More or less..

  I call now to the witness stand my own inner aspirations, because there seems to be quite a lot of inner conflict going on these days...

  The trouble comes from feeling the need to do more versus needing the feeling of doing less i.e. relaxation. Real relaxation, not just sitting my ass in a chair for five minutes, I mean no phone, no computer, no nothing. I need space and nature and a total disconnect before re-connecting again. This argument comes on the coattails of questioning my own yoga practice and how it balances out with my many other fitness aspirations, and furthermore, what those even are.
 
  I like obstacle runs. Spartans, Tough Mudders, trail runs or just regular old mud runs; I like that challenge, and I like to feel challenged and pull through something I didn't think I could. Part of it is just primal, the other part largely ego-driven, I'm sure but nevertheless, it's important to stay active and in good overall physical health, right?
 
  Well, yes. And no.

  You see, keeping a challenging physical routine going is not bad in and of itself. What's perceived internally as being negative is the stress and pressure I pile on top of myself every day to do something, anything, because if I don't I must surely be a failure and am going to be overweight tomorrow. Yes, it's sickening.
  I'm 29, 5'8 and 151 pounds, so I don't have much to pinch and thanks to my diligence in the past I have a fairly sculpted physique; I'm not chiseled out of stone but I look and feel good. I have run a Tough Mudder, a Spartan Sprint this year, a bunch of other 7+ mile trail runs in winter and other foot races of varying lengths. I'd say I'm in pretty decent shape.

  But it's never enough. I want more and be harder and faster and stronger but all the while the cortisol builds and my nerves are constantly frazzled. I thought exercise was supposed to help decrease stress?

  So this got me to thinking: What am I doing? And more importantly, why?

  I'm still not quite sure of that answer but in the meantime, I've convinced myself that I'm not a super-athlete, nor do I wish to be, and it's ok to take a day off. It's probably more than ok, actually. You know, go meditate for ten minutes to clear your headspace, have a nice dinner with your family and enjoy a beer dammit, because you earned it.

  Less is more, and it's a continuous struggle to completely assimilate the teachings of that lesson but it's getting there; like all things, it's a work in progress. Cheers, friends.

 

Post-Existential Uninhabit(at).

  Time is not our enemy friends, it's the perceived importance we've placed on it that is. Indeed, our entire culture would likely crumble into the dirt if suddenly there were no such things as 'time' or 'money' but would it be such a bad thing? What one sees as chaos or anarchy, another views as a return to a more natural order; the way things ought to be.
  We did it to ourselves, though; we always do. A novel idea becomes a crutch, a necessity of every day life but more like a slow cancer, in reality.

  Time ceased to exist long ago, it means nothing now: It's just numbers we stress out over fitting our days around. We make up rules and consequences for not abiding by this, for being "late". How ridiculous! If time, if money, if your precious schedule or the material items you own don't mean a pinch of shit when you're dead, then why should we think any differently of it when we're alive?
  This is our one chance, and we have to waste it slaving away to make money for someone else while all ours is being taken away?

  I normally don't voice my opinion of such things publicly. When I do, I'm already prepared to hear grumbles and scoffs and "that's life". Fuck you. We've forgotten how to live. Worse yet, we've never even been taught how to, we have to find this out later in life once we've blown the better part of it making all the wrong choices or none at all.

  You either decay actively or lethargically: choose wisely. 

  
  I was feeding the fish tonight, and it struck me that this is how life should be, this is as good as it gets and it's really all it's about. We used to build gardens, now we build cities. There used to be farms but now it's apartment complexes. It makes me sad only momentarily. What it makes me is angry. Furious, more accurately, and it should make you feel the same, god dammit.
  Trading resources natural to this Earth we inhabit, that all are entitled to but only the select few own the title to with glorified monopoly money. Ink on paper. It means something because we made it that way. There is no meaning to anything save for what we put on it, and we put meaning to the most meaningless things. 

  Wake up. Count your blessings. If you can do that, it means you're still alive and sucking air and there's still a chance for the whole wretched lot of us. Stop putting the control in someone else's hands and take it for yourself, for us all.