Thank You and I'm Sorry ... Infinite Forgiveness

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes
Sometimes everything is wrong.
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on '
Cause everybody hurts.
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts.
Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries.
And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes.
So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts.
You are not alone.

R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts

Well, Let's just say I am going through some terrible mental problems right now that training for an Ironman can give you. The constant intense training mixed with reduced calorie intake and a few days lack of sleep can wear ones soul down to a pretty raw state. It is in this raw state that I have come face to face with some parts of myself that I don't like. You wouldn't really see it on my face or how I hold myself, even if you know me really well. But, let me tell you that it is there and it is my challenge on this Ironman cycle. I'm tired and will write when I feel better.

FYI - my friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Half Ironman ... Complete!

So I finished my half Ironman Training Race this morning. I'm glad that is over. Whew!

Start Temp: 73 Degrees

Finish Temp: 91 Degrees

Distances: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run

Swim: 27 Minutes, 07 Seconds (AVG. 1:17 per 100)

Bike: 2 Hours, 53 Minutes, 13 Seconds (AVG 19.3 MPH)

Run: 2 Hours, 01 Minute, 24 Seconds (9:15 Minute per Mile)

Transitions: 8 Minutes, 2 Seconds (5.75, 2.27)

Finish Time: 5 Hours, 29 Minutes, 46 Seconds

FYI - my friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called theTempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Positivity in Negative Times ...

Here are some inspiring words while we enter these dark and perilous times. I hope for the best for all my friends and relatives over the next few weeks and months. Be prepared and be aware!

"Most of us can learn to live in perfect comfort on higher levels of power. Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. It is evident that our organism has stored-up reserves of energy that are ordinarily not called upon - deeper and deeper strata of explosible material, ready for use by anyone who probes so deep. The human individual usually lives far within his limits." - William James

"The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are; first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, common sense." - Thomas Edison

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them." - George Bernard Shaw

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." - Lao Tzu

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

"You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life. It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive." - Arnold Bennett

Get Crazy

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Problem occurs. How do you respond?

“Oh, Man!!! Why Me?!!?” That’s one option.

Or, mabye: “Sweet! Another chance to see if I can meet this challenge. Let’s get it on!!”

Problems are good. How else are you going to show what you’re made of?!?

Get Crazy!

In these perilous financial times, let's put things in perspective. We can either be afraid and be mad or we can get crazy and use it as a challenge. Remember, what you 'focus' on is what expands your universe.

“Problems are God’s resistance to create spiritual muscles.”

~ Tony Robbins

FYI - my friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

The Mathematical Equation for Opinion Manipulation Through the Use of the Control Machine

"It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion. Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play."

- Joseph Goebbels

"Words realize nothing, verify nothing to you, unless you have suffered in your own person the thing which the words try to describe. A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the reader's way and makes it plain; a close approximation to it will answer, and much traveling is done in a well-enough fashion by its help, but we do not welcome it and applaud it and rejoice in it as we do when the right one blazes out on us. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt: it tingles exquisitely around through the walls of the mouth and tastes as tart and crisp and good as the autumn-butter that creams the sumac-berry."

- Mark Twain

I found this on a mathematics 'word problem' website:
"The hardest thing about doing word problems is taking the English words and translating them into mathematics. Usually, once you get the math equation, you're fine; the actual math involved is often fairly simple. But figuring out the actual equation can seem nearly impossible. Be advised, however: To really learn "how to do" word problems, you will need to practice, practice, practice."

So, my thoughts that I have had for a few years now, finely tuned, honed and distilled by countless swims, bikes and runs, will now be addressed. Hopefully.

This is a theory I have had on how to reverse the mathematical equation and apply it to English grammar. Basically, reversing the above statement: Taking mathematical equations and applying them to the word, sentence and paragraph. Even to complete books. I think choosing certain words and grouping them together in a certain way can obtain a desired effect, i.e. an emotional response or feeling. So, if you can repeat the desired effect with different combination of words, then one can focus a message and control the unknowing recipient.

PR people, marketing executives and politicians know this. It's what their job is about.

One timely event that should strengthen my theory is the upcoming presidential debates, starting Friday, September 26th.
Watch how each candidate carefully selects the words, sentences and paragraphs to say the least and evoke the most emotional response as possible to get you to vote for them. They answer a question without answering the question.

Words are symbols for concepts.
Concepts catagorize experience.
Experience provides knowledge.
Knowledge is expressed in words that are symbols of concepts.

