Cutting Ties II
Woah!!! Who would have known that the choice to get off social for personal reasons would create such a ripple effect?
Are you good?
Things at home good?
How has work been?
Also had a few emails and comments congratulating me on this choice to disconnect from pandora’s box; that was surprising as well.
The red flags pop up for some as we know that pulling away is a sign of suicidal tendencies in today’s society and those close to me know that this is part of my design as a human, and this is a healthy exit for me long term. That is what it feels like to me and only twenty-four-plus hours into being drug-free of social media comes a boost of creative energy and excitement for what’s to come.
What is funny, is my mind won’t shut the fuck up, it keeps telling me, “get rid of everyone you follow and it won’t be an issue.” It is not about those who follow me or vice versa, no it is about not taking in the shotgun amount of information that creates a lag in my ability to focus. For me as a high-performing human, the goal is to learn ways not to waste energy, and find new ways to be more efficient in my day-to-day behaviors and actions.
With social media, my behaviors are like everyone else, and if you don’t think you have a problem then you haven’t taken a break and disconnected from this artificial world that we all come to love so dearly.
For me, it’s that saying, “out of sight out of mind,” so my behavior of grabbing my phone and going through a kinematic sequence to get me to scroll comes from the app being on my phone, no matter where it is hidden. Reminds me of the crack-head, looking for their crack pipe cause the high is barely wearing off and they need that little hit to keep them above the clouds. Guess what, scrolling is that hit of the crack pipe and this choice is to break the cycle of addiction that infected me as it once did in twenty-twenty.
The next ripple effect was with SFLT and a couple of questions about production for reels and content came into the conversation. Of course, it will be run through the main SFLT page, and it will be posted by someone else, not me.
From a personal standpoint it’s time to go through withdraws and the withdraws are not bad, they are rewarding and relieve a bit of the pain and suffering. Being in the world of strength and conditioning and human performance the main goal of mine when collectively working with another human towards a goal is to find ways to relieve pain and suffering in some fashionable sense, cause this can lead to true happiness; instead of trying to find what pleasures or pleases their ego.
As the crackhead would say, he is only avoiding the dope sickness that comes from the high. The dope sickness with social media is never ending, at least that’s how it feels for me.
Then the next thing happen - a demand that a check of social media needed to happen. At least once a day through the laptop on our main SFLT account and to answer any training questions that needed to be answered. Over the past month, and year, let me tell you how many questions that were answered through the socials for me - less than ten. Why is it that? Well over the years boundaries were built by me and are in place to direct all training or business-related questions through email. Why is this, well it is more professional for me from a communication process and keeping my work windows sacred.
As this little idea of cutting ties came to fruition, hesitation dropped and kicked me in the chest, doubts and resistance showed their faces and for a couple of weeks, a war within me went back and forth till my heart won and lead me to this beautiful choice.
Is social media a good place to be and does it have positives? Of course. Does it bring value to many? Yes, but my page isn’t a place used to market business or the conversation that you didn’t share my stuff or their stuff, or you cannot repost that cause it goes against your non-compete, and you could be fired.
My platform came to feel as if it wasn’t mine anymore and that it was pleasing others, that is my own fault.
Cutting ties gave me my power and control back, no longer is it in anyone’s hands but mine, with boundaries and deliverables that meet the mark for me morally and ethically to live within my design as a human.
Seth Godin Blog a post by him on 1/31/23.
Cutting Ties
It feels as if the world is being controlled by this grand puppet master these days, the strings are not strings anymore. It is a small rectangular device that keeps us connected to things that are not important or at least falsely entangling the mind to think that it may be important on some universal level.
It feels as if the applications that we create, build, and use is the new means of business development but that is apart of this meta verse that consumes our minds. Over the years, many humans have built a wonderful life outside of the current evolution of technology today. Still till this day those humans continue to create without the means of social media and the resistance that comes with it over time.
If feels as if gripping the metal scissors turns me into a serial killer and the spree is going to be against anything that does not provide a value for me long term in the phase my life is in at the moment. In the midst of my Master Degree, moving into a massive program development phase for SFLT, collaborating with humans who’ve entrusted me with their goals, plus other creative outlets that bring joy and pleasure to my heart; not my mind.
If feels as if this next step in cutting the strings from social media is a great move and keeping the blog running. See writing in this manner is a way for me to have variability in my daily activities and helps me form energy from one to the other which helps me breathe more in life. My family time is super important and having the bandwidth to play more is something that fuels my heart even more than my professional obligations that have been built by my own hands.
If feels as if this is the right decision and direction for me and that is what’s important more than anything. A couple years back, in November of twenty-twenty a purged happen and social media was a victim of that purge and the feeling of mental energy that form in me was unbelievable, a lot of positive energy helped improve my quality of life and those close to me felt the ripple effects of this murder on social media.
If feels as if the speakers in my head are blown and this static creates a overwhelming effect that draws me down the rabbit hole of useless nonsense or comparing my abilities to a world that’s not mine. When deep down inside this heart of gold comes the confidence to believe in my abilities to keep building a life without being attach to the grand master of the puppet show and be connected to a outside puppet master that does things the old school way: Newsletters, videos, and blogs through a website.
If feels as if it is time to separate from this world and create in my own world and not for a world that carries very little return of investment for me in this current phase of life. If you are someone who enjoys reading my creative work and the adventures in my heart then please sign up for the newsletter. Who knows what this separation will create but the uncertainty is what keeps me moving forward.
Other contact information:
George@soflete.com
Gb3athletics@gmail.com
AIMHCreative@gmail.com
The Process of Endurance - Part 1
The sun shines brightly, a nice change from the overcast and rainy days that have consumed the area for the past week. A question from wife comes to life, “Do you feel unmotivated?” To be honest, being blinded not only by the sunlight but the question she asked, came no answer and a wave of silence. In the past, a full on explanation would come to the surface to mask feelings and emotions towards something deeper than just getting out for a long run or having to write a three-thousand word research paper. Today, that very question is a bullet that does not penetrate me like it once did. Her beauty puts me in a daze as she turns the steering wheel heading back from breakfast that morning.
Over the last few months, the urge to tie up my trail shoes to get out and start running took hold of me, as it once did half a decade ago. Where a running spree of chasing the next biggest distance that came with a set of accomplishments in completing a couple hundred mile races - Kodak 100 and San Diego 100 - on foot through the mountain ranges that comprise Southern California. At the end of twenty-nineteen, my wife, and newborn daughter who was no more than 6 months old, decided on moving out to Utah where the mountains allowed me to play even more and get into some more rugged terrain. Before this big move, two events hit me in the face like a bag of potatoes knocking me into dreamland.
The first was the DNF (Did Not Finish) in Tahoe, were the two hundred mile foot race took place. If you’ve never heard of this event, it is a multi day race through the mountains overlooking the beautiful body of water that many human bodies come to visit for relaxation and partying. In the winter, you have tourist in search of the best line possible in those mountain ranges causing a headache for many locals in the area. Before making it to the start line came a deep urge to focus on the family deep in my gut, and put running ultra-marathons on the back burner for the next phase of life. It was the right choice long term that ultimately led me to sitting here four years later with my daughter who is now three and half and a son who is no more than a year and few months old and my two oldest who are ten and eight with a bond stronger than ever.
