Grab My Wrist

Tolerating Bullshit

The article “Open-Minded Man Grimly Realizes How Much Life He’s Wasted Listening To Bullshit” on the parody news site, TheOnion.com, begins:

“CLEVELAND—During an unexpected moment of clarity Tuesday, open-minded man Blake Richman was suddenly struck by the grim realization that he’s squandered a significant portion of his life listening to everyone’s bullshit, the 38-year-old told reporters.

A visibly stunned and solemn Richman, who until this point regarded his willingness to hear out the opinions of others as a worthwhile quality, estimated that he’s wasted nearly three and a half years of his existence being open to people’s half-formed thoughts, asinine suggestions, and pointless, dumbfuck stories.”

It’s funny, but it also rings true. How much of our lives do we spend letting pointless, stupid, and just plain wrong junk influence our thoughts, moods, and activities? News, ranting talk show hosts, ads for things we don’t need, bogus heart-wrenching sob stories that get passed around the internet, as if our pity, tears, or righteous indignation make any bit of difference.

Practicing Aikido, and meditating, have helped me to see where I stand, what’s important, and where I want to place my focus.

Time is all we have. We should spend it wisely, on people and work and activities we love. Don’t waste a moment on things that don’t matter. Get up and walk away, delete it, turn it off, refuse to feed it with your energy. Let the bullshit fall to the ground unnoticed, to decay its own good time.

Who will we have become?

Sick with an ordinary cold
Nothing to do but wait it out
And feel sorry for myself
For missing class

Instead I settle in with videos
Random classes decades ago
Years before even my teacher 
First heard of Aikido

Awkward, white-belted beginners
Fresh-faced, eager, nameless ukes
Who have these people become?
Teachers? Writers? Leaders?

Do I know them?
Are they the ones showing the way now?
Do I go to their seminars?
Read their books? 

I think of our time, my fellow students, 
Even the awkward, nameless ones
Who will we have become
When people look back on us?

Year Three - Another Beginning

Today marks the beginning of my third year in Aikido.

When I first started training, I meant to become a better horseperson. I have, but part of the process has been to discover that I don’t want to have a horse of my own, and so he is off with a friend, looking for his new person.

At first I thought I would not bother with weapons. I’ve never been into swords and ninja and samurai. I was just going to stick with the open-hand stuff. Instead I discovered that I love weapons work.

When I first called Sensei to ask about training, I explained how I could only be at the dojo one night a week. Now I train four or five days a week, plus workshops and seminars.

At first I disregarded the “woo-woo” stuff I’d heard about. Now I see that the emotional, energetic, spiritual, and embodiment aspects are where the real fun is. Well, there, and flinging each other around the dojo. 

This year is a new adventure. I see a few familiar things on the horizon, a couple of seminars, and testing for 3rd kyu in July, but mostly I’m walking the path in wonder, open to discovering whatever lies ahead.

Training with My Whole Heart

About this time next week, if all goes according to plan, I will be packing up Rainy’s things, feeding him a few last carrots, and sending him off to live with a friend. She will be evaluating him, training him, and ultimately finding him a new person, and a new future. He’s bored and lonely here, and too talented to spend his youth puttering around my backyard with just two donkeys for company.

Rainy will be taking a day-long trip north to the bay area, in a big box stall on an air-ride semi-trailer. At the farm he will be living in a pasture with three playmates, and will be working with a trainer several days a week. It’s going to be a little rough on me, saying goodbye, but he’ll have fun there.

I am giving up riding. More accurately, I am giving up lying to myself about being a rider. Sure, I’ll go out with friends, or to a dude ranch now and then, but I’m letting go of saying that any day now I’m going to get around to taking regular lessons, training in dressage, doing groundwork in the yard, and putting some miles in on the trails. It hasn’t happened in the nearly 15 years I’ve had horses, and it’s not going to happen. It was a story I told about who I was, one I was very attached to, but it wasn’t true. It’s time to stop telling it.

