Takes a village to raise an idiot

Dear Blog Diary,

“When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without." - Haruki Murakami

That’s the author Murakami, not the artist with the smiling flower.

I’m inclined to agree with him. I would go a step further and say that swimming is where it’s at. All you can hear is splash and yourself breathing. Find a happy place. “Name a movie that has a penguin in it.” Twenty minutes later “wait a minute, does Penguin from Batman Returns count?”

I love triathlon. I genuinely mean it when I say that every session is a lesson.

Once you get a little Dunning Krueger out the way, you truly start to appreciate how humbling the sport is.

I admit that more and more I have structured my life in a way where I am alone more often than I am with people. Triathlon can be a social endeavor but I would argue that it isn’t. In this, it suits me and I prefer it that way. Bruce Lee never had a sidekick right? And shush, Kato did all the ass whipping.

Put it this way, if you ever catch me playing volleyball…there’s a cell phone in my pocket instructing me while a quiet man in the rafters watches me with a sniper.

On race day, no headphones. No communication with the outside world apart from other competitors and the staff. Like tennis, you’re not allowed outside encouragement or coaching.

Murakami San, watakushi mo kore ga hitsuyo desu yo.

I suppose what concerns me most is that I’m in the best shape of my life right now. Aesthetically one can debate but especially because I smoked cigs for so long and I no longer do, I am indisputably more fit than I have ever been. The irony being that I’m 34 and I probably have five more years maybe of beating myself? Hell, Lebron is 37 and spends that kinda money and he is declining.

And yet I will say that my mental emotional physical health has never been better in my life.

There is an old Japanese saying, anzuru yori umu ga yasushi.

Loosely translates to, “having the baby is easier than worrying about it.”

I would say life is probably better with people. But like they say, “it takes a village to raise an idiot.”

Best,

E