Xenosthesia.com

Slowshoeing

Have you ever seen the strangest sport ever?

It operates the opposite from all other sports in its arena. While all other mountain sports enjoy a fast downhill and some sweet airtime, participants in this sport are going slow on the downhill. Slow? Not only do they go slow downhill, they go slower than they did on the way up the mountain. How anyone can enjoy a sport like that, I honestly don’t know.

Then there’s the air factor (and here I mean being up in it, not breathing it). I’ve seen the occasional mountain biker who doesn’t take the jumps and catch some air. I don’t understand them either. My brain wonders what the point is of going up the mountain only to go down in a moderate shuffle. To be fair, some of the ones who go down in this fashion are older people, though I have seen younger kids doing it. My guess for the younger ones is that they’re inexperienced and timid on the jumps. They fear the broken bone. The old ones have the same fear, probably, though they also have the decrease of function to worry about. Of course, all I have are guesses and inference from observations. My purpose for riding is not theirs. And that is the same for the strangest sport ever. Those who participate in the strangest sport are obviously not like me. They don’t think the same as me. They don’t sport the same as me.

I’m referring to the sport of trail running. Optimistically, I can see the charm of being in nature. It’s definitely more appealing to be in the trees than it is to be among the never-ending lines of automobiles where some runners run. The air in the mountains is more healthy than on the road. Despite these obvious similarities, it’s difficult for me to imagine any other appeal. What is the motivation of a trail runner?

For the sake of comparison, let’s list some other mountain sports. Luge, skeleton, and bobsled may not be the first sports you think of when you think of mountain sports, but I’m sure if you think about any of these, you’ll realize they all go fast downhill. Snowboarders may take a lift up to the top of the mountain, and it may take a long time to get there, but they go considerably faster on the way down. Skiers do the same. Even those who go beyond the groomed trails of a ski slope, carrying their skis or board on a backpack, go slow uphill (sometimes by snowshoe) and fast downhill. When the snow is gone, downhill mountain bikers may take the same gondola that the skiers and snowboarders took to the top of a mountain, but they don’t plod down the mountain, they rocket.

One of the reasons trail runners plod downhill is because the sport is hard on a body. Running in general is hard on the knees, ankles, and hips. Adding the extra gravity of a slope also adds to the pounding on the body. The pounding of a runner’s game can result in ailments such as bone spurs and plantar fasciitis, among many others. The wear-and-tear can affect a runner’s tendons, cartilage, and joints. The bones in a joint can be used beyond the design until they begin to touch. Bones aren’t meant to rub together unless you’re talking about teeth. Even then, the action can be painful.

So let’s weigh it all together. You’ve got the injurious factor, multiplied by rough terrain, loose rocks to stumble over, slopes which add to the wear-and-tear on the body. You’ve got the slowness factor (weighted heaviest as a negative). You’ve got the no-airtime factor (next heaviest). To counter those negatives, you have pleasant scenery and fresh air to breathe as positives. Putting it all this way, in this perspective, tells me there must be a measure of insanity to a trail runner, unless they’ve somehow never heard of hiking. You could get the same fresh air and beautiful scenery while hiking and have none of the excessive strain on the body. Hikers, even snowshoers, can enjoy the scenery both up and down the mountain and at the same speed in both directions. Nothing seems strange about that.

I suppose if you want the hardcore burn of one thousand stair laps, maybe the best advice would be to trade in the slowshoes for some snowshoes.

Sweaters

What kind of sweater are you? There are so many different kinds.

There are so many different ways to SWEAT.

1. Armpit sweater: the most common type and possibly the easiest to handle (unless it’s a number 13).

2. Chest sweater: usually noticeable on guys when they exercise.

3. Forehead sweater: you know it’s going to end up on the back of the hand.

4. Under-the-hair sweater: it comes leaking, creeping out.

5. Back sweater: again, this is mostly guys when they exercise, but exactly like chest sweat, women experience it too.

6. Everywhere sweater: those poor souls.

7. “Aaaugh! It’s in my eyes!” sweater: if this ever happens to you, then you know how bad it can be.

8. Crotch sweater: ewww!

9. Palm sweater: do NOT shake hands.

10. Back-of-the-knees sweater: gets stuck to the leather sofa.

11. Neck sweater: brown collar on a white shirt.

12. Just-drank-a-beer sweater: sometimes known as the maintain-your-distance sweater (see number 13).

13. 13 foot sweater: minimum distance to keep the nose alive.

