Stay on Offense Climb Mountains

Attacking Adversity

Go Hiking Because You Are Built for It

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It is so obvious, but it took the title of today’s Bookish Weapon to really consider this. You have two legs and two feet. Your ancestors walked a lot. Actually, no. They hiked! Everywhere!

So why no do something you were built for? It makes perfect sense. However, any have excuses.

My Back Hurts

You are not using your back when you hike and haven’t you heard the mantra of physical therapists everywhere; motion is lotion! Wim Hof (the Iceman) says BREATH!! I say MOVE. What better way to move than using your legs and feet.

Your back will heal and get stronger as you move. Maybe no pack on your back for now. Just get yourself up a mountain.

But My Knees Hurt

Yes, so do mine. Especially the left one, but both have arthritis. One has had surgery. What is the best medicine for that? Movement!!! After a coupe hours of hiking your knees are gong to feel better (usually). Not so much if you fall down and bang it on a rock.

Make sure you use the Couch stretch after climbing. If you don’t know what the Couch stretch is then look it up online under Kelly Starrett.

I Am Too Old

Unless you are in your nineties, you can’t play the age card with me. I am seventy-five. I don’t listen to people that say I shouldn’t climb mountains at my age.

Remember the cliche that you are only as old as you think you are. Never stop moving. Can you get up off the floor without using your hands? Neither can I, but that doesn’t stop me. It might keep me out of the 100 year old Olympics according to Dr. Peter Attia, but it won’t keep me off a mountain.

Go Hiking And Love What Is!

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Sometimes I don’t feel like hiking. Like right now I am not looking forward to climbing anything this weekend. It sometimes takes me a few days to get psyched for it, especially after a particularly difficult climb the week before.

What I do is wait it out. Usually by the time hiking day arrives I am ready, but once in a while I’m not. Then what do I do? I go anyway.

Love What Is

It is a matter of accepting my state of mind and believing that it may change once I am underway. If it doesn’t the I love what is.

When you go hiking you do not always have to be ready for it. There are times when you just aren’t. Those times might include snow or rain or hot days.

An Example

This last weekend it was very hot. I climbed to Camp Muir once again. One of the big reasons I climb it is because it is very hard and I believe doing hard things is important. As I said it was hot with the temperature at Paradise at close to 70. Yes, I know that isn’t hot in other parts of the country and world. It was 5:30 AM and still dark.

As I climbed it got even hotter and then wind started to blow. That cooled things down. There is always a crosswind on the snowfields so you have to make sure you have something for your ears even in summer.

Then looking west I see a storm. Rain can be seen in the distance. You don’t want to be caught in a storm on Rainier. Even low visibility makes things difficult. As the storm moves towards me the sun is blocked and it gets cool very fast. I am still on my way up and a long way to go. People I spoke with on the way up said that this incoming storm surprised everyone. Fortunately, as the storm gets close to the mountain it splits in two and goes around the mountain.

So I make it to Camp Muir which showcases even more tents than usual. My guess is that nobody is using sleeping facilities due to close quarters and the pandemic situation.

Coming back down the mountain the snow is soft and that means two things. First, it is safe to Glissade and second, it is easy to fall when jogging. I fell five times, once where it was pretty steep and I started to slide but caught myself.

The good, the bad. Love what is and go hiking!

Go Hiking But Just Don’t Fall

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The possibility of failure is always in the back of my mind when I am in the mountains. My balance has become worse over the years.

Still, that should not prevent you from hiking. It is like anything in life. It requires courage. To accept that you might fall, but that you can learn from past experiences to help prevent it.

Face Plants

I have done many face plants. There are several that I recall well, but the one that stands out from all the rest is falling down Pebble Creek on Rainier. It was before I began wearing Microspikes on the mountain. It was steep and all ice. My legs went out from under me and I tumbled a hundred feet into the rocks cutting my legs and my head. I was lucky that an EMT was on his way up the mountain and he bandaged me up and told me to get to a hospital.

