Buddha Bike

  • What’s the point?

    September 1, 2018 at 7:24am – Tahoe National Forest

    Watch What’s the Point? on YouTube

    A few minutes before I DNF’d Peaks challenge (strava), a particularly hard bike race, I asked myself an important question: What’s the point?

    I didn’t have an answer.

    When all you need to do is ride your bike to the finish line, asking “what’s the point?”, is not very helpful.

    It’s the type of question that invariably creates more questions. Do I even like this? Why do I do this to myself? Who do I think I am? What am I getting out of this? Why am I here?

    Camus would be rolling a cigarette in his grave.

    It’s the type of question which needs to be questioned.

    Ego

    Perhaps a thought like that emerges from an ego trying to find a comfortable place to stand. Like a stressed publicist, it’s in damage control and it’s in search of a justification.

    It was dramatic (I’ve lost the love, I’m quitting.) It was proud and sought validation (I’ve done a lot of training, but it wasn’t enough). It was dismissive (Things change. I’m interested in different things now. Cycling is not for me).

    So when I say something like “racing isn’t that important to me”, it may not be what I really believe, rather what makes me feel good.

    Preparedness

    There’s also a biological reasons why get existential. When we run low on water or nutrition, our mind goes crazy. I was bonking, dehydrated and out of carbs. I hadn’t planned enough, paced enough or trained enough, and paying the price.

    For your average weekend warrior, this is a simple enough problem to fix. You didn’t get the result you wanted, so you experiment, and try again. You fix your bike position. You buy new gear. You switch up your nutrition or your training plan. Pain or negative thoughts act as a pointers to help you improve.

    I’d happily solve an existential problem with food, if only I could stop thinking about it.

    Toughness

    One day I was at a park when I overheard a mother urging her young daughter to keep running. She was flagging behind and her body language said she was seconds away from collapsing and giving up. Her mum urged her to ‘come on, get in your competitive mode’. The little girl cried out in exasperation ‘I’m trying!’.

    When it comes to getting the thing done, fixing your attitude seems to deliver the largest return on investment. Ancient myths, spiritual gurus corporate slogans all urge us to keep an unwavering focus or intent on the goal and just do it.

    I’d happily agree that I lacked grit, if I wasn’t so familiar with discipline and pushing myself to do physically uncomfortable stuff.

    The thing is, there’s no end to how tough something can get. And for two unique people, with differing attitudes, a 5km and a 500km could feel equally as hard. And although perseverance seems to be a healthy trait that helps one to get the most out of their lives (rather than staying huddled under the covers), I think we need more than perseverance. Just because you are able to withstand a certain pressure, doesn’t mean you have to withstand it.

    So, before we shrug our shoulders and say ‘toughen up’ or ‘get over yourself’ or ‘get back on the bike’, I’d like to ask ‘what’s the point?’ on more time.

    I think we can look at this question from two different levels or perspectives.

    On one level, we care (perhaps unconsciously) about short term gains, utility, getting ahead, grabbing stuff, avoiding pain, seeking pleasure. When we struggle with something hard, whether it is a 12ft brick wall we need to scale or a thank-you note we can’t put into words, we are essentially saying, I don’t want to do this. This is uncomfortable. This makes me feel bad.

    But from another level, asking what’s the point could be a valid expression of frustration. Life is short. We can only do so many things. Let’s face it, genetics aside, we are all painfully individual and we may be guilty of grinding down our uniqueness into a fine paste all in the name of toughing it out.

    Let’s look at two different people struggling with this question, in different ways.

    Maria decides to quit her corporate law job and become a pastry chef. She’s used to working hard, but the combination of physicality and early hours are killing her. She’s struggling to learn the art of the croissant. She loves it but she also asks herself what’s the point? She misses the convenience and stability of her old life.

    Miguel vows to read every day. Science says that reading makes your brain bigger and more empathetic, and he’s tired of hearing about it. He’s never been a reader, but this time he really pushes himself to make a new habit. He finds time out of his busy schedule to read, even sacrificing time with his kids. But no matter how hard he tries, it really feels forced. Sometimes he asks himself: what’s the point?

    Maria works on her passion, while comfort and security tug at her. Miguel laces up his own boots, while his heart tells him he’s walking in the wrong direction. In both cases there’s a mixture of fighting demons and listening to what you actually care about.

    Therefore, the challenge we face is not simply ignoring that voice that says ‘give up’ – that would be too easy. Sometimes we might have to listen to it too.

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  • The Laws of Human Nature – Book review

    “If you come across any special trait of meanness or stupidity… you must be careful not to let it annoy or distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to your knowledge – a new fact to be considered in studying the character of humanity.” – Schopenhauer

    “The kind of attention we bring to bear on the world changes the nature of the world we attend to.” – Iain McGhilchrist.