Our drive to Tahoe was actually amazing, with lots of laughs, quietness, and a six week old baby in the back of the car with landscapes that drew a sigh ever time the sun would rise bringing light to our lives and a start of a new day. Then to the sunset giving night time its space shine.
With every great road trip comes a great poop story and my wife almost exploded in her pants from drinking too much cold brew and in turned this whole experience that women do, in fact, poop and there is no getting away from it. Ask any man who is married or in that close of a relationship with someone and they will agree with you … especially if they are parents.
My training leading up this race was decent, but not the greatest in comparison of my previous training blocks. Training was based off how the mind and body felt and most times it was my mind winning the battle of not training. Yet, lining up on the start line was not the problem, or finishing the race, the emotion of selfishness smashed my legs like a bat over the nine-thousand vertical feet of climbing that came in a window of eight hours and forty-five miles. The mind kept telling me to quit and go hangout with the family and the body a complete mess made it that much easier to quit.
Now, quitting doesn’t run through my veins, but in this moment, this choice to DNF was a decision that served as a catalyst towards changing my selfish acts. After going back and fourth with myself the choice to pull the plug and DNF, came from the heart, a feeling that seemed foreign. It’s taken almost four years of running long distances for me to feel my heart beat. In that very moment is when it was time to put the trailing running shoes away and learning to love endurance in another manner than to punish myself or stroke the ego in it’s ability to do hard shit.
The second big breacher charge in learning how to feel my heart came from spending time in the hill country of Texas at a trail running camp called Band of Runners. This camp was off the grid, no cell service, no interaction with the outside world, a perfect getaway to do some deep searching and that is what happen. In this window of time, a chip on my shoulder and the pressure started to turn unbearable. No one else able to see it but me, and it was weighing me down, causing me to suffocate slowly.
During this week long camp, my legs must have accumulated over eighty miles in that week, and my mind felt the affects. This environment turned into a shovel that helped me dig even deeper and what helped the curtain drop came during a last man standing race. This race lasted about four hours total, with a time cut off every new mile that was completed and if you miss the time cut off, you were out. The run started under the nighttime canopy filled with stars casting light onto the trail that each of us used to move. With music in my ears and the energy of being in my home state where a lot of crazy shit happened growing up as a kid and through my adolescences, made for the connection to be that much more potent than the cocaine that I regularly sniffed growing up.
Fast forward four years later, with a move to Utah and back to SoCal, married with four children, my wife back on her feet attacking life in a different way than before, earning my bachelors in Sports Psychology, now chasing my masters degree in English and over twelves years of working in the human performance world and turning thirty-four only passing the fifth kilometer distance in life. The choice to step away from racing and long distance efforts never truly stopped internally. The action changed from running through the mountains to learning how to endure in different aspects of my life, both internally and externally. So, when my wife asked me, “Do I feel unmotivated?” The answer later came on my run, moving closer to the start line of my next hundred mile race in the summer. In life outside of racing comes no time to feel unmotivated, not when you rely on you, the family relies on you, and the world relies on you.
The last four years have taught me to always take one more step but not just any step, make sure it is fueled from the heart. Because the heart is never unmotivated. Endurance is a skill to survive, learning to connect the body, brain, and heart takes time and also becomes a skill that is learned over time. But, as an artist of our lives we must practice feeling our beating heart before we can lead with our heart.
We Need Space
The brain is so beautiful in how it functions, creating a life outside of the physical body. An illusion of a sphere above our physical bodies that floats in orbit on the other end of eternity. Filled with a landscape for the eyes to see. The mind is powerful enough to destroy countries, but still intelligent enough to rebuild burning cities at times of havoc and distress.
The gift of stillness and breathing is one of many magic tricks when paired together offers the privilege of learning, adding a level of mastery to our lives and value to the journey we are all on. As the years move forward stillness and breathing gave me greater gifts in ways that will be written about one day. So what sparked this reflection? Well, it happened watching my youngest daughter who is three explore her mind.
Growing up, the environment around me did not foster a space to play or practice controlling my mind and its wild cosmic explosions. Carrying a background of sitting inside brushes for hours, days, weeks, and months observing the enemy turned into a skill that kept me dangerous with assassin’s hands and mind on the battlefield. This practice of stillness and breathing was never explained to me, or never was it placed in front of me to go and explore growing up. It wasn't on my radar till my mid to late twenties.
The spark of this exploration of blending stillness and breathing came after an injury to my low back and knee. Thanks to the homies Quinn and Ryan who gifted me with a lens that breathing affected the way we move. This gift sent me down an expedition to rebuild my foundation of movement both internally and externally. It first started with pranayama breathing which led me to Wim Hoff and a few others who paved the way and pioneered how breathing affects not just our physical being but our mind as well.
This new practice challenged me to be still while focusing on attaching and detaching to thoughts, feeling, and emotions while doing internal reconnaissance - a breacher charge of some sort into my heart. My mom would tell you that growing up she couldn’t slow me down, and today my wife would say the same thing. And now with children of my own, the same thing can be said for them. Getting older and becoming a bit more aware of how I feel, seems to show me that moving consistently is ok, but there needs to be a period of rest and regeneration to allow for my body and mind to recover - a mental aid station.
Over the thirty fours years on this earth, one thing learned is that my mind and physical body works in bursts of energy, and when the tank is empty. An overwhelming sense of suffocation takes hold and swiftly sends my thriving life to swimming frantically trying to outrace the black hole of emotions causing a whirlwind of issues.
As the architect of this expedition, becoming a dad is to adopt the craftsman’s mindset; a similar process with art and now in my life. The skills gathered to this point are my tools to help teach my children how to have a world they want of peace and happiness and it starts with the littlest of things. Stillness and breathing are magic tricks that will never go dry, only evolve with more time behind closed eyelids traveling their minds. To share such moments with my children is the most impactful in my eyes. It adds nutrients to the ocean of curiosity to keep learning new magic tricks. Finding stillness and breathing has turned into an unlimited amount of space to swim wild and free inside a body of water with a depth deeper than the Arctic sea.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and you might have noticed, I did not use the word meditation. As it can be triggering and push people away from wanting to read more, especially if you the reader who built a wall of dislike to meditation. So, leading with stillness and breathing is my way of changing the landscape, so that hopefully you can find the urge to try this activity to find the space you may need. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
A Santa Story
Santa Clause came burning down out of the sky in the middle of the night with his reindeer in lead trying to control the sled. He looked down at his dashboard and found that all of his power was out and the engines on his sled were not firing.
The load on the sled made it even harder for Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, Dancer, and Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer to pull the sled, and without the engines working they headed to the ground for a rough landing. Their magic was no longer strong enough to carry the insane amount of gifts for those who believed in Santa Clause.
This time of the year brings families and friends together to share in a moment of gratitude and appreciation around the bright colorful tree on Christmas Day. A bright shining star that rests at the top mimics the northern star that stands out even on the brightest of nights.
Santa yelled at the Reindeer “HOLD, HOLD!!!” But it was too late… Rudolph’s nose was heading directly into the forest below.
Santa ducked into the cockpit of the sled bracing himself for impact. He crunched down and tucked his fluffy Snow White beard between his knees, with his hands holding down the red and white hat he wore made of reindeer hide.