Getting fired from a job is a face plant. I have been actually fired a couple of times. One was when I was selling stamps. You carried this 35-pound briefcase full of rubber stamps door to door. I was horrible at it. Most recently I was fired from a wholesale pharmaceutical company. These failures, just like face plants on the mountain, teach you something each time. I learned the importance of Micorspikes from my Rainier fall and learned about weaknesses I needed to strengthen after being fired. In sales of course, typically you are fired for not meeting your numbers. I have worked for over thirty different sales organizations. Most of the time I was either the number one representative or close to the top. A lot of job changes were companies going out of business or me just deciding I could do better elsewhere.

Breaking Something

Falling can also lead to actually breaking something. Once I cracked a couple vertebra after landing on my back and on another occasion I cracked a rib. These kinds of things go with the territory when you are someone like me who has never been very athletic. I also have repeatedly broken expensive trekking poles.

You can break things in life as well. I broke two marriages and many bank accounts. But once again you learn and grow. Then with some luck, things got a little better.

So get out there and go hiking!

Bookish Weapon Number Forty-One

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“The Pleasure Prescription,” by Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. was written in 1996. It is still timely and I think a classic self-help book. So here we go.

Aloha vs Haole. Aloha besides meaning “Hi,” is the word for our seventh sense, the instinctive drive to do what is pleasurable and healthful. Haole means “without health.” The author says his book is about “rediscovering your sense of aloha.”

What I Liked and Didn’t Like

Pearsall says you can get enough exercise just by walking a few times a week. I disagree with this, but won’t belabor it. There are a lot of things in the book the make sense.

I liked this. “If you want to bring pleasure into your life, be a person who brings great pleasure into life – and into someone else’s life.” I agree! If you think you are adding to someone’s day even if it is just to make it a tiny bit more enjoyable then it will make your day too.

Relationships

One of the most impactful observations Pearsall makes is about relationships is drawn from the Polynesian culture. He quotes a Polynesian kahuna, “All bonds are forever. Divorce never annuls a relationship, and if you want to find joy, stay closely related to others and the world. The brain may think it has voided a commitment, but the heart does not think that way. Like a loving child, once it has loved, the heart loves forever, no matter what. You can never truly separate, even if you live a world away. It is a law of physics and a law of Polynesia. Once things join, they are transformed by their joining and are One forever.” That has stuck in my mind over the years and I think it is what really sets his book apart from the rest.

If you take the above statement to heart you will approach relationships with a far more serious and thoughtful mind. How many people are you One with that you thought were just a pause that refreshes? Think about that.

Urgency

Now here is something to consider. In the world of time management, they tell you to separate what is urgent from what is important and to know the difference. Pearsall discusses urgency in a different light. He calls it the “Urgency Response.” Some people are always under its spell. If you were raised in a violent home then you are constantly “ready.”

Pearsall says, “The urgency response is not just a psychological state, but also a physiological one. A state of prolonged urgency gradually kills us and threatens those around us by weakening our immune system, stressing our heart, and prematurely aging all of our bodies ’ systems.” Then he quotes Albert Camus who says, “If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”

Balance is the key says, Pearsall. “Healthy balance and oscillation is the key to the pleasure prescription. Just as too much happiness too often and too long can cross over to psychotic delusion, chronic unhappiness and internal stress from perceived helplessness and lack of joy can cross over to serious clinical depression.” We need to keep the parasympathetic system balanced with the sympathetic. So go get the Nature Beat App and a chest strap so you can check yours every morning.

Pain and Loss

This book is a couple of hundred pages long and I have only taken a few ideas from it so please read it yourself. There is much more to learn between these pages.

However, there is one more quote from the kahuna on pain and suffering that I thought was excellent. “When you are dealing with pain, loss, and suffering, you must remember five things. Be patient, for this too shall pass. Stay connected, for relationships must be strong to make the passing possible. Be pleasant through your pain, for that will bring you the aloha you need to heal and give healing to others. Silence your self-pity and avoid self-blame, for you are only doing what we all must do. Most of all, keep giving your aloha. Don’t use your suffering, share it by opening up to others, teaching them what you are learning from your pain, and holding and comforting them to let them know that they too will be safe when it comes to their turn.”

Bookish Weapon Number Thirty-Seven

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At the beginning of this book by Mark Manson with the hopeless title, “Everything is F*ucked,” he says, “One day, you and everyone you love will die. And beyond a small group of people for an extremely brief period of time, little of what you say or do will ever matter. This is the Uncomfortable Truth of Life. And everything you think or do is but an elaborate avoidance of it. We are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling around on a tiny blue speck. We imagine our own importance. We invent our purpose – we are nothing.
Enjoy your f*king life.”