14. Beltline sweater: how?

15. Nervous sweater: doesn’t even have to work, only worry.

16. And those who only “glisten”. Create your own reality.

Remember-It-All

What if we really know everything there is to know, but we have to relearn, and remember, it all?

This is an idea based on the fact that we all come from somewhere and we’re all going somewhere, though we can’t see that far. We don’t know everything, do we?

Any human who assumes to have reality dialed in is usually only deluded. Such a person is drowning in overconfidence.

You’ve probably met someone who has an answer for every question, but no questions of their own. These are people who have become static. They’ve stopped learning. In other words, they think they know it all. They have “no need” to learn more because they think they have all the knowledge possible inside their minds already. Of course, if they truly know it all, why haven’t they transcended like a Buddha? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

It will also make you so, so “jealous”, but only with your best sarcastic voice. Wouldn’t it be nice to be sure of yourself in any discussion and on every possible topic?

We don’t know everything.

To that statement I would add an all-caps YET.

We don’t know everything…yet. Isn’t it a possibility that we’ve forgotten what we knew before we were born into these corporeal forms, and that we only need to remember it all?

Certainly some people are better at remembering than others, which leaves us with another question: those who claim to know it all, why are they so ready to make a claim of knowledge and not a claim of learning? Why is it more common for such a person to act as if it was all their doing? Are we supposed to believe this person never had a teacher, never read a book or watched a television program? Are we supposed to believe they collected all the learning on their lonesome without anyone else’s help? It would be easier to believe Sasquatch stole my sack lunch than the idea of an entity who knows everything due to a singular brain cell collecting facts from the universe by absorption and adsorption and osmosis and then imparting that knowledge through narcissistic monologs.

(And isn’t that an accurate description of a ‘blog post?) Yessir, we are getting to know ourselves better the more words come out of us, aren’t we?

All of this begs the question: Which are deeper, the mysteries of the universe, or the mysteries within ourselves?

Beach Love

No matter where you are or what you’re doing, there’s a way to escape. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do.

There may be a time when the system which calls itself your society seems to be trying to force you to work for them. It could be through school, a job, or a “social norm”. None of these are truly required if you accept yourself as a free individual.

It should be noted, as a word of caution, that many who have realized this truth have gone too far beyond their ability to be self-reliant, and then fallen prey to a different kind of requirement. Illicit drugs, for example, are not a method of exhibiting freedom, only another way to enslave, or to be enslaved.

A great way to avoid the intentional and unintentional tyrannies is to go to the beach. Going to the beach can be done literally or figuratively. Even a person with a mediocre imagination can take a minute and picture a beach.

Call up an image of sea and sand. Imagine yourself wandering shoeless along the warm expanse of wet sand. Hear the waves gently pushing up the beach. See gulls capturing the breeze to glide, dip, and rise again.

Where will you go? What will you do on the beach today?

Anything you can imagine, because you’re free.

Beauty In Shadow

For every “safe to say” there’s a “sorry to say“.

For every break up there’s a make up.

Whether the make up is accepted or not will determine whether the couple will be elevated or devoured by the shadowy creeping things.

Probably safe to say the couple in question isn’t thinking about the creeping things. Sorry to say though, that the creeping things are definitely considering the couple, not as a couple, but as single units. Snacks to be savored over months and years. Slow demise once they’re single.

When boy leaves girl, or girl leaves boy, he or she doesn’t know an opening is created for the hungry devouring shadows to snatch one, to drag one, boy or girl, down into the darkness.

Boys and girls with determination will be more likely to escape. And it doesn’t matter if the boy or girl is determined to stay in the relationship or leave it. The determination to TAKE ACTION will get him or her out of the shadows and back to living. Only the ones who give up really become a meal for the many-limbed malevolence.

Making up, some will realize, doesn’t absolutely mean getting back together. In some relationships, making up means forgiveness and lots of distance. In those, often, the one, girl or boy, who returned from the creeping things, will recognize the shadows surrounding the other, and will know not to hang around. In those relationships, the beauty is in knowing.

Girls and boys who grow stronger from escaping the shadows, have a better chance than those who have not yet been down there.