BOOM, SMACK, POW, SNAP!!! The sled came to a halt. Santa picked his head up and took a look around exposing his red rosy cheeks. Santa asked Rudolf to make his red nose shine bright to help illuminate the forest around them.
Santa noticed tall fir trees all around, the ground covered in green leaves and dew across the ground. A weird sparkle came from beneath patches of leaves under the trees not too far from Santa’s sled. Santa eased his way over trying to keep quiet and not to disturb the sleeping creatures hidden in the area.
Santa stepped lightly towards the leaves, then took a knee resting his big ole belly. He took his gloves off and started to fumble with the leaves when suddenly he found these peculiar red and white mushrooms. Then he shuffled his hand around a few more patches and found a few more hidden throughout the forest floor.
Santa recognized the mushrooms, “A red and white mushroom gives you magic flying powers when you eat enough,” his mind reminding him of a conversation with his head elf Buddy.
Santa walked back to the sled in his black boots covered with dew. He tried to start the engine again, but nothing happened.
Santa went around the sled and noticed more of these shiny mushrooms that live under the leaves. He started to pick them like strawberries looking for the freshest. Once Santa picked the mushrooms from the ground - the shininess disappears.
A ruffling in the brush not too far away caught Santa and his reindeer's attention. They looked over and Rudolph pointed his nose in the direction of the ruffling.
A leprechaun popped out in his green top hat, pointy ears, an old man's face, a gold chain, and a gold charm hanging around his neck. “Why are you stealing my magic mushrooms?!” He said angrily, before recognizing the old man in a red and white pointed hat, with red rosy cheeks, and a belly as round as the globe he travels.
Santa was surprised by the creature, and so is the leprechaun as he starts to stutter, “Sa…San…Sant…Santa Clause!!!” He gasped for air, ran over to the reindeer, and started to tickle Prancer and Dancer.
Santa was still in shock trying to process it all. The reindeer were getting loves, which they enjoyed and refilled some of the magic they might’ve been missing from being so far from the North Pole.
“Mr. Leprechaun, Ho, Ho, Ho. My engine broke down and lost all power.” Santa took a breath, and continued talking, “ I found these mushrooms, are they filled with magic?” The leprechaun rushed over to Santa and snatched the bag of mushrooms right out of his hands. With a sad and disappointing tone, Mr. Leprechaun says, “Santa, you have to pay me for these?”
Santa reached into the pocket of his red coat that kept him warm and pulled out a brown leather bag filled with coins. Santa took a knee and was eye level with the leprechaun and said, “I want no trouble, and how much can I buy with this whole bag? As he hands the leprechaun the bag full of coins.
Santa looked Mr.Leprechaun directly in the eyes and expressed his concern about Christmas if he is unable to deliver the gifts before the sun peaks over the horizon telling nighttime goodbye.
Mr. Leprechaun, with a heart (& chain) of gold, knew he could not charge Santa for these mushrooms. He thought to himself, “…if Santa stayed stuck down here, Christmas would be ruined and all of those who believed in something higher than themselves would create chaos in the world from a loss of faith.”
Mr. Leprechaun handed the bag of coins and mushrooms back to Santa, and said, “Take as much as you need Santa, pack some for reindeer and yourself. When you feel the affects wear off, stop and eat a few more to help make it back to the North Pole safely.”
Santa scooped him up and gave him a big hug and shouted, “Thank you for saving Christmas, HO, HO, HO!!!”
Mr. Leprechaun started to pick more mushrooms and fed them to the reindeer. Rudolph, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, and the others start to glow and shine and slowly float an inch off the floor.
Santa started to chew the mushrooms and noticed how difficult it is to chew and swallow. Within minutes, everything started to change: his vision and how he feels. A huge burst of energy ran through his veins and saw everything filled with magic all around him.
Mr. Leprechaun looked around and laughs, “it’s working, it working!!!” Santa rushed back to his sled and grabbed the straps connected to the Reindeer.
Santa shouted with excitement, “Now Dasher!, Now Dancer! Now Prancer, and Vixen! Now Rudolph!” The reindeer feet started to galop as they lifted into the night sky with Santa and the sled of gifts in tow.
Santa looked down from above the tree tops and yelled to the leprechaun, “That’s a sick chain, Mr. Leprechaun! Hohoho, and thank you for helping me save Christmas!” The leprechaun waved fondly and felt his heart of gold pure and full of happiness. ‘Twas the holiday spirit after all.
BDA
The pitter-patter of the shower spirals my mind into a trance. As the water from the shower head sprays my vessel from head to toe, turned into the gunshot start for the ultra-marathon of words to come.
The day felt a bit longer than normal while I sought to regain situational awareness - a battle damage assessment (BDA) of myself from the day.
I was a bit worn out. Yet, it is nothing out of the ordinary when living life to the fullest with all kinds of experiences. Children. Friends. Work. The Wife.
My shoulders move in circles Up. Forward. Down. Backward. My spine is coiling. Left and right. My hips move in a figure-eight motion from above. Finally, settling down into a few forward folds touching my hands to the white plastic shower floor and enjoying the deep stretch.
Softly shutting my eyes closed, I inhale, trying to avoid water from entering my nose. My head dangling by my feet, holding my breath to the drip drops of water surrounding me. The oxygen in my lungs turns to carbon dioxide exiting my nostrils like a slow tire leak.
Shower time turned into a gift of quietness, reflection, and relaxation before resting my eyes for the day to come.
Living with junk wrapped around my brain for a long time caused an array of neurons to misfire, making it difficult to live life with peace and harmony.
A cleanse of the brain and gut synced the heart, spirit, and soul as one. Patching up murder holes and fighting positions with my bare hands. From a war, I was no longer in - both mentally and physically.
A set of questions pull me down a path about life. Who chooses option C? And why not A or B? Or is the story written already and the man behind the curtain orchestrates it all?
The irony of it all leaves me to believe that it does not matter all that much by nightfall, a gate that ends another day. Reflection. Review. Truth. How to be a better human for the day to come.
This whole essay is a chance to rhyme. A life of low tides, high tides, rip tides, and offshore breaks.
The idea that writing becomes easier and easier the more you do it is Bullshit. A game of imagination and locomotion of words being written in a crafty and creative way never gets easier.
Over time, the poet, painter, musician, and craftsman well runs dry and their hands, mind, and heart catch hyperthermia. Instantly, art becomes a fistfight with human nature.
Author, deep thinker, veteran, and brother-in-arms, Steven Pressfield helped place a c-4 charge on the door of endless possibilities for the future of the veteran writing community.
Pressfield shared the differences between theme, setting, subject, and character building on his social. He tied “theme” into everything he talked about when it came to storytelling and writing.
This quick reel left me analyzing my creative process. Is this a missing piece in my life and writing? What is the theme that I want to share and live by? New questions need to be disarmed.
The day was over, and night arrived. A chance to drift in and out of my own physical body and into the sea of the heart and mind.
The warm water continues to relax my muscles, exhaling slowly with sealed lips. Pausing for a few seconds before taking an even deeper inhale. Oxygen quickly rushes in finding new depths of my brain elevating my high.
My muse hanging overhead. Keeping her range with a watchful eye without attachment or judgement.
A recalibration and reset back to the present moment by the splashing of dancing water around. Noticing love is my theme in life.
The shower.
A tool.