That is nihilism!

Hope

He goes on to say that people need hope almost as much as they need air. That, “depression is a crisis of hope.” Then he makes the point that his book is “against nihilism.” He says by starting with it we can argue against it. You can build a case for hope.

First, he points out some uncomfortable facts, like…symptoms of depression and anxiety, are on an eighty-year upswing amount young people and a twenty-year upswing amount the adult population. Not only are people experiencing depression in greater numbers, but they’re experiencing it at earlier ages, with each generation.” Also, that “…the wealthier and safer the place you live, the more likely you are to commit suicide.” He says that is “Because the better the world gets, the more we have to lose, the less we feel we have to hope for.”

Then he says, “To build and maintain hope, we need three things: a sense of control, a belief in the value of something, and a community.” The rest of the book examines these three areas.

Self Control

The idea of having two brains is not new. He examines it here. The feeling brain and the thinking brain are how he describes it. The feeling brain is emotions and the thinking brain is logic. He says they don’t talk to each other very well.

The problem of self-control is an uneducated “Feeling Brain that has adopted and accepted poor value judgments about itself and the world.” Or as he says, “The problem is that, at some point, likely a long time ago, we got punched in the face, and instead of punching back, we decided we deserved it.”

Self Worth

I thought the hedge to this short section was perfect. It is “Our Self-Worth Equals the Sum of Our Emotions Over Time.” What an interesting way to look at it. He says, “Life kicks you around a little bit, and you feel powerless to stop it. Therefore, your Feeling Brain concludes that you must deserve it.”

He concludes this section by saying, “People suck, and life is exceedingly difficult and unpredictable.” However, he says we will encounter more suffering if we stay separated from others thinking we are either better than them or don’t measure up.

He goes on to discuss two more emotional laws. Did you miss the first one? The title of that section.

Nietzsche

The author discusses this philosopher and I thought what he discussed rang true. He said “ Nietsche called the elite the “masters” of society, as they have almost complete control over wealth, production, and political power. He called the working masses the “slaves” of society because saw little difference between a laborer working his whole life for a small sum and slavery itself.” Isn’t that soothing to think about! Another idea accompanied this one – that people get what they deserve. He called it Master Morality.

Then he says the slaves (laborers) of society generated a moral code of there own that they were righteous and virtuous because of their weakness. “Whereas master morality believes in the virtue of strength and dominance, save morality believes in the virtue of sacrifice and submission.”

Kant

Manson says Kant “argued that the most fundamental moral duty is the preservation and growth of consciousness, both in ourselves and in others.” And Kant presents us with a “Formula for Humanity” which states, “Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” Kant is so hard to read.

This is when Manson throws “hope” in the ditch. Says if we act unconditionally then we don’t have to rely on hope. You just love someone not expecting anything in return.

Pain

Manson has some interesting things to say about pain. The first one has to do with the biggest pain, death. He says, “Death is psychologically necessary because it creates stakes in life.” I suppose you didn’t have something to lose you really don’t appreciate it. I know at my age death is at least a weekly thought. He goes on and says, “Without the pain of loss (or potential loss), it becomes impossible to determine the value of anything at all.”

Nassim Taleb wrote the book “Antifragile,” and Manson brings up that theme. He says, “the more antifragile we become, the more graceful our emotional responses are, the more control we exercise over ourselves, and the more principled our values. Antifragility is therefore synonymous with growth and maturity.

“…the quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our character, and the quality of our character is determined by our relationship to our pain,” says Manson.

So he says not to pursue happiness. Pursue pain. You want to be able to decide what pain you are going to pursue. He puts it this way, “When we pursue pain, we are able to choose what pain we bring into our lives. And this choice makes pain meaningful – and therefore it is what makes life meaningful.” That is profound! I choose the mountain. Go hiking. It is great pain.

There is more in the book, but this is a pretty good summary if I do say so myself.