    “I would permit no man, no matter what his color might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” – Booker T. Washington

    The book: The Concise Laws of Human Nature – Robert Greene (2018)

    Date read: Feb 20 – 21, 2024

    To Robert Greene, studying human nature does not have much to do with genetics, evolution, chemistry or physics. Instead, we’re looking into all the soft, squishy, smelly stuff that flames in the trash-can of the ego. Our egos get us into trouble again and again. They’re brazen, fragile, hostile, fickle, competitive, self-confident and ultimately disconnected from reality. The ego sees threats that aren’t there and projects a cloud of fantasy over real people and relationships, leaving us lonely, unsatisfied and suffering.

    Greene attacks the subject of human nature as a systemizer, and this heavily structured almost synthetic style of writing grates on me (even in the concise version). He’s a wide reader (like his protege Ryan Holiday), and there’s dozens of insights and anecdotes squeezed into the tiny pages. But overall I didn’t like the tilt toward deception, persuasion and competition. But that’s to do with his audience. He’s writing for ambitious teens, freshman, businessman, those trying to understand the ego for their own advantage.

    Although he doesn’t write directly about it, I think the most big idea of this book is the importance of how we use our attention. Our relationship to life, death, friends, lovers, bosses can all be negatively distorted and skewed if we don’t have a good grip on our perception of those things.

    Here are five other ideas about human nature:

    1. People exist: Greene suggests to “see other people as phenomena, as neutral as comets or plants. They simply exist. Work with what they give you, instead of resisting and trying to change them… It is all part of the human comedy.” Rather than judging people or desperately want them to change, we should work with what we’ve got, or what’s presented to us.
    2. Face your dislikes: Psychologically, we are big stinking bundles of habits and memories. To grow, change and get things done, we’ll need to do things in new and different ways. To break some of our bad habits Greene suggests “to not react in the moment by repeated placing yourself in stressful or adverse situations in order to get used to them.” It’s not just about cold water shocks and facing your deepest fears; we need to stop distracting ourselves in even the must mundane situations. “In boring everyday tasks you cultivate greater patience and attention to detail.”
    3. Don’t seek, settle: Desire is a big motivating force in our lives, but can also backfire when we keep trying to seek the unattainable. Take a romantic relationship as example. “There is nobody perfect. Instead, it is better to come to terms with the flaws of the other person and accept them or even find some charm in their weakness.” By calming down “covetous desires”, we can learn to compromise, be at ease in the world and stop ourselves from constantly getting drawn away from reality. Greene also makes a great point that constantly seeking perfection in our work or love life burns a tremendous amount of time and energy, two precious and finite resources.
    4. Confirm, don’t critique: People don’t want the truth. I’m often asked by other collegeues for feedback or advice on their projects. I try and help them like I would help myself, and make sure I don’t come across as too direct (which is more my natural style). I try and be objective and explain how to improve their work. But I was surprised by Greene’s suggestion that most people “do not want the truth; they want support and confirmation given as realistically as possible.” Part of me recoils against this advice. Why even come to me in the first place if I’m just going to pat you on the back? But I see the point. This isn’t an either/or type of thing. Just because they are working toward a goal doesn’t negate the need to steady nerves, build confidence and get reassurance. It makes me realize most of the time I show my work I’m also looking for some amount of confidence boost too.
    5. You’ve got more energy than you think. A friend at work was complaining how ‘low energy’ she has become recently. She had seen several different kinds of doctors, and complained about a number of negative factors in her life. Her energy had disappeared. Or had it? At the end of the day I saw her showing someone around a social gathering, and she was smiling and brimming with renewed focus and excitement. You might say this was to do with a change in chemistry, or her preference for extroversion, but there was no doubt she had found a huge reservoir of energy out of nowhere. Where had that come from? It’s likely that we have and can access more “wellsprings of energy and health” than we think we can.
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  • 12 Unpopular opinions

    The following excerpts are from an interview with psychologist James Hillman. I agree with about half of these.

    There are other cultures that are not historically minded at all. They’re much more concerned with whether or not the trees are in good shape and are speaking to you. Much more concerned. Or whether the river has changed course: that’s something to worry about. My goodness, if the fish turn belly up, that is far more important to my soul than what my mother did to me when I was four.

    It’s the shamanistic idea that unless I’m in order, I can’t put anything else in order…We’ve held to that view, but I don’t think that’s it; I don’t think it works. I wish it did, but I don’t think it does.

    I think that group of overeaters could begin to realize what goes on in school lunches, and what goes on in advertisements for potato chips. There are acutely political dimensions here, dimensions that this group could work to identify. 

    If that’s the goal, what’s the difference between meditation and having a nice drink? Or going to the hairdresser and sitting for an hour and flipping through a magazine? Or writing a long letter, a love letter? Do you realize what we’re not doing in this culture? Having an evening’s conversation with people; that can be so relaxing. I think we’ve misguidedly locked on to meditation as the main method for settling down.

    It’s a terrible cruelty of predatory capitalism: both parents now have to work. A family has to have two incomes in order to buy the things that are desirable in our culture.

