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Metaphysics, Motivation, Meditation
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Once again I bravely hold forth with qualifications consisting only of personal experiences over many, many, many, many, years (sigh).
I'm using 'metaphysics' neither in the religious or philosophical sense. 'Magical thinking' might be closer to the mark.
As in, when I was about eight years old I used to have a personal ritual just before
I walked to school. For some reason I went out of the house through the garage meaning I had a moment of privacy. I can see it
clearly in my mind's eye; I'd stand on the single step down into the garage, close my eyes, and jump off the step envisioning myself
flying in the style of Superboy.
Part of my mind knew this was absurd and perhaps indicated incipient insanity; but another, really gullible part was willing to gamble
on the off chance the Bible was being literal when it said, and I'm paraphrasing, you can do anything if you believe hard enough; and, I had participated in
saving Tinkerbelle a couple of years previously, and how hard was it to jump off a step five days a week anyway? But I really wasn't surprised
when I failed every day - maybe it wasn't possible, or maybe I just didn't believe hard enough - I guess my lack of surprise
proved that, but at eight I just knew you can't fly if you don't jump, and I kept it up.
But we soon moved to a house with a carport so I never flew.
I thought of that when trying to describe how I felt, probably less than a year ago, just before
I would start to jump rope. I couldn't help but expect it to be difficult, to require a lot of effort - it stood to reason.
But I knew from just the day before, and the day before that, going back weeks,
that it didn't - it just didn't. But when I wasn't actually jumping, it wasn't quite possible to believe my memory could be trusted.
So when I actually started
jumping and it really was effortless, it was just about as unexpected and as wonderful as if I had really taken off and flown when I was
eight years old. (I'm starting to remember I might have been older - I doubt even the rational part of my mind knew what 'incipient' meant at eight, so I'm shutting
down that line of thought).
Here's an experience that describes what I was expecting. When I was about 14, I dreamed I was a fantastic swimmer.
In real life, I was a terrible swimmer. I was fairly blind in the water, couldn't get the breathing right, and in general wasn't coordinated.
I had to be fished out once from the deep end when swimming laps for a boy scout merit badge; I was gradually drowning as I transitioned
from swimming to floundering but too embarrassed to say anything. I cling to the pride that I still had a little forward momentum when they
stuck the pole in front of me and started yelling - as they
obviously had noticed, I decided to grab it and live - if I didn't, someone would dive in and get me; even more embarrassing.
In the dream I could swim like anything; underwater, on top of the water, over, under, sideways, down. Any direction or attitude you care to put forward,
I never got water up my nose even once. So, when I woke up, it was a cruel disappointment that I had lost my new and best athletic skill. Ok, I had lost my only athletic skill,
and it had lasted about 10 dream minutes, and on top of that it was imaginary, so I was crushed. It was even worse than some other dreams
I had at the time that were going so well when I woke up. Ok, not worse or even nearly as bad, but pretty bad.
I was expecting, when I started jumping each day, to feel disappointment as bad as when I woke up from the swimming dream, or even the others,
for that matter. This probably happened every day for a month or more. The best way I can describe how I felt five seconds after I started
jumping is to compare the low of the disappointing dream scenario to the high of unexpectedly taking off and actually flying with no effort.
I tell you this in all sincerity, for at least half of the time I'm jumping, I'm no more aware of the effort than when
I'm walking in a straight line. I can't explain it; Have I built that much stamina? Are the endorphins generated by the exercise and the
joy of the dancing blocking the sensations of effort?, Have I just become accustomed to them so I ignore them like a minor stiff neck I've had for years -
I'm not even aware of pain when I twist it too far, but it's there if I think about it. Actually, I just tested it out, and I think it's less stiff.
Nearly everything about me has improved since I really got into JumpRock. But why wouldn't it? I jump until I can't jump anymore just about everyday.
I exercise every major muscle group. I push myself to the edge of my physical capacity and back over and over again almost by habit.
And none of this is in support of fitness or health. At one time my motivation was mood and energy, even after I started jumping rope.
Even the days of trying to learn were an improvement over riding the bike. The sessions were shorter and I'm sure I didn't get as much exercise.
