inadequacy and competition

Why do we automatically associate competition with feelings of inadequacy? 

I was reading about yoga competitions. In the first breath of the story I thought, Oh that sounds dreadful. Yoga isn't about competing. But, now, several months removed from the reading I want to revisit that sentiment. It was pretty knee jerk, extrapolating my experience with yoga and assumptions about competition, I came to the conclusion that the two were incompatible, that to compete at yoga would be to do gymnastics or some other activity. But, now I think that to compete at yoga is to take your practice to a different level. I think we always conclude that there are only losers in competitions. That even the top spot is someone only a future loser as someone breaks their records etc. But this is really just an amazingly temporally distorted bit of logic. We neglect all the benefits of competition for the one downfall that it is a temporal (necessarily as it is a thing of humans and we are temporal) and thus surpassable. This is silly. Who gets down on life for being temporal? Who says really "no one gets out alive" thus we shouldn't make any more babies? Who suggests that things are only going to change so what is the point of learning to live now? Competition is an amazing motivator that drives humans to try, to do, and to succeed at things they had not even imagined. When I think of Donovan Bailey's 9.84s 100m race I imagine, he never imagined what it would be like to travel 100m by foot in 9.84 seconds. How could he? He could have some conjectures about it, but no true imagining of it. And this is the wonderful gift that competition gives to us. It drives us to try and to succeed at things that we can't imagine possible. It is that spirit of testing boundries and limits or out doing and out witting others and ourselves that drives progress, innovation and I believe evolution (or it will soon). Without someone to race I am sure I will never run a 10k. I just don't care enough about running (I also don't really like running for longer than 20minutes unless there are tacklings to break up the monotony). What is more, I think, what's the point? But who knows what I will think, how my world view will be effected after I complete a 10k run... I was listening to someone talking about competition being something that we shouldn't really engage because it breeds feelings of inadequacy, ill-will towards others and general feelings of discontentment. He suggested that competition was not good for our souls, in particular, and should be refrained from especially during holy seasons. But I have decided that I wholeheartly disagree. That in fact during holy seasons may be the best times for competitions for those of strong religious conviction. Those are the times that god is closest and most available. And I feel that everytime we do something we never imagines we are with god in that moment. this post doesn't really make sense anymore...hmm anyway competition...yeah...we need to break it from its false association with failure, inadequacy and discontentment. It brings us progress and that is what i wanted to say about that.

Something marvelous in Japan

I just had another marvelous morning, but I wanted to tell you about something marvelous. All winter I have marvelled at all the green deciduous trees. I thought, wow it is so warm here. In Canada all these leaves would have changed colour and fallen to the ground months ago. But there they were all winter keeping the trees green and beautiful.



Then for the past 3 weeks, or so, new everythings have been growing and many of the new leaves come in red, then change green after a couple of days. I thought it was marvelous how, in Japan, spring time is just like the fall. Except, instead of the leaves changing colour and dying, they are changing colour and then growing for a whole season. I thought it was very nice that the japanese get two autumn blazes a year. And thought about the implications of global warming in Canada, could we one day experience this too?



But then this morning I noticed that all the trees have turned red too. And their leaves are falling. It seems that instead of doing this in the autumn when it gets too cold in Canada, they do it in the spring when the tree is ready to put on a new coat.

Grapefruits are not a threat to society...

Well, I for one am relieved to know that grapefruit have been pardoned the onerous title "danger to society"... It interests me that these fruit are called a threat because of their interaction with certain drugs that people take. 

It has been shown that grapefruit will increase the stomach's digestive power, as a result pills taken orally will be broken down faster releasing higher doses of the drug they contain into the system. This release will supposedly happen at a higher rate as well. This can, of course, be hazardous, we all can imagine. Long gone are the days when we believed more is always better. (well maybe not long gone, most of us still believe more is better...well I do at least). 