I have had plenty of frustrations. I have faced challenges. I have been discouraged, injured, sick, busy… Rather than pointing the way toward this realization, those things actually kept me from seeing it. I thought things would be different when when my mare was healthy. I’d finally be able to commit to the time when I had the perfect job. Once my health was back on track, then things would work out. And after I’d gotten Rainy, it was that he wasn’t quite trained, and when he was a better horse, and after I had a year of Aikido behind me so I could be a better horseperson for him, then I’d ride all the time. Well I have the perfect job, I’m healthier than I have been in years, maybe ever, Rainy had a very successful four months of training, I’ve been training in Aikido for almost two years. Short of winning the lottery and hiring staff, the circumstances don’t get any better than this. And I’m still not riding.

It took me a year to fully recognize and explore the reality of the issue - to be certain I wasn’t just frustrated or discouraged with riding, or temporarily swept up in the intensity of learning a new discipline. Possibly looking for a shiny new identity to glom onto. The truth is that I work, I train, I write. I do gardening and photography. I spend weekends doing chores, running errands, and going on adventures with Michael. What I do not do is ride my horse. 

The central focus of my life has become Aikido. Not Aikido to improve my horsemanship. Not Aikido to become a better rider. Not for balance or strength or safety. Not in order to. Just Aikido.

When I finally saw and accepted where I was, and where I was going, after one Tuesday night’s class about exactly that - noticing where you are, noticing where you are going, and accepting it, so that you can go effectively in that direction - I wrote a note to Sensei, who has been an occasional sounding board as I have worked through the decision, or maybe discovery. Putting it down in words, finally telling someone, made it real for me.

That next evening in class I felt more “there” than I ever had. Rooted where I was, not drawn off balance by the pull of another side of myself, having somewhere else I should be, or trying to exist in two places at once. Several people commented, both in class and afterward, that my technique was really good. Things seemed simple, clear, easy. Settled.

Lao Tsu said ”When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

At first, maybe a year ago, I found this whole idea very upsetting. It was contrary to everything I’ve seen myself to be for most of my life - everything I worked very hard to be. I pushed back, denied it, and tried to find ways around it. I explored it over many months, sat with it, and now have accepted it. Rather than feeling a sense of loss, there is a sense of freedom. New space to explore. And integrity. Coming into alignment with myself.

“Tie me up and hold me down 
  (Oh, my traveling star) 
Bury my feet down in the ground 
  (Oh, old road dog) 
Claim my name from the lost and found 
And let me believe this is where I belong”

James Taylor, “My Traveling Star”

Happy New Year, 2011

I hope everyone’s holidays were peaceful and happy. Mine were laid back, no big deals. Some family, some friends, a great hike on New Year’s Day… And we adopted two kitties, after being catless for a few months. All in all a nice time.

It’s a new year, but there’s nothing really new. The rhythms of seasons, work, and the dojo continue like heartbeats and breathing, regular and reassuring. Last year, 2010, was mostly wonderful. No big vacations, no winning the lottery. I ended the year healthier than I started it, which is great (and for which I credit my Aikido training - and not at all just the physical part). But the big thing is that the little things went well. Just regular daily life - meaningful, engaging work, things going pretty well for family and friends, and training more, and getting more out of it than I could have imagined at the start of the year, and thoroughly enjoying every minute.

Pauliina Lievonen, one of the team that writes The Mirror column on AikiWeb.com, posted this on her Facebook page at the end of the year:

New year’s resolution: More of the same. :-)

That really hit the nail on the head. Sure, there’s room for improvement. There are things I’d like to do better, goals to be met, etc. But all in all, I’m very happy, and looking forward to continuing on in the same way, as much as possible.

I hope your 2010 was like that. And whether it was or wasn’t, I hope your 2011 is the kind of year that leaves you hoping for more of the same.