It's funny because I have been interested in this subject for quite a long time. When I was 22-years-old and in my Communications 101 class in college, I wrote my thesis paper on "Shamanism and Language: The Creation of Reality Through Words." The main concept was that in aboriginal cultures, words were magic symbols which created patterns of thought which created realities. The Shaman would cast "magic spells" to help and heal the community. Sorcerers would cast "spells" to harm people. I stated that nothing has changed except amount of words the "controllers/media" (who used to be the shamans/sorcerers) have access to.

Seriously. At 22. (Oh, and for credibility, I got an A on the paper and in the class!!!)

So, here's the idea:
The mass media industrial concerns in both the commercial and governmental sectors that deal with information control spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually practicing the art of propaganda. Corporations, as well as the federal government of America, have spent many decades and hundreds of billions of dollars researching how best to effect the opinions of the American people.

The information available to the ordinary common American is radically less than that which is available to the producers of mass media or 'information' campaigns which use advertising agencies, public relations firms and political consultants.

An uninformed, ignorant populace is far easier to manipulate than an educated, thinking populace.

American culture has devolved into a materialistic consumption oriented society, uninformed and ignorant.

Opinion manipulation is practiced so individuals may acquire wealth. (i.e. advertising, marketing through branding)

This is the current American way of life.

It is known that the human brain processes different sensory mediums in different ways.
Written and spoken words are put through a symbol decoding process where the brain deciphers the words and the sentence structure in order to properly interpret what the mind is reading or hearing. In this process, both the conscious and unconscious mind go through an internal debate comparing and interpreting new information with what is already known to be true.

Two individuals communicating through words, written or spoken, that come from the same culture and social group will necessarily understand one another better than those that come from a different culture or social group. Even within the same culture and social groups those with different experience sets such as age, place of birth, social classification, work experience and hobbies will necessarily experience corruption of the original conceptual image created by the word symbols.

This corruption is inevitable.

By taking emotional responses attached to the words of the greatest common denominator of the human experience, those at the helm of the control machine can cross culture and social groups and reach the greatest number of their audience.
Fear of the unknown, the urge to mate/copulate and the acquisition of wealth are the key emotional reactions they use.

"We are what we think." - Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

We are what we think is true in that our mental lives, which others experience as our attitude, predicates what we will become.The essence of reality suggests that thoughts creating actions of compassion will be reflected back as compassion; and thoughts creating actions of avarice will be reflected back as avarice!

By knowing this, the powers that be can engineer and replicate emotional responses with words just like a mathematical equation always has the same answer. That's the mathematical equation for opinion manipulation.

So what are you thinking? And, who or what is influencing your thinking?
Is the mathematics of nearest common denominator opinion manipulation controlling you or your life?

You'll know when 2 + 2 = 5.

I know this was a stretch and that there are many concepts here that could be expanded. Leave me a comment and expand on this discussion with your own thoughts. I'm just freethinking this concept and trying to organize my thoughts on it ...

"During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information. It would not be impossible to prove, with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the individuals concerned, that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas in disguise."

- Hermann Hesse

FYI - my friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Impossible Things ...

"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Every morning before breakfast I re-affirm my goals for the day. Sometimes, the impossible schedule of the day becomes barely possible. It is in that brief moment that I grab hold of my dreams and make them real.

That's Ironman training, and racing, at it's core. The impossible becomes possible. Eventually the distortion in your head that says "can't", "impossible" slowly gives way to a faint voice from way down below that says "can", "possible." In that very moment, the battle is won.

FYI - my friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Do or do not. There is no try.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

~ Yoda, Jedi Master

I’m going to try to get up early tomorrow morning.

I’m going to try to lose that weight.

I’m going to try to create a beautiful, loving relationship.

I'm going to try to...

Do or do not. There is no try.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

Carlos Castenada - from A Separate Reality

So, my cousin and her son did the Nautica Malibu Triathlon last weekend and killed it. My nephew, Blaine(15), averaged a 6:30 minute mile to podium. And he rode a mountain bike. Freakin' awesome! Props to you on having fun, keep it up. Oh, and Eric ... What's up with the man-crush on Matthew McConaughey? Oh, I get it, you were just taking those pictures for Gail. Got it. (Hope you don't mind I used one of your pics for the blog.)

And in other news - it was my birthday yesterday. As I get older, I realize the importance of living the healthy, fitness based lifestyle. My goal is not to live forever, but to make those days I am here much, much more enjoyable. As I look at more and more older people around me, I realize the importance of the health investments I am making now. These investments will pay dividends far beyond the original 'up-front' costs. Especially when the compounding interest of time starts occurring in those oh-so-important latter years. I want to see my children and, hopefully, my grandchildren have fun and be there DOING it with them. That's when all my deposits into the Bank of Longevity should extend the due date of my 'loan' - this human body. Hopefully, especially in these current times, the Bank of Longevity does not go bankrupt before it's time.