 Anyway, it interests me that the fruit is called the threat and not the drug. Does something funny occur to you? It occurs to me. It's the fruit's fault that the drug doesn't work properly and therefore the fruit is a threat to society. But, why not say it's the drug's fault? I mean we have the power to change the drug to better suit the environments in which it is used. Why not say that pharmacologists who refuse to allow natural evolution of their products are a threat to society, for standing by products that don't suit the needs of users and endanger their lives... There is this idea that all drugs work for all people and that people should change their lives to suit the drugs they are taking. But I think that is just wrong. Drugs are the ones that should change not us. And not fruit. 

I don't like this growing culture of fear around food. We are training ourselves to believe food is dangerous, natural wholefoods are unpredictable and hazardous to our health regimes. That drugs are more important, and should thus be catered to, than a well-balanced fruit-filled diet. I do think we should change our lives, many of us, but not to suit our drugs. We should change them to free us of the drugs we are on. To break our dependence on marijuana, on alcohol. To end our dependence on oral contraceptives, anti-cholesterol pills, caffeine shots and protein shakes. To bring down the culture of pain pill poppers and supplement takers. 

 Supplement yourself with whole and healthy foods, with good sleep, with invigorating exercise and engaging breathing. Depend on good friendships for highs and lows. Build up your self-esteem with positive thinking and self-affirming actions not gym memberships and powdered meals. Throw away your television. Just do it. And as for the culture of oral contraception. Learn how your body works and take responsibility for your actions. If you're having reckless one-night sex you should be using a condom anyway. 

 Just remember it is not the grapefruit that is the threat to society.

Nothing much

There isn't really anything on my mind. Just felt the blog was a little lonely. These days I am studying hard, playing outside all day from the moment I wake up until I have to fall down asleep. I am so excited for everything April has on tap. I hope my camera gets healthy again soon and even faster.

eep!

The benefits of planning a trip into space

The benefit of planning to take a trip into space is that it is a very expensive thing to do. If I wanted to go for a trip to the international space station right now I think it would cost $800,000. I don't really know...but I imagine that at some point I learned that was what a ticket costs. Well, it would take me, I think, about 20 years to save that much money (if I stop playing around in Asia and start doing the real money making work I have vaguely planned for my future childhood). So, I should get started.

 But this is wonderful, because in 20 years it will only cost maybe $50,000 to go to the ISS, but I will have saved $800,000 so I will have lots of money for things I want to do. Or maybe, even though I thought I would only go to the ISS I will have enough to go to Mars or the Moon...or somewhere really cold like that. 

 But unfortunately, I don't think I will ever really save a lot of money, because I don't think I would like having a very high paying job. In monetary terms I don't consider anything I can do to be the kind of thing people should pay very much to have me do. And I don't like people paying more than they should for me to do things. And I would really rather climb to the top of every mountain on the planet (above and below sea level) before I would be very interested in going to the ISS. It sounds like a very expensive trip to the science centre without tesla coils and paper making activities... But maybe I will pretend to be planning a trip to the ISS, just because it might cause an interesting conversation one day.

Happy Half Birthday

I especially love when my birthday is on a Friday, because it means my half birthday will also be a Friday. And I especially love Fridays when the "work" week started on Wednesday and that particular Friday is also my half birthday.

Sure, no one remembered, sent me a card or wrote me a song. I really don't mind. I woke up at the crack of...well shortly after the crack of dawn and my new lover was singing me a beautiful song. Something about a long sigh after three short peeps. Marvelous morning stuff. It was deliciously warm in my room, even though there was no heat on, meaning its spring spring spring into summer time!!

I jumped out of bed, my second favourite thing right after jumping into bed and jumping on the bed which are tied for first. I had some yummy brekkers, although there were no bananas. But I didn't let that interfere. I wrote a letter in japanese, but decided not to send it. Then, I cleaned my home and my soul and took a wicked trip to the gym. I ran 4.3kms in 5 minute splits. I registered for a marathon. Well a little marathon (10k is a lot to me though). Then sweated buckets with some lunges and squats and bridges.

I had a lovely lunch at work and then spent a few hours writing and daydreaming. Now I suppose I am teaching. Or I will be. I think i will pop out to the store and get cake to eat with my students.

Lovely!