Who We Really Are

 "No pain, no death, is more terrible to a wild creature than its fear of man. A red-throated diver, sodden and obscene with oil, able to move only its head, will push itself out from the sea-wall with its bill if you reach down to it as it floats like a log in the tide. A poisoned crow, gaping and helplessly floundering in the grass, bright yellow foam bubbling from its throat, will dash itself up again and again on to the descending wall of air, if you try to catch it. A rabbit, inflated and foul with myxomatosis, just a twitching pulse beating in a bladder of bones and fur, will feel the vibrations of your footstep and will look for you with bulging, sightless eyes. Then it will drag itself away into a bush, trembling with fear.

We are the killers. We stink of death. We carry it with us. It sticks to us like frost. We cannot tear it away."

From The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker

Hard to Thrill

 "Hard to thrill, nothing really moves me anymore, hard to thrill, nothing really moves me anymore, there is nothing you can show me that I haven't seen before

I got time to kill, keeping to myself inside this room, time to kill, keeping to myself inside this room, over 40 years of Fridays, and you'd give up trying too"

From Hard to Thrill, Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale

Shit, the only reason I'm hard to thrill is that I killed everything inside of me. Burned it, beat it, smothered it, starved it - been specializing in that unique form of torture for five decades now. Got it down pretty good.

I did not realize that there was an ember smoldering in there, absolutely fucking refusing to give up the ghost, a small, very tiny bit of essence that cannot be killed until I am actually dead.

It's been throwing off a little more heat lately.

You never know.

You never really fucking know.

Random Thoughts on Wimbledon and Other Stuff

 Rublev vs Alcaraz. Rublev won the first set. Holy shit. Those boys were hitting those balls hard - sounded like bombs going off.

Unbelievable volleys - thrilling, edge of the seat shit - how many shots? How many shots? Amazing.

But, after the first set it was Alcaraz time. Champions get pissed off when they under-perform and then they say "Fuck this - I am Carlos Alcaraz. I will kick it up a notch and you will suffer." Carlos wins the next three sets.

Djokovic vs De Minaur. De Minaur won the first set. Holy shit. He put up a fight - long volleys - one volley was 32 shots. After that, Djokovic dominated but was down 4-1 in the fourth set. Champions get pissed off - he thought "Fuck this, I am Djokovic. I have levels of performance you can only dream of. I do not want to play a fifth set. You must suffer."

He won the fourth set 6-4, won the match in four.

The other side: Alcaraz vs Norrie. Sports can be cruel. Alcaraz dominated Norrie in every way possible - the guy was helpless. Embarrassed. Keep in mind - the guy did not reach the quarter finals at Wimbledon because he sucks. The match only took 1 hour and 39 minutes. Sadly, he is British, so he got his ass kicked in front of the home crowd.

Here are my thoughts - we all need a "fuck this" setting. Life will beat you like a red headed stepchild. Comes a time when you gotta get up off the ground with fists flying and knock some teeth down life's throat.

And we all get our asses handed to us sometimes. So you grab yourself a few drinks, meditate a little, then listen to Appetite for Destruction all the way through LOUD, and go out and give it another shot.

Life is a fucking battle, man, but you can make something out of it if you're not afraid to get your teeth kicked in once in a while.

Jesus said that.

Be Careful

 Creating your own sadness is a furious insult to life.

You'll Get There

 Comes a time in your life when "I'm sorry" doesn't mean shit.

I'm Only Human, For Christ Sake

I'm looking for absolution.

Please forgive me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clarify Your Intentions

 "Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It's not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drives them mad."

Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind 

"Plan all the way to the end" Law 29 of The 48 Laws of Power  By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead."  Robert Greene

The second habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is: begin with an end in mind. Having an end in mind is no guarantee that you'll reach it - no Stoic would pretend otherwise -  but not having an end in mind is a guarantee you won't. To the Stoics, oiesis (false conceptions) are responsible not just for disturbances in the soul but for chaotic and dysfunctional lives and operations. When your efforts are not directed at a cause or purpose, how will you know what to do day in and day out? How will you know what to say no to and what to say yes to? How will you know when you've had enough, when you've reached your goal, when you've gotten off track, if you've never defined what those things are?

The answer is that you cannot. And so you are driven into failure - or worse, into madness by the oblivion of directionlessness

All this stuff came into my world thanks to 100 Foot Wave, a series I'm watching about big wave surfers. A series that demonstrates, in the extreme, that life does not have to be boring.

These people are insane in a great way. What they do is dangerous. What they do keeps them alive.

They are THINKERS. They think about life. Many of them meditate. They are all about getting their minds right. They talk about life, they wonder about the value of what they do, they wonder if they should do something else, they think about what life should be. As opposed to you and me, who muddle through, and accept boredom as the norm until just before the end, when we go screaming into the abyss.

In this episode, the wife of one of the legendary surfers whispers all of the above, the "beginning with an end in mind" stuff, into her husband's ear as they curl up together on the bed. Calming him. Focusing him.

"The oblivion of directionlessness" slapped me wild awake at around 1:00 a.m. as I was watching this. That's exactly what is torturing me.

Came to Belmont at the end of 2023 fueled by euphoria. Our lives became spectacular overnight. That lasted through knee replacement, which kept me distracted, through the beginning of 2025.

Then I started focusing on the end. Two weeks, 20 years, doesn't matter - the end of my life is within sight. And I am determined to leave a mark.

I got past the rude awakening of the oblivion of directionlessness, and looked up the quotes. Read them, re-read them.

Shit makes perfect sense. I gotta keep the end in mind and incorporate everything in my life around that. But I gotta define the end. It's not just death; it's who I want to be when that comes along.

Flailing around aimlessly is not going to get me where I need to be.

Key phrases to think about:

1) It's not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drives them mad

2) Plan all the way to the end

3) Gently guide fortune

4) Begin with an end in mind

5) When your efforts are not directed at a cause or purpose, how will you know what to do day in and day out?

6) And so you are driven into failure - or worse, into madness by the oblivion of directionlessness