A place to meditate.
To self-analyze.
Check-in.
A safe space for a
Battle Damage Assessment.
Don’t Call Me Coach
Photo taken by Kegan Dillon
The debate over which label is “better,” regarding a coach or professional is like a shovel relentlessly digging a hole in the strength and conditioning field, especially in the tactical realm. I know those close to me would laugh at this because they know I am a lover of grouping words together and labeling them as different spheres. Frankly, these two words leave me with a feeling of cotton mouth.
I accept that ruffling the hornet's nest from time to time is a part of my genetic makeup and I am rebellious at heart. And yet ironically, this makes me a fad starter myself, whoops. I also believe that I am great at manifesting new ideas getting them started and handing them off to those who will continue to evolve whatever it may be into a beautiful collaboration of evolution. I am neither just a coach nor a professional. These are not labels I solely stand on or the ground I take a knee on, or where I lay my head down at night.
I believe I am neither of these two. I was built by billions of these tiny bits of atoms that conjoined as one to make me a human. So the question beckons, when did the concept between coach and professional become so important that one label justifiably sounded cooler or carried more creditably than the other? It’s not that I am trying to be the sandpaper against these ideas, that is not the case at all. It does not matter what label you carry or the set you rep. Those are ever-changing and especially if you are someone who has spent years in this domain. You know that the details and job descriptions become a junk of words that mean nothing. The real meat and potatoes of what you will be doing as a professional or coach in strength conditioning would come with time, experience, and exposure.
And I know that time is not an indicator, but it does help tie together the amount of time a human spends doing something and building consistency, which brings powerful characteristics of depth and a wide range of lessons learned and practiced. A true modern-day craftsman’s heart, hardened with exposure to trial and error.
At the end of 2022 is my thirteenth year of working in the field of strength and conditioning, the human performance world, or whatever we want to call it. Up to this point in my career, it continues to charge my heart to work with all types of humans chasing extraordinary feats in their lives. These same humans have gifted me with the trust to guide them, rarely in a linear pattern.
I find that I never specialize for too long in one specific realm and this has ultimately forced me to learn new skills to keep up with those who enjoy fighting for a life worth living. Providing the light to find the proper tools that fit their true self and engineer their own life in a way that brings them happiness and peace is perhaps the most rewarding piece of my, dare I say, profession.
As time went on, connecting more dots, came a shift of intention to view them as humans first, not as the external world does with their professional labels or sport. But a question does pop up for me, “George, aren’t you training them for their sport or profession?” My answer is, well of course, but in their world of specialization and the other modalities of specificity that each person chases. Recognizing this choke point gives me the ability to release pressure by breaking a pattern in the mind and offers me the space to focus on the foundation of being human first. And what does that look like exactly? Well, in my humble opinion, it comes from shifting our headspace and how we cultivate that over time, which creates a change in the heart and universal landscape to learn.
To be better in one's profession or sport, I must help bulletproof their humanness. It becomes an orchestra of chain reactions that strengthens the spirit and soul, allowing for a better understanding of who they are when it is time to label themselves for the world to see.
After my last deployment, in the midst of it all, I reenlisted and volunteered to be a tactical reconnaissance instructor at my next duty station. Surrounded by titans of my time who helped guide and inspire other humans in all areas of life. They showed me that it took hours with my boots on the deck to truly lead, educate, motivate, and influence learning, practice, and play in a sport called warfighting. As an instructor, I fell in love with building the next warfighter and it gave me life and a way to help influence these young men to hang onto their humanity. This turned into a feeling that I wanted to practice and expose myself more too also, and strive for even more. And if I can help humans no matter the profession or sport, that is what matters most - no matter the label deemed necessary to operate in this external realm.
Trying to separate the coach and professional suggests that they are not interchangeable. It implies that you can’t be one without the other. The idea that one person is better than the other only takes away from making the strength and conditioning space better. It slows down the evolution that comes with time. Why must we keep wasting energy on the person the world sees? Time will showcase who you are. If more attention flowed into improving and strengthening the person on the inside, then we would see that the label you deem necessary for your external being will fit naturally without resistance.
The Rider
The chain on the flywheel generated force forward making the gears in my brain turn. Poetry pops into my head right away, for no reason at all — the word turned into bait that my heart latched onto at that moment.
I chewed on the idea of writing poetry, but of course, my ego came out and started to become the architect that built a tower of resistance for reasons why I should not start. Of course, that damn word “should,” flows in a way that seduces my heart that’s lusting for poetry. And what I’ve found chasing lust is that it has no place in art, especially poetry.
My arms finally relaxed into a good position on the handlebars of my road bike, a green and black Clydesdale - the old steed. This bike and I have spent a lot of time generating new ideas for many different facets in my life. A toy that I come back to that allows my soul and spirit to wander, similar to how running for hours did for me in the past. The sun hangs bright over top, with the ocean breeze brushing itself against the canvas that covers my heart. My legs are starting to fill with blood, creating a sick pump that makes me want to slow the cadence down up the hill that takes my breath away. Drifting away from the efforts of my physical body and back to the mind, only to find poetry still hooked and swimming to the revolutions of my feet turning the wheels through the hills of Southern California.
The swaying of the “y” at the end of poetry spins me into a flashback of a time in Bootcamp when poetry was all I wrote. A brother had shared with me a love he had for words, God, and his wife at that time. His passion was infectious and his vocal cords overpowered my mind to a picture with his words on the canvas of my mind. Inside the hourglass writing flowed about love, a couple of knuckle draggers hiding in the corner of the barrack expressing our love for the world we lived in, not knowing we both experienced the opposite of love, which became hate as the hourglass emptied. Hate for an enemy that wanted us dead. The hate that overtook my heart for longer than I wanted it to. But recently, after writing about war, hate, evil, and lust, I found it difficult to write more - especially from a place of anger, grief, sadness, and destruction.
Lately, my energy to write seems to crave the feeling of love, and with that feeling, poetry fills my heart walls. Pedal after pedal, crank after crank, shifting in and out of gears making my way around Lakeside, taking in the effects of a year-and-a-half nationwide shutdown. An area once to be known as the Los Angeles of SoCal, but now an area rundown that lacks the financial spirit to keep businesses open, causing many humans to retreat into a life of survival. Paying close attention to the rocks, nails, glass, and potholes trying to take me out leads to a state of flow. Building a calibration to the universe, mutating my vision to supersonic speed. I race the cars passing my left side shoulder causing my body and bike to weave to the right. My mind becomes focused even more on navigating the mean streets of SoCal, a place road cyclists love and hate. A fight between Mother Nature and Human Nature. The weather is beautiful and hard to resist, and on the other hand, the psycho drivers seem to be blind to riders.
Cycling between my physical body and mind trying to stay alive while riding on the road gives me a brain dump of chemicals that breaches the emotional barrier that has been built by the ego. Trying to hide secrets and wisdom only I carry and have access to. Yet, a seeker’s spirit must be obtained with effort both internally and externally. The next thing that pops into my head as I flush the blood from my legs, regain my breathing, and lower my racing heartbeat is a set of words that left me listening, observing, and feeling:
Rubber kisses pavement
Lactic builds concurrently.
Revolution after Revolution
Oxygen cycles in.
Ants swamp the limbs
CO2 leaks out faster and faster.