    Instead of saying, “This is my child,” they must ask, “Who is this child who happens to be mine?” Then they will gain a lot more respect for the child and try to keep an eye open for instances where the kid’s destiny might show itself — like in a resistance to school, for example, or a strange set of symptoms one year, or an obsession with one thing or another.

    I think we’re miserable partly because we have only one god, and that’s economics. Economics is a slave driver. No one has free time; no one has any leisure. The whole culture is under terrible pressure and fraught with worry. It’s hard to get out of that box. That’s the dominant situation all over the world.

    I see happiness as a byproduct, not as something you pursue directly. I don’t think you can pursue happiness. I think that phrase is one of the very few mistakes the Founding Fathers made. Maybe they meant something a little different from what we mean today — happiness as one’s well-being on earth.

    Gary Snyder says, when something strikes you — whether it’s a hungry child, or the death of a fish, or the cutting of a forest, or the warming of the air — take that particular thing and enter into it. Learn about the salmon, about the Indian myths surrounding it, about the whole life cycle of the fish. Through your learning you develop sympathy, and you become an expert. You pick one place where your heart can connect to the world’s problems. We can’t just say, “This is too much. I can’t bear it.”

    Why does our society believe old people need help? They are the ones who would be, in some other society, passing on help to others: teaching skills, telling stories, leading rituals, caring for children. They have a contribution to make, and instead they are segregated as sick people who need to be nursed.

    We must not mix up aging with disease. We’ve done that in this country for too long. Aging is not disease. You can have cancer that is hideous at thirty-six, or leukemia in childhood, but for some reason we equate old age with disease. Many people are diseased in old age, but many are not. I just heard of a man today who is 102, and he still takes care of himself.

    To avoid death, or accident, or wounding of any kind has become our prime objective. It’s as if, psychically, we live in gated communities in order to keep out the unforeseen.

  • Eating things

    March 30, 2024 at 11.16am – Unknown, Australia

    Life consists in eating other creatures. You don’t think about that very much when you make a nice-looking meal. But what you’re doing is eating something that was recently alive. And when you look at the beauty of nature, and you see the birds picking around – they’re eating things. You see the cows grazing, they’re eating things. – Joseph Campbell

    The mind can ramble off in strange ways and want things that the body does not want. – Joseph Campbell

    Your body is a pile of food. Everything in your body from your heart to your hands was built mainly from food you’ve absorbed. And since we spend most of our lives looking after our own bodies, what we eat and drink matters.

    Some people are very disciplined with what they eat. The health conscious follow rigid plans so that they can reach goals like ‘low blood pressure’ or ‘beach body’. Some people even skip entire food groups, go to fasting clinics or count every single calorie that goes in and out of their system. 

    The diets that we design and decide on are influenced by many different things. Peer groups, financial situations, interests, social norms and culture can all push us one way or another.

    But instead of listening to yet another fitness podcast, might it be possible to figure out what our body wants to eat? Might an objective diet exist?

    For many years, I counted calories and tried to eat based on what I heard was healthy. After giving that up, for reasons described here, I decided to see if it was possible to start eating more with my stomach rather than my head. Aside from common sense, I would try not to follow any particular diet or set of rules. Through the din of advertisements, influencers, social pressure and bad habits, I would try my hardest to hear the sound of my own stomach.

    Maybe it’s impossible to separate our conditioning from how we make choices around food. Even if I think I’m intuitively picking one type of food over another, that intuition is influenced by something out of my control, like some deeply repressed fantasy or all the things I have learned in my life about nutrition.

    Regardless if that is the case, I was more interested in what arrived on my plate every day. Does eating a bit more intuitively change what eating looks and feels like? Are these changes positive or negative? I care less about who’s in control and more about results.

    Here’s how relying a bit more on intuition changed my eating:

    Breakfast

    • In the morning, I found myself cooking more savoury breakfasts than I used to, like smoked salmon with cream chese on toast. Breakfast doesn’t need to be 100g of sugar. Sugar is ‘just a carb’, but sit down and drink a litre of cordial and tell me how you feel. We don’t need much of it.
    • Hot eggs, toast, oatmeal. Especially in winter, hot food in the morning is incredibly satisfying.

    Lunch

    • Before I paid attention to my appetite, I’d usually default to something like a big subway sandwich or burrito and a large coke. 
    • Although I was still pretty hungry at lunch, I rarely wanted to eat masses of meat or carbs. I never really get sick of salads loaded up with heaps of oily stuff (feta, olive oil, olives, avocado) or smaller soups. So more greens and fats than something like a pastrami sandwich.
    • Strangely, I found myself craving and loving tinned fish like sardines and mackeral. I spread it on toast. Feta and beetroot were other random foods I couldn’t get enough of. Who knows why. But I don’t belive we naturally crave junk food.
    • If I was ordering take-away, I found that I defaulted to sushi, again defaulting to fish over other types of meat.