That reminds me of one of my favorite writings by Allen Ginsburg:

Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

Take my love, it is not true,
So let it tempt no body new;
Take my lady, she will sigh
For my bed where’er I lie;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take my raiment, now grown cold,
To give to some poor poet old;
Take the skin that hoods this truth
If his age would wear my youth;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take the thoughts that like the wind
Blow my body out of mind;
Take this heart to go with that
And pass it on from rat to rat;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take the art which I bemoan
In a poem’s crazy tone;
Grind me down, though I may groan,
To the starkest stick and stone;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Focus

Your daily life - with all its opportunities, challenges and dilemmas - is a composite reflection of your recent focus of attention. Shift this focus, and you will begin to realize new dimensions of unmanifest potential. Watch and learn as this energy moves. Whatever you focus on expands.

So, be vigilant on what your focus is.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

The Lord and Master of My Universe

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power."

~ Lao-tzu, 6th century bce Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism from Tao Te Ching

I always try to analyze where my focus is.

Am I trying to master myself? Or am I trying to master others?

That reminds me of another quote:

"When superior people hear of the Way, they carry it out with diligence. When middling people hear of the Way, it sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not. When lesser people hear of the Way, they ridicule it greatly. If they didn't laugh at it, it wouldn't be the Way."

~ Lao-tzu, 6th century bce Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism from Tao Te Ching

By mastering myself, true power, I don't let others (lesser people) bring me down when they laugh at or ridicule me at for following my passions.

So, follow your visions and master yourself.

Those that matter don't mind. Those that mind, don't matter.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

~ Carlos Castaneda, 20th century mystic and Toltec warrior from Journey to Ixtlan

One of my mantras in my first Ironman was "running hurts and walking hurts, so why not run?"

Every moment we choose to be miserable or we choose to be strong. Let your mantra help you.

Time to become harder, better, faster, stronger.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

More Control: A Mantra, Part 2

“The word mantra comes from two Sanskrit words man, (“to think”) and tra (“tool’). So the literal translation is “a tool of thought.” And that’s how mantras are used in Buddhist and Hindu practices, as tools that clear your mind of distractions. Because when you focus on repeating that mantra over and over again, soon the noise will die down and all you will hear is your inner voice.”

~ Russell Simmons, hip-hop mogul from Do You!

Mantra = “Tool of thought.”

So ... what mantra are you knowingly, or unknowingly, chanting in your head?

The cool thing is, when you finally hear your inner voice, you realize all the other voices aren't yours. Hmmmm ...

By the way, one of my mantras, for those that asked, is "Now is the only thing that's real, so be here now!" - The past doesn't exist and the future doesn't exist. It's always NOW. NOW is where it's at. But, the past got you to this moment and your future is decided in this moment, so NOW is where the change is made. The mantra is a tool of the NOW. While training for and racing an Ironman, that mantra, for me, is everything.

I Can part with that.

Control: A Mantra for Change

"We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk."

~ Carlos Castaneda, 20th century mystic and Toltec warrior from A Separate Reality

We're always talking to ourselves. Mind chatter ...

Just as Hinduism and Buddhism encourage us to control our mind, Shamanic wisdom teaches us to control our "internal dialogue."

Training for the Ironman has taught me to have a mantra that I can recite over and over to dispel my negative thoughts when I am unmotivated and don't want to train. Luckily, that mantra also works outside of training. At any moment it brings me back to my source, my center, allowing me to regroup and reevaluate my direction.

Mind control is the most important skill to reach a goal. A mantra is a good tool to begin controlling the mind.

The question is: What is your mantra?

Is it your mantra or a mantra inseminated by the media ... a message implanted by the television or radio?

- OR -

Is it a mantra given to you by your parents, teachers or friends?
Once I found my true self mantra, that made all the difference.

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/

A Bodhisattva mask for the dance

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."

~ Viktor Frankl from Man's Search for Meaning

Wow.

Too often, we want to live in the “tensionless” state we can find watching television or, for some of us , in the state of meditation in meditation—transcending the throes of our daily challenges.

But that’s not the point of life.

The point?

To find a goal worthy of us and to spend our lives “striving and struggling” to fulfill the potentiality within us.

As we truly engage in this passionate pursuit of our potential, an effortless effort comes in that beats any idea of benign “tensionless-ness.”

Our potential is calling.

Let’s answer.

__________________

Interesting Thoughts ...

My friend Ed is running the Ironman with me and is raising money for a local charity called the Tempe Community Action Agency. If you can help in anyway, that would be awesome. Here is the link:

http://edtheironman.blogspot.com/