Heart, Spirit, Mind, Soul
Happy as can be.
Creative Writing
Welcome to a fun project that I am doing for myself as I get into more short story fiction creative writing. I have found this to be a fun place to come and explore as it separates me from every other part of life. A space with no limitations but my own and controlled by my own efforts. Imagination and reality are part of the creative writing process for those who dive head first into neverland and a place that others seek when reading fiction.
“Where’d You Go” is my first short story that I am starting, it has been a year long process of getting this story out.
Where’d You Go - Part 1
Piece from Chapter 1
Andy approaches the bank looking for a spot to pee and walks further away from Tim up the river. Sliding his feet along the bottom of the creek trying to avoid scaring the fish. He trips over a log, and with not enough time to react, his fishing reel hits the water, making a loud SPLASH! Andy’s face follows, hitting the mirror-like water shattering it to pieces. Caught off guard, Andy gets back to his feet and inspects the fishing rod making sure it is still in tack. Looking down to see what he tripped over, he notices a pale skin-like log between two elephant ear brushes. Andy takes his fishing reel, pokes at the object that caught his feet, unsure what it is. Andy crouches down to get a better look; he looks into the vegetation, uncertain of what he is seeing, yells, “What the Hell,” stumbles back, losing his balance again, SWISH, SWISH, SPLASH! He falls again into the river. Andy gets up slowly, yells for Tim, “It’s a dead body,” in shock, he starts to inspect.
Tim hurries over, “Did I hear you right? A dead body?” as he tugs on Andy's shoulder, moving towards him. Tim feels Andy’s body trembling, stumbling over his words. Andy looks at Tim, turns and points to the dead body between the green elephant's ear-like brushes and river mush.
To keep reading, please click the link below and follow along with the series.
Read “Where’d You Go?” Now
Words and Magic Tricks
Writing for someone like me, in addition to my dynamic thought process, continues to loosen the cord around my neck releasing a wealth of feelings and action’s I encounter with every word I write saving my life. Lately, the creative writing process and energy goes towards the final ten miles of my college degree, where the writing style comes with rigidness and boundaries. The effects of college are by no means an issue in a negative manner, it actually influences my beating heart and creative tendencies. For me, it gives me a sense of direction, inspires actions to bigger dreams and goals adding more anchors to the space inside of my chest cavity fueling the spirit. To write and share with the world carries an ability to seduce the reader into a euphoric state and that magic trick is beautiful.
I don’t consider myself primarily a writer, author, or blogger. If I had to wear a mask as I step into this space to share and consume words, that mask would be a communicator. One who can observe, listen and absorb the world inside of me. As I’ve taken myself through college the last five years, it showed me that I had to get better at communicating, that I lack basic grammar understanding, sentences structure, and how to take my thoughts and put them into words. It showed within the first couple years that I lack the ability to communicate. To write properly and put words on a digital screen or paper has been no easy task.
I retaught my heart, mind, and hands to be creative using words to paint a beautiful picture for those chewing and swallowing my words today. As I rewired my brain to write correctly, it release a feeling of emptiness and loneliness, it purged the destruction inside of me. Now, will I ever be the next greatest writer? It doesn’t matter, in my heart I am. But, I want to be the human who is known to treat his words with respect and dignity. It took me almost thirty-three years to realize the power of words and my lack in skill set to communicate with the world internally and externally. Only to hinder my personal life and impacting my professional career, fogging up my pupils in how I saw the world taking away its simplicity.
Here is to becoming better at writing, story teller, and learning new ways to share my intelligence and creativity. If, at a time, my voice went away, I am not afraid, as I have taught myself to communicate with the world in other forms that boost my heart, soul, spirit and mind. Thank you to those who have pushed, challenged, and keep kicking me in the teeth to improve and believing in my ability to communicate with the world.
Keep Raging!!!
Continuing Actions on Objective Part 6
Ghost walkers of the night hide within the shadows of life and death.
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My vision was green and black even without night vision goggles these days, once the nightfall came, my eyes would switch directly to shades of green changing to the brightness of the moon’s exposure of light, think of a black and white photo, and the white areas show parts of the photo due to the light being exposed, this was what my vision turned into permanently, expect with two colors green and black. The unknown number of patrols under night vision goggles became a surgical operation to my brain, rewiring my visual pathway becoming a superpower to survive out here. Majority of patrol infills happen no earlier than a couple of hours prior to midnight, allowing for the ecosystem to settle from the vibrations of the sun. Night patrols at first were slow and grueling, covering minimum terrain making the patrol very clunky. And now, comes a smoothness over terrain and obstacles not stopping us in our tracks anymore. Each one of us learned how to move through this country, becoming architects physically and cognitively to the battlefield. With the moon above casting light down helped remove graininess that came from too much light or too little. The spin is, the night vision goggles covered one eye, the dominant eye, leaving your other eye staring off into the darkness that lurks, but as time went on, it felt like both my eyes were in the middle of my head looking through a tube into another realm of life. They were attached to an mounting arm that connects to a black plate screwed on to our helmets that resemble the shape of a diamond. Which is what led the Taliban to name 1st Recon Battalion “The Black Diamonds of Afghanistan.” The mounting plate stood out from afar due to the tan color helmet it was placed on. Night vision goggles were a nonnegotiable item, it allowed each and every member of a patrol the ability to move and communicate in pure darkness with minimum light. Repetition after repetition learning to patrol during these sunless windows turned us into ghost walkers, another superpower that kept us alive, disappearing from our kryptonite. The will to survive and fear of death was the fuel needed to maintain the upper hand once we took over the area. Night patrols became the knight in our chess match against the Taliban. These missions under night vision goggles consisted of looking for IEDs, conducting key leader engagements - private meetings with big fish - and collecting more intel from the locals giving them a death wish, knowing they will be killed by the Taliban for treason. Plus any other enemy activity that might have come up throughout the day around our area of operation. We often found locals afraid and unsure of what was going on as we entered their homes, to conduct search, seize, and extract tactics rampaging throughout their house for weapons, drugs, and bomb-making material, questioning them for further information about the Taliban. Other nights, missions were to search and clear houses, by kicking these people out of their homes in the wee hours of the night or hiding them in a room for the time being. It felt much like kidnapping, but we paid them off afterward for their time, so it wasn’t. We needed to do this for a couple reasons: establishing a hide-site to observe known areas of activity that we had gathered during our key leader engagements or clearing compounds to set up future-forward observation posts that our company or team would conduct patrols and follow on missions from. These people didn’t trust us, or want our help. After all we did, they wanted us dead. I learned rather quickly that fighters of the Taliban knew these villages like the back of their hands. Most fighters recruited from these areas built cells to look over the shadiness of business in those villages turned into a connector to the map of the Taliban money lines. At least one family member or the whole family grew up fighting a war that becomes their only reality. It is a consistent stream of evil since time began. Immerse into their genes due to years of dismay. Fighters under the Taliban are not human. They don’t know empathy. To defeat these soulless beings you have to ignore mankind. By ignoring humanity, an action that fuels the fire to remain vigilant, became gunshot wounds to the heart, mind, soul, and spirit. Unseen wounds leaking blood leaving me to apply a tourniquet and packing the wounds with quit clot trying not to kill myself. In those environments, this was a means of survival, overtime adapting, and building my tolerance to war. The Taliban's mission was to kill those not part of their tribe, and even being a part of that tribe doesn't mean anything. They knew two things, survival and loyalty to those who are loyal to them. The men with a black diamond on their helmets who shook the night under black and green vision were not friends or a part of their tribe. The Black Diamonds of Afghanistan were the devil in their hearts and minds.