    Dinner

    • I started to eat smaller dinners, a bit earlier in the evening. It didn’t feel right stuffing myself right before bed. I think this is probably where people put on extra kilos.
    • The more I look at alcohol, the more it seems that this is something we’re mainly better off without.
    • The simpler my cooking got, the more I found myself adding salt to things. This is probably because I was getting a lot less sodium from junk food.

    If you take some of the craving and bad habits out of your diet, things start looking healthier and frankly, a bit boring. We go a bit crazy when we aren’t stimulated with the latest lab invented flavors or if we can’t eat a different style of cuisine every night. But I was surprised how little my body cared about that sort of stuff. It simply wants food to keep it running. Even if it can physically handle plates of nachos and liters of beer (sweating and shaking), why would you?

    Mind-led eating tends to be more habitual, compulsive and erratic. Body-led eating is perhaps closer to what we actually need to eat rather than what we crave.

    MindBody
    WantNeed
    Binge, starveEat
    Prepackaged for convenienceTake time to prepare
    This food is “bad”I’ll eat something else.
    Hitting exact nutrient goalsCraving a particular food
    Bias to added sugar, stimulantsBias to micronutrients
    Eats to feel betterEats for energy
    More technology (Powerade ION4)Less technology (Water)
    Protests meatSays thanks for meat
    PriceQuality
    I need something newI need something nutritious
    Hunger > TasteTaste > Hunger
    Rarely satisfiedRarely ‘starving’

    Fever-Tree, a brand of tonic water coined the phrase “If ¾ of your drink is the mixer, mix with the best.” The same applies to us and our diets. If your body is mainly food, look after it with the best food you can afford.

    Further reading

    Disclaimer: I would never urge anyone to stop eating anything, or feel bad about their food choices. I don’t care! This is just a reflection on an experiment with my own eating habits that I found interesting. I could be wrong about everything. Your mileage may vary.

  • Did not finish (DNF)

    December 29, 2023 @ 11:41am – Dongchang Village, Taiwan

    A selection of notes, quotes, ideas and musings from the month of March 2024.

    Gratitude is a balm for bitterness.

    • Complaining
    • Trying not to complain
    • Feeling proud you’re not complaining
    • Losing interest in the idea of not complaining

    We can’t just do what we want… that’s just juvenile. But we probably have many more options open at any moment than we think. – Robert Moss

    A dream: I’m in conversation with an energetic, retired businessman. He encourages me to act my age. He says, you don’t get it, soon you’ll be my age and you’ll wish you took advantage of what you have. The next day, I realize this man was a tennis player at my club. He’s nearly twice my age but often runs me off the court.

    98% of the time when I talk about cycling, people are like “you do what? The other 2% of the time I feel like a complete amateur.

    A DNF pulls the rug out from under your ego. When you’re improving and getting good results, you hardly notice. But when you’re bonking and getting passed, suddenly you start questioning yourself. Why am I here? What am I doing this for? You kick up a big fuss because things aren’t going your way. This can be a healthy antidote to the inflation of a string of PB’s.

    When we are little and we don’t get what we want we scream and cry. When we are adults, we scream and cry in our heads. When we finally get what we wanted, suddenly that voice goes very quiet. Our mind can be like a child who has been very rude, but suddenly gets the ice cream they want, and is now acting like there was never any problem.

    “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.” – Carl Jung

    The death spiral of bonking:

    • Come on legs, move.
    • Denial. I’m not going to bonk.
    • Come on legs, move.
    • Trying to fix the issue. Water. Holding my legs differently. Concentration games.
    • Finally giving up the games and accepting whatever is happening
    • Come on legs, move.
    • Repeat

    Am I a cyclist? Is that part of my identity important? Maybe what’s important is not that you are or aren’t a cyclist. It’s more important to recognize that it’s a concept. It’s a bit of clothing that can be put on or taken off if you like. There is no forcing. There is no obligation.

    Nothing against alcohol, but I feel physically better after cycling 170km and getting heatstroke than a weekend of drinking 

    Flossing is about getting food out of our teeth. Next time you floss, think about flossing out three meals. As you floss, remember what breakfast, lunch and dinner were and get them out of your teeth.

    Daniel Goleman describes anger as a destructive emption. No matter how skilled and self-aware you are, it’s always going to be dangerous to deal with anger – it’s caustic. For some people, dealing with anger is like a toddler playing with a gun. Others are more skilled, like a soldier or policeman. Therefore, the more skilled you are, the more responsibility you have to get your anger under control. We would never blame a toddler for mishandling a firearm, but a soldier should know better.

    Rather than focus on the subject of work, we should focus on attitude and how we approach work. When we are unhappy at work, we tend to blame the work, the content. In my experience, I’m bringing the same person to work, so if I’m unhappy, no job change will help.

    Morang (the name of my street) is an ancient aboriginal word meaning ‘sky’ or ‘cloud’. 

