in this insane sport. Maybe he would answer the “Why would someone do this?” question. He does in part. But this book is an examination of the life of an aging athlete, finding a new way to endure with a different set of goals. A good chunk of it is looking back on a brilliant career and savoring the success while training for the Western States 100. Along the way he examines if he’s been a distant father, a loving husband and good son. There are some touching moments with his dad, a man who still accompanies him to his races and provides that much needed encouragement.

Dean Karnazes has a few books under his belt already. I didn’t read it but, "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All night Runner” was a best seller in 2006. It put ultramarathon running into the public conscious. For years it was an obscure sport that only endurance junkies had anything to do with. It likely wasn’t the only book or film that did this, but it certainly made regular people aware of it. I still think it’s a sport for endurance junkies, it’s just that we have more of them now. 100 miles at any pace through the open desert or woods is a crazy thing to do. Certain people need to push themselves beyond the limits of what even endurance runners go through.

A Very Different Sport

In Runner’s High, Dean settles into the reality of his age and what’s still possible given the miles he’s put on his body. Understandably, there is a lot of comparison to his former self and his former successes. As a Western States alum, he is acutely aware of his progress when seen in contrast to his previous performance. Spoiler alert, he isn’t the runner he used to be. He was 58 or 59 when this book was published. That’s over 15 years since his first book. That’s a lot of miles for an aging athlete. But the same grit that got him through the 100 milers when he was a younger man is still there. He just needs more of it. He nearly drops out on multiple occasions but manages just enough push to finish.

Endurance running takes otherworldly mental toughness. It’s one advantage that older athletes have on younger ones. Dean doesn’t say this in the book but it feels true. Your body won’t move as fast or recover as quickly, but if you’ve finished before you’ll do it again. It won’t be pretty, but you’ve solved a big piece of the puzzle on how to complete a big race while exhausted. Having others there to cheer you on helps a lot. Help and support are difficult to measure, but essential for finishing strong. Karnezes gives a lot of credit to his family and friends for joining him. During the Western States race, he encounters a few former runners who help out as volunteers at the aid stations. Their encouragement and motivation is often the difference in the late stages of an ultramarathon when you’re starting to fade. His son Nick and both his parents, along with multiple volunteers, got him over the hump.

Conclusion

The book is less than 250 pages. It’s light on detail and doesn’t bog down on race particulars. There is just enough of his personal life in there to keep this a human story. Dean explains well the emotional highs and lows of ultra racing and provides the reader with a reason for why he runs. It won’t make sense to people who don’t run though. You’ll get an answer to the question “Why would someone do this?” but you won’t like the answer. It just doesn’t make sense to most people and that’s OK. You will understand, and feel, his passion for this niche sport though.

It may even make you start jogging whatever your age.

The New Pope and World Wide Christianity

 

New Pope, New Church, New Day for Christians?

I guess we have a new pope. The white smoke billowed out from the roof in the Vatican earlier this week. An American, he grew up in Chicago and traveled all over the world for most of his life. Naturally, in the service of the catholic church. I’m not a catholic but I do realize to most people, the pope reflects Christianity to rest of the world. It’s not fair of course. Martin Luther’s criticism was about the sale of indulgences and papal authority. In other words, the church as intermediary between God and man. As the only real reflection of the church in the West, the list of grievances was long. But the core complaints could be described as men standing in for God.

We were meant to have a relationship with God the Father. The Roman Catholic church likes to have intermediaries, priests and cardinals, to interpret the divine for us. I’m not dumping on faithful Catholics. I’m merely stating facts about the top-down authority of the church. I don’t imagine the masses are much different in structure than it was a hundred years ago. The biggest difference being mass in the vernacular. A good many would like to go back to the Latin version exclusively.

The adherence to tradition is admirable, we live in an age where the gospel is always being challenged. If the church needs to update according to a moving cultural target then why bother with the church? But institutions become corrupt over time. Reform is seriously needed. That’s where I’ll leave my criticism though. I’m not Catholic. I won’t drop bombs just because I can see how broken the walls are.

My people are the Evangelicals. We’ve got our own problems. Actually, we’ve got more problems than the Catholics. We picked up our penchant for schisms from the protestant godfather himself, Martin Luther. To be fair to Luther though, he was excommunicated. We split churches along every conceivable doctrine, practice and eschatological theory. Sometimes it’s just a split over personalities. This isn’t exactly schism worthy, but it does reflect the Protestant comfort with going it alone. That’s not a bad thing necessarily. Jesus’s idea of the church (ecclesia) is a body of believers that reach the lost with the gospel. Traditionally it’s easier to reach them through an organized ministry. The sending out of missionaries, here and abroad, is easier by pooling resources.

But it doesn’t always need to look like this. In some countries, small groups of believers might be more effective at reaching the lost. Large churches can be a target for government censorship around the world. It’s much more difficult to patrol small churches that split constantly and add to the numbers of the faithful.

We’re to increase the number of believers and not just grow the institutional church. Every Christian should understand the difference.

 We need an orthodox view of the Bible and salvation and eternal life, but cultural differences will always exist. There is plenty of room for that in God’s Kingdom. But something like the Nicene Creed for a statement of principles should form the basis of our collective faith.