Continuing Actions on Objective Part 5
Rest with your eyes open. Rest with your eyes closed. It doesn’t matter you are never safe.
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"The ground’s flooded," our pointman relayed across the platoons radio net. The field we chose to insert into was engulfed by a water integration system, stopping us in our tracks right off the bat. Remember that swift insert you read about? yea, this was not happening, I stepped off, and my boots sunk right into the ground up to my mid-shin. The mud was warm, thick, and glue-like, much like quicksand with every step I’d take. My bodyweight, plus the dwarf on my back and full combat gear, made it difficult to have an effective patrol. And like that, our patrol changed within seconds of stepping foot into Taliban country. Adapting on the fly, the timer started, and it ended at sunrise, and we did not want to get stuck in plain sight in plain daylight.
To patrol - walk in an organized, strategic order with hyper-awareness looking out for the men to the left and right of you or in front and behind, searching for the enemy - through the farmlands of Afghanistan challenged every man's athleticism. The dangers of walking on roads and known footpaths were a no-go, another feature trying to get us all killed. We stuck to crossing over canals ranging from door size wide breaks in the ground or bigger using small wooden planks to cross over, praying for it not to break beneath my feet or jumping over these black holes of death filled with god knows what. Of course, with more exposure, it became routine over time, but that first mission, all of us found ourselves lost. We were confused on how to cross safely without causing too much attention to ourselves and trying to monkeyfuck this problem to find a solution on the fly. A few tactics were used and worked well; holding security and, one at a time, going through the process of getting across the canals. I had three options: take my ruck off and toss it across to the other guy, or run and jump over the canal and hope to make it through in full combat gear, not slip in and possibly ruin the entire patrol, which as a platoon happen a few times, and finally, using the locals as guides when needed to cross specific areas in villages, which became a tactic used more than I can count on my hands and feet.
With this being our first exposure to the area, it changed the dynamic of the patrol, the terrain turned problematic, our load on our backs brought us to a snail pace - not the racing snail speed from the neverending story - made use nearly combat ineffective. Our patrol ended up 800 meters directly south of our primary blocking position that we originally were asked to set up, but with the obstacles each of us faced. We found ourselves tucked away behind a berm near a road running west to east with another berm facing the north, which made into an L-shape that overlooked to the east. Off in the distance to the south, cracks and bursts of assault rifles and machine guns start to go off, ‘Troops in contact’ breaks over my headset from my ruck, the patrol south us must have found the hornet’s nest by the volume of gunfire that opened up. If you ever stepped into the arena of war, you will learn the distinguishing sound difference between various assault rifles, machine guns, bombs dropping, and if gun fire was directed at you or not. Even with the fighting down south, the fact that we were not far from our date with the enemy drove my heart to race and palms to sweat. My mind starts to race. There is no turning back or quitting, no longer in a training simulation, it’s real life, and I will be hunted or hunting the Taliban. I realized quickly that we all entered an ecosystem with no rules leaving the better warriors to triumph.
Continuing Actions on Objective Part 4
Scream their names so loud that they can hear you and those around you will never forget the warriors you are surrounded by.
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The consistent pressure I'd operated at seemed excessive at that moment, yet, was needed; I gave my soul to this. I was part of this world now and it become our reality thus far. The amount of enduring was unwavering. The truth is we needed that intensity if we wanted to survive. That 60-day operation did something to many of us. We’d only been in Afghanistan for less than four months, and this 60-day mission was our pre-season to what was to come over the next several months. Firefights turned into finding key leaders in the area, IEDs, and long night patrols. Yet, cowboy country belonged to us, 1st Recon Bn had taken over Trek Nawa, and the Taliban didn't know what to do. For me, this highlighted the efforts of professionalism that we carried within us. One that I am finding again and redefining years later in my life. Operating at such a high level was needed at this moment; the intensity was at capacity, and the volume turned it into a tsunami. It was a requirement for survival to handle such danger.
Anger is a Gift
How do we find happiness within ourselves? Is it a feeling or an action that drives our joy? What if suffering is the byproduct of how we are supposed to learn how to feel? These are all questions I have in my head, unlocking the flood gates of words rushing into my magic hat of creativity. Maybe this is more of a profound question for myself to answer, as this is my human experience and realistically, I’m the one who labels these answers as wrong or right.
I have the ears, eyes, and a nose to take in the scenery around me; walls painted white, the sliver matching refrigerator and gas-lit stove with the Mr. Coffee machine that brings a taste of bitterness with a sweet smell in the air of a light roast coffee bean from Ethiopia. It sits by the tile wall next to the canvas of a sunset beautifully painted with bursting colors of teal-blue, orange and reds with blemishes of brown from the white used to lighten the transition between the horizon line and ocean covered with strokes of blue. It’s leaned up against the window seal, showcasing the city lights scattered across the hill breaking up the nighttime darkness. And it’s the sound of the humming from the heater that keeps the house warm while my wife and kids sleep silently above me.
Maybe suffering is unrealistic and non-existing due to the comforts all around me and if you are reading this, stop and take in the sights, sounds, smells, as I just did sitting in my kitchen. Individuals like me need a recalibration that builds a healthy relationship of adversity that balance’s out the brain chemistry. I’ve worked so gracefully hard to find, with buckets of grit, a healthier headspace of control compared to years before. Happiness comes with an inheritance. Think about it, how many times do we ask for things in our life, and it shows up out of nowhere, or you are expecting one thing, and then the complete opposite happens? Everyone has their inheritance, be proud of that, avoid jealously of others, and don’t envy your inheritance of life. It is what we all asked for in some capacity. Celebrate it and self-endorse your legacy; no one else will.
Life is the marriage of opposite’s driving love to act as a statement or valor system when love is a word created thousands of years ago to express a deep and tender feeling of affection, attachment, or devotion to a person or persons. But, let that person be you. So, where does suffering drive from in all of this? A search for happiness comes with no roadmap and not found in any self-guide books, and to be honest, to feel hurts and is painful. I am happy that suffering is showing its face inside of me lately, to remind me of my dark passenger who will always be right here, never gone, deep in caves of my heart, lurking in the shadows avoiding the light. This nothingness sucks the magic to feel from me and the world around me, turning me into a statue of stone to be amused. Contrast exists for a reason, and it can be a state of being close in association, or at the same time, strikingly different.
The same goes for happiness and suffering, with there being no right or wrong way to be happy, but to love the world inside you because happiness is an action. Happiness can be found everywhere inside the body we breathe from and deep inside those caves of suffering. With these words blossoms, yet another question, how does one be happy about their suffering? I hadn’t thought about it till now, but here is what I believe from my gut- to be happy, you must realize, recognize, and react when the dark passenger inside of you stalks your soul like a serial killer in the night. The answer for me in all this is to continue to feel. When the emptiness shows his face, the actionable step is to shove my happiness so far down suffering’s throat that the dark passenger or the dragon inside of me knows who the authority is at all times.