    Triathlon is an extremely left brained activity. It’s all about timing. Sequencing. Logic. Caution. Optimising. Planning. Scheduling. It doesn’t take any imagination to be good at a triathlon.

    An older man is handed a participation medal. He says “no thanks, I’m too old for that stuff.” A younger woman places her participation medal on her three year old son who receives it with pure delight. Maybe that’s the right age for a medal.

    It’s easy to scoff at the suggestion to ‘think positive’, as if we can manufacture happiness out of thin air. But how exactly is that different than how we manufacture suffering out of thin air when we worry about the past and the future?

    Two major things people get wrong about discipline (paraphrased from C.S Lewis):

    1. People think discipline is about renunciation or abstinence. It’s not. Instead of restricting and cutting things out of your life, think temperance: Going the right length and no further.
    2. There’s many reasons why one might give up meat or stop drinking alcohol. But the mistake we make is to start saying these things are inherently bad, or judging those who do drink beer or eat hamburgers.
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  • Everyone’s a winner

    February 22, 2024 at 6:11pm – Melbourne, Australia

    It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry we put our good temper down to ourselves.

    C.S. Lewis

    There’s four or five cyclists sitting around a table. They’ve all recently participated in a grueling, all-day endurance event. Most finished with a good time. One cyclist did not finish. Me.

    The cyclist who couldn’t finish feels like they need to speak up for themselves. They didn’t perform their best, that’s true, and there were some good reasons for it. But they also feel deep down that none of the results, even the winner of the day, really matter. But that’s easy for a loser to say. 

    The conversation shifts to the idea of individual responsibility.

    One of the riders who did well starts to talk.

    Look, the reason I’m most proud of my result has got nothing to do with the time, or the cheering of the crowd. It’s because I worked hard. I earned it. Sure, I’ve had a lot of help over the last few months, but today I didn’t rely on anyone except myself. I didn’t get pushed over the finish line. I trained hard and made sacrifices. I earned this thing with blood, sweat and tears. I found success through my own efforts. 

    And I’m accountable for everything that happens out there. If I can’t fix a flat tire, that’s on me. If I get dehydrated, it’s on me. If I get up the hill first, that’s on me. I deserve a medal because it’s based on my own hard work. I took the initiative to study the course, and pick the right nutrition and make sure I had the best possible chance of winning. I don’t want special support. I want to win fairly and squarely. It takes the fun out of it otherwise! I deserve this result.

    He sits back in his chair, smiling, satisfied. “Don’t you agree?”

    I clear my throat. I have a feeling this is not going to go well.

    It’s tricky for me to talk about, because I didn’t finish. I’m not happy with my result. So, maybe I’m not thinking clearly about it. I mean. I believe in individuality. I’m very much my own person. I don’t gravitate toward big social groups. I’ve never followed a team or a sport. I’m Australian, but I don’t feel a strong affiliation to my country, and never have. I do my own thing. And I when go after a goal, it’s only me taking it on. I’m doing the work. And I’m not sure if I deserve the results, but I’m not sure who else should deserve them.

    “Why wouldn’t you claim the result?”

    Yeah, see that’s where it gets tricky. I’m like you guys. I get what you’re feeling. That’s why I love exercise. There’s no one else pushing on those pedals. There’s no one else running up that hill, even if you are surrounded by hundreds of runners. You are waking up at 5am. You are putting in the time and effort and energy. You are saying no to things. To food, to vices, so that you can perform at your best. But can I honestly say the result, the win, the PB, is mine?

    “Yes. Who else?”

    Okay. Take your body for example. We don’t get to choose a lot of things about our bodies. That’s chosen by our parents. But our bodies are also mainly the food we eat. Most of the time, I feel in control of what food and drink I put into my body. Whether I drink alcohol. Or eat donuts. Or how many donuts. So when we look at a body, we are seeing genetics but also a lot of choice. It’s a mix.

    Someone else speaks up. “I don’t know where you are going with this. I finished the race. I think I rode really well. I don’t have to think about any of this.”

    I know what you mean. When you succeed in anything, you don’t think about it. When you have a broken leg, you can’t stop thinking about it. Who thinks about a healthy leg? It’s also easy to tell yourself a story. When I was out there getting passed by everyone, riding slower and slower, I hated it. More than anything, it hurts your ego. And maybe it’s the same for you too, but in reverse. Who’s feeling sad, hurt, and angry when you ride badly? Your ego. Who’s feeling proud and accomplished when you win? Your ego. Who cares about these results? Who has to keep beating your time? Your ego. A PB is like giving your ego an expensive haircut and a massage. It feels great. It wants to talk more about it.  

    “You’re just saying that because you got a disappointing result. I agree that results and outcomes are what our egos care about, and ultimately they don’t mean much in the scheme of things. But you can’t chuck out responsibility just because you didn’t like the result.

    I scratch my head. It hurts because two conflicting ideas are smashing against themselves. Maybe it’s possible to care less about the outcome, while still taking full responsibility for it.