Bookish Weapon Number Thirty-Two

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This book, “Awareness,” by Anthony De Mello was written some time ago but has received recent accolades from the likes of Tim Ferriss and others. There is a good reason for it. He was certainly one of the first proponents of mindfulness although he didn’t call it that.

The book is short with big ideas. Sometimes those are the best kind. You can just read them over and over again.

Sleeping

De Mello says most people are asleep. He says, “They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human existence.” He goes on to say that “all Mystics, Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion – are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well.”

Insights abound in this book. Being asleep is discussed throughout the book and he makes a point that people do not want to “be cured.” “What they want is relief; a cure is painful.” “Most people go to a psychiatrist or psychologist to get relief. I repeat: to get relief. Not to get out of it.” So he says you need to “realize that you don’t want to wake up.”

You

Here is a passage that struck me and like I so often do I will quote the whole thing. It is an idea I think everyone needs to hear especially in this day and age where it seems everyone is running to therapy over even minor things. He says that we are “not ok” but it doesn’t matter. We should just observe (be aware). Then he says,

“This reminds me of the fellow in London after the war. He’s sitting with a parcel wrapped in brown paper in his lap; it’s a big, heavy object. The bus conductor comes up to him and says, “What do you have on your lap there?” And the man says, “This is an unexploded bomb. We dug it out of the garden and I am taking it to the police station.” The conductor says, “You don’t want to carry that on your lap. Put it under the seat.”

“Psychology and spirituality (as we generally understand it) transfer the bomb from your lap to under your seat. They don’t really solve your problems. Has that ever struck you? You had a problem, now you exchange it for another one. It’s always going to be that way until we solve the problem called “you.”

Suffering

“Do you want a sign you’re asleep? Here it is: You’re suffering. Suffering is a sign that you are out of touch with the truth.”

He says, “All suffering is caused by my identifying myself with something, whether that something is within me or outside me.” “Grief is a sign that I made my happiness depend on this thing or person, at least to some extent.”

He makes the case for enjoying people not for who they are but also for more than who they are and we are. He goes on to say that, Loneliness is not cured by human company. Loneliness is cured by contact with reality.” Then he talks about the “organized industry” designed to distract us from reality. I/Phone anyone?

How about some “bliss.” De Mello says, “There’s only one reason why you’re not experiencing what in India we call Anand – bliss, bliss. There’s only one reason why you’re not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it is because you’re thinking or focusing on what you don’t have.”

Wisdom

The Bible says wisdom begins with the fear of God. I am sure De Mello has read this and agrees, but he says there are four steps to wisdom. First, you need to become aware of negative feelings you didn’t realize you had. Second, is to “understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality.” The third step is to “Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the I…don’t say, “I am depressed.” He says you can say “It is depressed.” You should not define yourself in terms of a feeling. That is a mistake. The fourth step is to change yourself. Don’t try to change somebody else. Realize that “the world is right because I feel good.” You feeling good goes first.

De Mello says, “There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and hunger in the world! “…Because life is a mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it. For that you’ve got to wake up and then you’ll suddenly realize that reality is not problematic, you are the problem.”

Life

“Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.” How about that statement! I agree with him when he says. “Loneliness is when you are missing people, aloneness is when you’re enjoying yourself.”

Then he gives us a pretty good definition of awareness. It is like mindfulness without the wanting. He puts it this way, “When people say they want to experience every moment, they are really talking awareness, except for the “wanting.”

Death

“You are not living until it doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn to you whether you live or die.” Now that is something to think about. He doesn’t end there. “People mistakenly think that living is keeping the body alive. So love the thought of death. Love it.”

Then he suggests visiting a graveyard. Consider the people there. How short their lives were.

I must confess that I am asleep and hope I remain asleep if being awake means you don’t care if your alive or dead. I think his perspective may be due to the fact that he is old as he writes this and closer to death or I am just to stupid to grasp this idea.

Love

He says, “Give up your dependency. Tear away the tentacles of society that have enveloped and suffocated your being. You must drop them. Externally, everything will go on as before, but though you will continue to be in the world, you will not be of it.”

And then he says something I can really identify with. “It will help, too, if you return to nature. Send the crowds away, go up to the mountains, and silently commune with trees and flowers and animals and birds, with sea and clouds and sky and stars.” “That is the cure for loneliness.”