Continuing Actions on Objective Part 3
Law of the universe is to keep move forward towards your goals no matter the path. Here is another excerpt from a bigger project that I felt would keep the creative juices flowing. Enjoy.
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Living under the twinkling stars of Trek Nawa for almost a moon phase, our mission kept getting extended, but no one knew how much longer. Living amongst the land and immersing ourselves in an environment to survive was a skill set that was learned in war. We all knew how to blend into our atmosphere like an octopus hiding from its predator. Let me break down exactly what the higher-ups sitting in their warm offices, sleeping in their warm beds, and eating their warm meals wanted from the Recon Marines in Trek Nawa. To take three platoon-sized elements and make a single file line with a double broad jump of space between each of us, morphing into a snake of inferred red patches on our helmets only seen through the night vision tubes I looked through while making sure nothing happened to the entourage who inserted with us. Who can now say they were in a gunfight and held power to call for extraction at a drop of a dime if they felt in danger. These raccoons wanted every Marine from each platoon under Charlie Company to walk, skip, run, and jump through the ultimate ninja warrior course of Trek Nawa. The number of patrols conducted gave each of us the practice needed to be ninjas through the night; and earned ourselves a level up to the longer distance course requiring us to be lighter, alpine style. A lot of lessons came about our time in Trek Nawa, not sure how, but the first mission turned into the pre-season that prepared us for what we all were about to encounter, similar to an alpine climber staring up at the face of a route with a perfect weather window, and no other direction than forward.
Exercise to Improve Cognitive Function and Mental Health
In a recent topic in my Sport Psychology class, they brought up the different theories to build a better relationship between exercise and improving cognitive function and mental health. Below are the definitions of terms to explain my position and how I have applied real-life situations with real athletes to blend these theories to make an impact in the smallest worthwhile way possible. Having the background of working in the trenches with all kinds of athletes amplify’s my knowledge and ability to apply science and real-life situations to my studies today. Enjoy
Defining Terms:
Psychological in Nature:
Cognitive Behavioral Hypothesis - Exercises or training session that encourages and generates positive thoughts and feelings that serve to counteract negative mood states such as depression, anxiety, and confusion.
Distraction Hypothesis - Exercises or training sessions that help distract individuals from negative mood states such as worries and frustration.
Social Interaction Hypothesis - The social interaction associated with exercising with friends and colleagues is pleasurable and affects improving mental health.
Physiological in Nature:
Dual-Mode Hypothesis - Is based upon that exercise above the lactate threshold (LT) may be perceived as unpleasant. In contrast, exercises below the LT may be perceived as pleasant; those who view exercise as unpleasant and train above the LT levels tend to negatively affect mental health, taking away the positive impacts of exercise.
Cardiovascular Fitness Hypothesis - Improved cardiovascular fitness is associated with improved mood states.
Amine Hypothesis - Increased secretion of chemicals that serve as neurotransmitters is related to improved mental health.
Endorphin Hypothesis - Associated with brain production of chemicals that have a “morphine-like” effort on the individual lowering pain and increasing a nature euphoria - runner high.
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Exercise is an activity individuals have acted on for thousands of years. Humans used to run a marathon a day for a year straight as their final studies towards becoming a monk. These endeavors of endurance shaped, altered, and fortified a mindset of an all-encompassing self-awareness, leading to self-efficacy and actualization. In today’s culture, getting a person to walk for ten minutes or into a gym is similar to tugging on a dog's leash, panting heavily with his tongue hanging out under a shaded tree avoiding the summer heat. The impact exercise brings to humans today comes steamrolling with possible positive impacts: less anxiety, increased tolerance to stress, and shift overall mood states to help create a fulfilling life. But, let’s not forget how unhealthy exercise can be for some individuals who have to step away from such potent activities to improve their mental health due to the unhealthy relationship created at no fault but their own.
All of these theories: dual-mode, cognitive behavior, social interactions, distraction, cardiovascular fitness, amine, and endorphin hypothesis, have their place in someone’s life who is trying to make a positive change to their mental space. Using them all at the same time is not the answer, and neither is picking just one and overusing it until the person is blue in the face.
The first hypothesis that I find impactful and less likely to create other problems would be the amine theory. This theory suggests that understanding how our brain chemicals drive neurotransmission impacts our mood state. To build a level of knowing how the brain works give’s individuals options in choosing specific exercises or workouts to help relieve stress, balancing out serotonin and dopamine, and finding harmony in one’s mental state. For example, take a US Marshal who works on the special operations task force and is returning from a surveillance mission that lasted for 12 hours, requiring a specific amount of cognitive function the entire time. This hyper-aware state drives the nervous system offbeat and out of sync. By building an armory of weapons to combat these times of anxiety, lack of confidence, fear, and sadness around the individual so they, in turn, can determine the style of training, intensity, and volume they want to put forth to relieve these feelings and emotions is highly beneficial.
As the foundation hardens, we can now layer other theories such as social interaction or dual-mode hypothesis. The two allow the individual to be within a social setting and support group and find a pleasurable activity. This helps them avoid unpleasant feelings or emotions due to the lack of energy drained from their occupational demands. Then, this also leads me to the distraction theory, which is used to help mask stress, fear, and anxiety of their day for a short time.
Take that same US Marshal whose noise levels inside their brain housing group are now lower. The use of cognitive-behavioral strategies for exercise becomes another breaching charge to enhance positive emotions and feelings due to the self-confidence and efficacy the Marshal develops. This is due to the healthy and positive interaction of the training session the US Marshal created, which falls into the lap of improved cardiovascular fitness over time, which is shown in research to have significant effects on mood states as one’s heart health improves.
Taking these theories and using them separately would be disheartening and a disservice to any individual. For the approaches to make a lasting impression and be a positive one, they all need to feed off of each other and be layered adequately. This is ultimately determined by the individual's perception of the world around them, how they handle day-to-day stress, and their overall ability to cope with hardships.
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The individual I wrote about came from a case study for SOFLETE on a guided discovery program called Conscious Warrior System. To learn more about the program, please head over to the Soflete Performance Podcast and check out the lunch and learn series were Matt and I cover the entire system.
Continuing Actions on Objective Part 2
A quick excerpt from a bigger piece that I felt would keep the creative flowers blossoming. Enjoy.
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SNAP, SNAP, SNAP, SNAP!!! The bullets passed over my head, receiving gunfire from the Taliban for the first time in Trek Nawa, as the massive burning ball of fire in the sky peaked over the horizon line turning the sky gold. My only reaction was to bury my nose into the berm compiled of clay, dirt, rock, and weeds. In the previous deployment, my platoon operated out of our vehicles or in the middle of a giant sandbox playing hide and seek, observing rat lines - small underground tunnels to transport drugs and weapons - never firing my gun. My only memory of anything like such was when I was a teenager; growing up in a bad part of town known for gang violence, shootings, drug addicts, and prostitutes. One late evening with the city lights burning out the stars above, running a basketball game with the homies. A couple of local thugs approach the court with a sense of purpose, wearing a pair of tan dickies pants wrapped around their asses and a brown flag hanging from the back pocket, showing the boxers they wore underneath. The chubby boy - because that is how he looked - rolled up, calling for my homie Joseph who controlled the drug selling in the area, owed someone above him money, and they sent their collectors. Joseph walks off the court and starts to chat with them, with a posture ready to fight, watching from the other side, no longer interested in the game. Joseph swings and knocks the chubby dude back, and his homie taller and chubbier named Puppet reaches for his gun, which triggers my sprint across the paint, meeting his barrel eye to eye and says, ‘Stop, let it stay one on one, homes,’ looking at the two fight, I respond, ‘Right on, I believed in a fair fight,’ watching him lower the pistol. The fight lasted a few more minutes till Joseph stopped and gave him the cash. The chubby boy deserved it; my homie Joseph stood tall like a brown Gumby and said, ‘Don’t come back into my hood, homes,’ pull the kid off the ground. Experiences in that area were not always that outcome but were the closest situation I had come to being shot or killed till this moment as I sniff the afghan dirt and air into my nose and mouth.