  • Past and potential lives

    February 28, 2021 @ 6.12pm – Canberra, Australia

    Don’t fear fear.

    Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

    I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

    Frank Herbert, Dune

    You wouldn’t be reading this sentence if you and your ancestors didn’t feel or act on fear from time to time. But there’s a lot less to fear nowadays. Direct threats to our life are thankfully not a daily occurrence. We don’t need to sleep with one eye open, ever-vigilant for a bear or that blood thirsty love-rival. Instead, the majority of the fear and anxiety we experience is a sort of psychological kind. We are scared of thoughts and memories more than anything else. We are fearful of imagined events in the future or trivial things in our past. To avoid fear, we act in certain ways or bias toward certain things. Fear-soaked memories from decades ago can influence everything from our job to our coffee order.

    Fear also narrows down our choices. Our future becomes predictable. When we are scared, we make choices very quickly. “I want to go home right now” sounds like a choice, but in a way, the choice has been made by fear, not us. If we feel uncomfortable wearing a brightly coloured shirt, we’ll say “I’d prefer this white one instead.” Habitual, familiar choices feel attractive in comparison with something that elicits fear. And when we are really scared, there’s hardly any deliberation at all. Ultimately, fear strips away your agency. Because if your choice is driven by fear, are you really choosing?

    We also feel fear about the future itself, like when we have an upcoming race we’ve been training for. As the big day gets closer, we try to picture what will happen and problem solve potential disasters. We might think “I’m not ready for this race.” Or “this is a waste of money.” These thoughts are usually dramatic and simplistic but they usually contain some truth. It’s useful to plan a little about the future. But if we are overly anxious, we can start to over-think. With fear, excuses can quickly become actions. All of a sudden we’ve pulled out of the race before even experience it.

    These excuses are like little glimpses of potential futures. If you believe the story you are telling yourself, that future becomes a reality. And it’s happening all the time. In any given moment, you are living with decisions that were largely decided by fear, hours, days or years earlier. We find ourselves scrambling to catch a hastily booked flight or struggle with a test that we avoided to study for. In many ways we don’t relate to our future self, even though we are the same person who has to live out those consequences. 

    So are you doomed to live out the fearful decisions you and all your ancestors have made? Not quite. Even though fear narrows down your options, there’s always lots of available things you could do. If we are walking home from work, we could take any number of different paths home. We could skip. We could walk backwards. We could call a cab. You may not think you’re the kind of person who would do any of those things, but would has got nothing to do with could.

    In myths and folklore when someone is granted a wish, they almost invariably mess it up. We are not very good at knowing what we want. We listen to deeply ingrained beliefs rather than our intuition. We spend a lot of our lives doing what we think others will like, rather than what we really want. And worst of all, we tend to crave impossible things, like for people to change, a ‘perfect’ partner or never getting old.

    Figuring out what you truly want might take a lifetime. But you can start interrogating your current choices today. Questioning our intent can help us to recognize and embrace the options that are always available to us.

    • Why are you doing what you are doing? Next time you lace up your runners (whether its for an Ultra or a walk around the block) ask yourself why you are doing it. The answer doesn’t matter, it’s simply about checking in with yourself. You might answer something like “I’m going for a run so that I can see new parts of my neighborhood” or “…so that I’m in a better mood when I talk to my family.”
    • What do you want to get out of it? For any upcoming event, ask yourself what you intend to get out of it. If you’ve jut bought a book, what do you intend to find out from this book? What do you want to know?
    • What are you going to do about it? When faced with a problem, obstacle or challenge, ask yourself what are you going to do about it? If you are going after some goal, why? And how strongly do you want it?

    Intentions, purpose, goals are all interesting things to think about once in a while. Most of the time we forget they even exist. But when we aren’t making choices out of fear, we can start to consider what we actually want.

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  • The Importance of Being Earnest

    March 3, 2020 @ 5.34pm – Twin Peaks, San Francisco

    Man would rather have the void as purpose than be void of purpose.

    Nietzsche

    It was a cold winter evening in New York, one of those nights when it feels like the sun has drifted off backwards into the universe forever. For the past twelve months or so I had settled into the American way of life and work. The hours were longer, but there had been more intensity, competition and unfiltered enthusiasm than I had ever experienced before. This atmosphere leaked out of the offices and into the streets, the subways, the packed and sweating bars.

    Compared to Australians, I found many Americans more straightforward, enthusiastic and earnest with how they worked and approached life. This earnestness was a sort of non self-conscious doing or being with no strings attached. Sitting at my desk, thinking about this, I pulled out a blank piece of paper and wrote ‘cynical’ on one end and ‘earnest’ on the other, with a long black line between the two.