But, we're talking ten days or so of stomping on a rope out of twenty-five years of riding the exercise bike. Plus trying to jump rope when
you're totally lame at it really does wear you out, and after all those years, just the sequence of working out and showering was enough to trigger the mood thing,
for a few days anyway.
So initially jump rope was just a potentially faster and more interesting way to satisfy my energy Jones. Now, Mr. Jones is no longer with us
because JumpRock is fun. JumpRock is creative. I'm always trying to jump a little further, or higher, or turn tighter, or just express the music better.
Every session seems to be a gain in strength and expression. I keep jumping when I'm tired because I'm elated that I can budget what I have left
and still enjoy my art. That's the first time I thought of it that way, but that's what it is. I'll leave it to others to judge whether it's dance or
not because I can hardly be objective.
Grant to me for the moment that it is a dance form. I don't care whether I invented it. To me, it's an entirely new dance form, and since I discovered
it, I've enjoyed music more than ever in my life. I've discovered new music that I didn't know about. I've discovered music I knew about but didn't
appreciate. I've sorted down to a list of over 600 songs that I rotate through and I'm always auditioning new music to work into the cycle.
Best of all, it's always fun - except the one time when my worn-thin rope broke and I found I couldn't jump as well with a regular one -
I sulked for three days - that'll show me.
It's always fun and I'm constantly getting better. It's as if each session is a continuation of the last. I've never had an athletic skill that
I'm good at or been a dancer, good or otherwise. As far as I know I'm the best 60 year old at this type of jump rope in the world, but I'm not
sure what that means, and I don't really care. I just know I'm good at it, and I love doing it, and I love getting better at it.
So that's my motivation.
It seems like it could be a pretty good motivation for almost anybody. I like being the best, or at least having a rationale for imagining I am;
but what's that next to successfully promoting these ideas? Literally millions of people who think exercise is too tedious and uncomfortable could
realize how much fun they could have while improving their lives daily, cumulatively, and indefinitely into the future.
You may have noticed there's nothing about meditation. The short and the long of it is, I read a book about TM once and I don't remember much except
feeling ripped off when I got to the end and found out the book wasn't going to teach me. But in related news, I feel more
centered and better in just about every way since I started jumping. And when I'm in the "flow" of the endorphins and the music,
I don't know if it's the same as meditation, but it's totally freakin' awesome, as the kids say, or said at one time.
I lost track of the slang-time continuum around
the time Huey Lewis, by destroying pop music with "Hip To Be Square" and the like and
making me like it (Not Rock and Roll, Nothing can destroy Rock and Roll), ripped away my fingernail hold on any vestige of youth and hurled me headlong and face-first into a neuro-smashup of self-awareness: I had been in a stunted but
almost recognizable form of adulthood already for years now. How could I have missed all the signs ...
OhMiGod, It's coming back, I danced to it - I was a dancer, a bad one, I danced to it, and I still know some of the same people!!! Aaaarrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!
Anyway, just before I repressed that memory (or maybe after, how would I know?), I'm like
"Dude, I grew up in the sixties when we didn't even say 'dude' (as I recall). My
G-g-g-generation will always be hip - (HA!) - but we will never be square - (HA! again)."
Is that true? Was I already square at the time, and did we even say 'dude' in the early eighties? I danced to it!!! My perceived-through-the-mists-of-time-self-esteem is crumbling. I have to rationalize, and quickly.
Think, think. Ok try this. Everything during that period was done to achieve the Primary Goal, regardless of personal humiliation. Hey, that works - I did
what I had to in order to, uh, accomplish the - crap!!!, another humiliating memory recovered!
I know what the eighties were like from living through them. What possible good could result from going back?
Let's stop trying to make repairs, send this baggage back through one of the Time Passages to Hotel California, and forget it all happened (again).
Now I repent agreeing with Pete Townshend when he sang the lyrics 'I Hope I
Die Before I Get Old', because it's actually going quite well. But I look around and see so many people my age and younger deliberately
reject any effort to help themselves be healthier, or happier, or even a little bit hip. They seem to regard decrepitude as inevitable in
spirit, mind, and body and actually invite it to get settled in so they can stop struggling. That's the old I would rather have been dead than get, so I don't so
much repent it as qualify it retroactively.
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