Continuing Actions on Objective
A quick excerpt from a bigger piece that I felt would keep the creative flowers blossoming. Enjoy.
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The area turned into a safe haven for transporting fighters to and from Marjah and surrounding villages to rest and regroup between battles. The Taliban took advantage of this area, turning it into a getaway, and with no five-star yelp reviews. Learning how the Taliban operated was no simple task, and the process of gaining intel did not come from the higher-ups or intel briefs. No, our platoons were encouraged to speak with other military forces, who had been conducting nighttime raids on small cells attempting to take pressure off other military units in and around Marjah. You know, listen to stories that happen because a real story has no end, much like this war. After hearing what they had to say, the Taliban’s drumbeat aggressive and heard throughout the lands. Even with these courageous efforts, the volume of troops in contact progressively worsened, impacting all villages around the city of Marjah. Listening to these military units sharing their stories and point of view was worth more than money, gold, or diamonds. It was worth my life for any information they could offer about the Taliban when it came to war, explained in great detail that patrolling tactics during the day was a death note and harbored in one position too long with no patrolling activity, leading to later consequences and being bitten by the Taliban. We knew from that moment on; our nighttime capabilities would become beneficial; patrolling under cover of darkness within the shadows, a perfect dream for Recon Marine that became a reality and not a dream that falls deep into the world of Fantasia. Each of us knew that this would not be a cush deployment, you know, three hot meals a day, midnight snacks, showers, access to a gym, Wi-Fi to call home, the works, and let’s not forget, return home jacked and tanned with a pocket full of cash.
Ray-Bans
Want to read a funny story, one that is only about me? Probs not. If so, buckle up. A shooting star - creative space, hit me tonight. A block of writing found within my crazy ass day. The evening is a few degrees colder than sunset. Stars sprinkled over the night sky; mountain breezes brought old man winter into our valley struggling to find words for a current project that feels it will take a lifetime to finish at the pace I am writing; feels like racing the Indy 500. A memory pops up from many moon phases ago, staring into the darkness of my living room from a mentor who shared a vital nugget once stepping off on this writing expedition. It does not matter how the dirt gets moved. No matter the intensity or volume, the dirt is being moved, and that counts. Leaving the dirt to stagnate is a failure. Now, maybe his words were a bit less than explained, but that is what my ears swallowed, mind digested, and tied to life.
The writing world is like the hunger games; everyone must like you. Period. For the words to get consumed, you have to be a good human, but the idea of a good human seems far and fake. Made up. Much like creative fiction. A world of truths with twists and turns of the human psyche suppressed, but those who dare, courageous enough, to repeal into those depths are honorable. No left and right lateral limits, no rules of engagement in writing, war is not art. Art is not war. Art is love, much like the watercolor painting on my desk created from my heart with no judgment.
This writing phase has been demanding and very different from any free flow session that a story like this came from, blowing the brains out of my writer’s block finding the creativity to develop my character. The character roams inside my creative world wants to wear ray-bans, but I don’t know which ones to give him, like suiting up a character on grand theft auto. The man was rough and rugged, skin tone brown lacking protection from the sun with a black mustache. The ray-bans need to be golden framing, with black lens to help contrast the white tan cowboy hat he wears on top of his mix of salt and pepper hair slicked back tucked behind his ears.
The funny part of the story is about to come; bear with me, the pan is frying, and let’s keep cooking. His mustache with hairs of grey throughout covered the outline of his upper lip as if he had tiny spider legs crawling out of his pores. His skin hung like an old man pair of balls off his chin, a tan with brown border button-up shirt with two front pockets at chest level and his badge placed to the top of his left pocket, and a few mustard stained ribbons stacked above the right. Okay, that is enough; this has been fun. And thank you to my writing gods for the energy to build my character out, even more, for my future creative writing sessions.
Back to the funny story, think about it; this whole story was to get me to break my writers' block. The start of this entire story is to share my efforts of looking up ray-ban glasses on the internet, not for me but for my character to wear, having no clue what his facial features were. It made me chuckle, with two dozen chapters written and my protagonist was faceless this entire time, that is fucked up, my imagination at that moment of the rough draft had not explored such beautiful landscape of the creative field of writing, never exposed, never felt, till this phase, as it feels like the rough draft all over again. The number of words can equal a cross-country trip from the east coast to the west coast times infinity. But the expedition more than worth it and to laugh, love, a place like no other, a break in my writers' block fixed by a state of wonder; a new way to write; handing me a gift, a surge of life.
Mi Corazón Abraza a Mi Familia
To me, family is a connection to the heart, an intentional entanglement of experiences that have bonded together, thicker than blood. As an artist, I never knew how to draw the perfect family, unsure how it should look, ultimately creating a blank due to the lack of vision and false idea of a familia I felt I had no business drawing. At a young age, thanks to mi mama, I had the chance to experience that heartfelt connection with those who carried my heart during celebration, while being bathed in rays of the sun. And when the thunderstorms inevitably rolled in, casting lighting and darkness over my days, she was there.
Growing up, I also had insight into what grudges, mistrust, and pure dishonorment did by draining the energy and hearts of everyone involved.
I always believed in my heart but never understood how to share it due to some disheartening experiences, which left me heartless for years in the familia department. Until recently, the after effects of a tsunami rocking our world and those in the proximity of our hearts created a shift in my perspective. This is partially in thanks to my lovely wife, Savanna, who sliced open her heart, slowly peeled back her heart’s walls where her true happiness lays. I saw those who gave her magic. I felt her magic-infused to mine, from seeing the hearts she bonded to and loves. For many years, throughout my adolescence and early adulthood, I thought in my head, life and human-built connections tended to be a drug dangerous enough to take out a junkie on crack. I allowed others to lower the pain I had inside by taking their magic, numbing mine.
By challenging the fucked up thought process of the world I was in casted a candied chain of shifts; learning who I was, helped me stick around, not cutting the cord as if I meant nothing. Savanna grabbed my hand, palm to palm, de corazón a corazón. Taking me on a stroll through the beautiful art that hung on the walls of her heart, sharing who helped her in times of celebration and hardships. It gave me the courage to wrap my hand around that same scalp knife she used, slowly slicing open my heart and sharing with her who carried mine en tiempos de penurias y celebraciones.
Final thoughts.
To mi familia and those who help support this rigid back, giving me the energy to hold up this heart of mine, thank you. For those I help, thank you for each lesson and for sharing your magic with me in the slightest worthwhile way possible.
Familia es Corazón!!