    Reflecting on how I saw myself at that point in time, I drew a dot close to 100% cynical. That was my attitude. I felt uncomfortable throwing anything more than I had to into my work. Everything was about damage control, clinging onto whatever gains I could get. I hated the idea of failure. Rather than put my hand up for new experiences, I felt overwhelmed enough living in a new country and wanted to keep my head down. I couldn’t say that I had strong interests or opinions. It was easier to poke fun at things than believe in anything. Camus would have described me as ‘bored’.

    Why was I drawn to acting earnestly? Was it a cure for alienation and the banality of modern life? A subconscious counterbalance to my nihilistic perspective? Or just an exotic, intriguing, all-american personality trait of New York City that was growing all around me like wild mushrooms? Perhaps earnestness served as a beacon, an intuition about the future and what had not yet been realised in my life yet.

    It’s unlikely that earnestness resonates as much as it did with me, at that very specific time and place. But in 2024, where everything is a dumpster fire and a meme at the same time, we could all probably be a bit more earnest:

    • Act: It’s not what you do, it’s the fact that you do anything at all. Working towards anything requires action.
    • Commit: I used to think it was a waste of time to take things too seriously. Instead, whatever you do, do it with your full heart. Don’t do things stingily. Doubt and compromise kills earnestness.
    • Don’t hesitate: If you spot an opportunity, don’t look the other way, take it. “If you see evil, and don’t speak evil, you do evil.” – Nassim Taleb
    • Motive matters: If you act from some sort of selfish desire or revenge, the action is spoilt isn’t it?
    • Forget results: Doing your best doesn’t mean it’s actually that good. Results don’t matter when you honestly, earnestly apply yourself. Earnestness is not about being perfect. It recognizes perfection is impossible.

  • Draining the tide pool

    December 21, 2021 at 3:57pm – El Zonte, El Salvador

    You’re not who you think you are. But you are condemned to be who you think you are.”

    Sam Harris

    Maladaptive schemas are patterns we habitually play out. Early in our lives, these patterns might have served a purpose. For example, a strong belief we must ‘be good’ helped protect us from the fear that something bad will happen if we aren’t. But most of the time, they operate like a poorly coded computer program. When a situation invariably triggers the schema, it can explode in unhelpful ways. The thoughts are rigid, simplistic and skew negative. The emotions are dramatic and destructive. And the point of view distorts our perspective of reality to fit its narrow bias.

    Imagine you’re hanging your feet in a rock pool. The water is dark and murky and you can’t see clearly into the water. Anything could be lurking down in the depths. When something touches your foot, your mind races with fearful possibilities. But once the tide drains the water out, you see there’s just a bunch of rocks and seaweed. You might not like what you see, or prefer it to be sparkling white sand, but it’s infinitely more manageable than the unknown. The same applies to a schema. Recognizing the typical thoughts, emotions and general ‘shape’ of a schema makes them a lot easier to deal with. Objectively, a schema becomes less claustrophobic and overwhelming. Rather than someone or something driving you crazy, you can observe a schema (with its associated thoughts, feelings and twisted perspective) going crazy.

    The stink of a schema response is hard to miss. Here are two characteristics that you can look out for.

    Habitual: Maladaptive schemas are usually set off by the same stuff, over and over again. Once they’re up and running, they spew out the same simplistic, negative thoughts and destructive emotions. And maladaptive schemas “lead us to neurotic solutions”1 as our desperate minds seek ways to ignore, deny, resent, numb, dodge or dismiss these uncomfortable reactions.

    Over the top: Probably because of its early-life origins, a schema attack can be characterized by a childish, inappropriate, out of proportion reaction. We might suddenly become enflamed with smoldering anger when we are told exactly what to do or “we may isolate ourselves on the edge of a party in reaction to someone’s frosty tone of voice”2.

    Disorienting: Once a schema kicks in, it’s difficult to make calm, considered decisions because our perception of the world is “tainted”. It’s like orienting with a map with no labels. In a way, we’re possessed. “We have to speak from it. We speak as though we are it.”3 Like a panic attack where it really feels like the walls are closing in, attention, memory and perception are all impacted. In a fog of confusion, basic things we know are true are suddenly cast into doubt and we can easily convince ourselves that this “twisted version of reality is how things actually are.”4

    It’s not possible to unpack and de-fang these ingrained beliefs overnight. But once identified, we must deal with them directly rather than push them away or pretend they’re not happening.

    Let it cook: At base, even caustic self-beliefs like “I’m a failure”, or “I’m not doing anything worthwhile with my life”, are thoughts – “poor and weak”5 and “utterly without force”6. We actually don’t have to do anything about them. It’s not easy, but by simply letting these thoughts and emotions “come in and go out”7, we are building new, less reactive responses.

    Talking back: We can’t blame our minds. When we are overcome by a schema, our minds are unable to take a nuanced, holistic view of a problem or situation. It’s a bit like a small child or a drunken teenager who’s telling us the same nonsensical story again and again. We’re not going to get far with rational conversation, but we can show some generosity and compassion. Challenging recurring, panicky thoughts might sound like “it sounds like you’re worried about failing?” or “I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t want to feel guilty about that.” Yes, talking to yourself might sound crazy, but it’s a lot saner than flying into a rage when someone points out an honest mistake or asks you for a favor.