The “We” in the ‘we have a new pope” refers to the world. The pope is basically a world leader. I thought an African pope would be the best selection. They take a traditional view on marriage and oppose the LGBT influence in the culture. I’ve seen a few social media posts from this guy they selected, Robert Prevost. It’s typical anti-Trump and anti-Vance stuff. It’s early stages so far. Probably it’s not fair to slap a label on the guy just yet. But if he’s a typical Left-wing Cardinal, then it’s further proof that the Catholic church is focused on all the wrong issues.

Pope Francis talked about climate change more than the persecuted Christians in China. He made a morally reprehensible deal in 2018 with the Chinese Communist Government. The CCP gets to appoint bishops to posts in the country, while the Vatican can overrule the choices. Francis cut the legs out from under the loyal church in China. At the same time, he turned it into a place for CCP stooges to advance.

One line of thinking has it that church leaders should stay out of politics. But everything today is political. The scripture should be our guide in all worldly affairs. But most of the work of feeding the poor and winning souls for Christ is done at the ground level. In an imperfect age, the best we can pray for is that all Christian leaders put a spotlight on those issues first, while holding fast to the inerrancy of scripture.

The best version to date for what a Christian church should be is found in Acts 2:46-47 “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”

Large institutional churches aren’t necessarily a bad thing. But where they’re focused on boutique (secular) issues like climate change and mass immigration we should ignore their direction.

 

Musing about Writing and Wasting Time

 

Writing is a Discipline that Needs Strict Parameters

It seems like I don’t have a lot of interest in writing anymore. At least not to the level that I did a few years ago. What is the culprit? Could it be that work takes up a larger part of my life, to the degree that I have less time? Not really, my responsibility has picked up and so has the number of accounts I manage. But it hasn’t added to my workload significantly. Most jobs have seasonal ups and downs that dictate how many hours you work. Mine is no different. Summers and springs are busy. The rest of the year settles into a type of normalcy, in a sense.

I should probably apologize for all the question begging that this post is bound to heap up like mulch on a freshly planted rose garden. Just think of these are rhetorical questions the writer is trying out on himself.

Am I occupied with other interests? Again, not really. I’ve had a consistent gym/fitness routine for the last 5 years or so. It changes a little from week to week but not dramatically. If anything, I’ve matured in both my running goals and weight lifting. The running is certainly easier to measure. New times can be compared against older times and I can see how much weight I’ve lost. Modern gyms have these full body composition scanners that give you all sorts of indicators. You can learn which side of your body is stronger, what your bone density is like and what an ideal weight would be.

For the first two months of the year I was busy studying for my personal training certification test. But last month I passed the test and received the certificate. I still don’t have a job, but I’m looking. Here too though, I’m not overwhelmed with a part time job.

 I might be mistaking my lack of writing interest for just plain laziness. Sometimes I like to dress up the words instead of looking at the thing straightaway. Laziness becomes “lack of interest” or “lack of passion”. Those sound high minded. No one ever admits to being lazy but it’s a common problem. Creative types talk about “writer’s block” and “creativity deserts” when the problem is much more carnal. I made up the one about creativity deserts but I kind of like it. I’ll have to work it into a conversation at some point.

Television gets the best of us sometimes and if we’re honest, we probably watch too much. Here I’m counting YouTube as TV, as it takes the same form in my life. Hours of wasted viewing on the silly, the weird and the angry, encompass evenings that I’ll never get back. YouTube is at least highly curated where TV is just a scatter shot of whatever’s in the barrel. If we don’t like the show we turn it off. YouTube allows the viewer to scrub past ads and click off. It doesn’t let you off though, it’s going to suggest something similar. Really they don’t suggest anything. They just play the next adjacent video, ready or not. For me it skews right and newsy with a dash of funny. I end up with a lot of Megan Kelly and Tim Dillon clips.

It gets in the way of writing but not too much. It used to be that I couldn’t go more than 2 days without a writing fix. I didn’t update my blog every other day, but I did feel the need to journal some event or attitude. When I couldn’t think of anything significant I’d practice. These practice sessions allowed my mind to wander. A lot of my blog posts started off that way. I’d start a mental thread about sports or politics that slowly turned into a one about family or Christianity. It’s not the best way to write but it can be fun. The best way is through narrow parameters. The stricter the focus the more creative the essay.

The mind craves discipline. This seems counterintuitive. Don’t the best artists and writers need to be free to let their minds wander? No, you lose focus without definitive goals. It might take longer to arrange your thoughts and discard ideas that don’t fit the limits, but you’ll be able to avoid wasting time on unnecessary trails. I used to write blog posts for business websites through a 3^rd party marketing company. Perusing through the list of requested blog posts, I noticed some were brief while others, very detailed. The companies with long, specific items and keywords were the easiest to write for. It’s like they cut the extra fat off the steak before they brought it to me. The websites that listed one or two instructions didn’t know what they wanted and hoped the writer would come up with something creative.

That’s OK if you understand the industry you’re writing for. But it’s rarely the case. Not to mention, the ones with marginal instructions were quick to fire my copy back for revision. It’s like they were saying “No not like that”. They could’ve saved us both some time with tight instructions and a short list of what they didn’t want.

I exaggerated when I said it seems like I don’t have any interest in writing. But a lot of the old tricks aren’t working anymore. I’ve always believed that writing is like other disciplines in life, it needs to be forced until it becomes routine. It’s not secret that I mentioned fitness at the beginning. The most important thing that fitness has taught me is that improvement must become routine. If it’s true for weightlifting then it’s true for creative pursuits. Why do I seem to fall in and out of “interest” in writing? Because it’s ceased to be routine. The reason doesn’t really matter.