    With appropriate distance, objectivity and gentleness, we can get a clearer picture of the bogus stuff we are saying about ourselves and open up to a saner view of reality.

    Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist… and I don’t play one on the internet. If you’re interested in exploring this subject further, talk to a professional. 

    1. Bennett-Goleman, Tara. Emotional Alchemy. ↩︎
    2. Bennett-Goleman, Tara. Emotional Alchemy. ↩︎
    3. Riemersma, Jenna. Altogether You ↩︎
    4. Bennett-Goleman, Tara. Emotional Alchemy. ↩︎
    5. Bennett-Goleman, Tara. Emotional Alchemy. ↩︎
    6. Harris, Sam. ‘Take a Moment’ audio reflection (February 11, 2024).” ↩︎
    7. Bennett-Goleman, Tara. Emotional Alchemy. ↩︎
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  • Determined

    December 25, 2023 at 4:27pm – Zhonghe Village, Taiwan

    You shouldn’t damn ’em. Don’t judge ’em. Just forgive ’em for they know not what they do.

    Max Cady (Cape Fear, 1991)

    Belief is a toxic and dangerous attitude toward reality.

    Terrence McKenna

    In Determined: Life without Free Will, Robert Sapolsky sets off on a generally thankless journey to convince us that there is no such thing as free will. Taking energetic, impressive leaps from chaos theory to criminology, he keeps returning to the same conclusion. He can’t find a neuron (or a brain) “who’s generation of behavior is independent of the sum of its biologically past.”1 In other words, he can’t demonstrate that free will could exist, at least not in an important way like we think it does.

    Sapolsky urges us that seeing through the illusion of free-will can be liberating and in doing so, we could be more humble, forgiving, self-compassionate and grateful for whatever fate has served us. Sounds lovely. Yet, we wake up every morning faced with the urgent feeling that we have choices to make. And although these choices are causal states of the brain, they “lead to specific behaviors, and behaviors lead to outcomes in the world.”2

    Personally, I recognize the long list of luck that I have enjoyed so far in my life. Yet, I feel to my core that things could go differently if I don’t make considered choices about how I eat, move my body and generally conduct myself. In other words, I deeply, deeply believe I am keeping my car in the lane and I’m responsible for keeping to the speed limit and not crashing into a brick wall or flying off a cliff.  So if everything from our destructive emotions to our good intentions are ‘determined’ like Robert demonstrates to us, how should we live? 

    Sapolsky likes to use an example of a college graduate and a garbage collector to show how environment & genetics can deliver vastly different outcomes. Let’s look at a less extreme example – diet. We have two sisters, Fat Sally and Thin Sarah. Both are 20 years old, and live fairly idyllic if uneventful lives in a middle class home in Atlanta, Georgia. Very similar human beings. But they do differ in one important way. Sally eats a lot of junk food, and is twenty pounds overweight. In comparison, thin Sarah is careful and considered with her diet. She thinks it’s important to eat healthy, and has spent years developing habits and a level of discipline to maintain them. She has what Angela Duckworth would call grit. But no matter what values or judgement you place on either of these women, Robert Sapolsky argues persuasively that neither can be blamed or take credit for what’s on their plates.

    Determinism is explained to both women. They learn how very small changes in their psychology and life experiences have led to differing attitudes, diets and waistlines. They had no important agency after all. Although they still feel like free agents, they agree that there’s no way things could be any other way than they turned out.

    Their reactions are interesting. For as long as she can remember, Sally has felt like ‘the fat one’, and largely out of control when it comes to her eating choices. The idea that this was determined feels freeing and she stops blaming herself so harshly. With more self-compassion, she starts eating healthier and quickly drops her weight. Conversely, Sarah, who is proud of her ‘gritty’ character, feels her agency empty down the drain along with meaning in her life. She doesn’t know who she is anymore and slides into a depression. She gives up salads and instead binges on fried chicken and Netflix. Or maybe nothing changes at all. They shrug and continue doing what they were doing. Whatever the reaction, it was bound to happen.  

    And this is where talking about determinism leaves us every time. In a determined world, a response to a book that says that free-will isn’t possible is no different than responding to any other event that happens to us. In the same way that it’s a shame that someone’s mother drank alcohol while they were a fetus, it’s a shame that the persuasively argued concept of determinism might cause thin Sarah to give up her healthy habits.

    Free will can’t be found in our brains because it’s a concept. And because it “emerges from felt experience”,2 it’s an especially salient concept, that’s not going anywhere. Like all the other concepts we’ve invented, free will can be useful, freeing, distracting or totally cast aside for us to live our lives the best we can.

    1. Robert Sapolsky, Determined: A Life Without Free Will ↩︎
    2. Sam Harris, Free Will ↩︎
    3. Sam Harris, Free Will ↩︎
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