Not much of the traveler am I. Five continents. More countries and states than I can easily recall. Travel by Russian army truck, speedboats, Tuktuks, and airplanes that were so crowded that a passenger had to stand. All these places and experiences. But even so, to travel out of town for three days, and I…

Cooperation. Or competition. When we are working together towards something at what point are we no longer working together? Once there was a movement towards something. Maybe I am romanticizing it. Maybe it never existed. But once we fought towards a single thing. Together. Even with our differences. Now the space is crowded and no…

You can either lift it or you can’t. Doesn’t matter how much you talk about it. Doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t like it. If you can lift it, you own it. Sure, people cheat a bit. Sliding the bar over the thighs or not dropping down low enough. Iron doesn’t give a shit about your…

Is most of life just throwing stones against the waves? Why is it so hard for any of us to give up control? Especially over others? We know better. We have more experience. We’re not sure that the other person is doing the right thing of making the right choices. But, in the end, do…

A second, a minute, an hour, a year, a lifetime. Beginning and end. How do we exist within a measure of time? Whether a second or a life. That space between.

I remember the first time I competed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The moment I stepped onto that mat, I could not feel my legs. My opponent looked like he was standing at the far end of a tunnel. I’m not sure I could actually hear anything. A high level of stress and my body was…

Because I deadlifted really heavy today. And then I did squats. And I accidentally added ten extra pounds of iron to the bar. Everything was heavier than it should have been. So my brain is in my legs. No blog post today.

Sometimes the water is leaking. And the pipes don’t fit together. So you gotta go a little crazy. Rage against the plumbing. The dark has to come out. Curse, swear, see red. It’s not who you are. But it is a part of you. Ugly, raging, angry. It’s there for a reason. Then it’s gone.…

Is it fun anymore? Can this be the central organizing question for change and whether we stay on a path that we have traveled? On a surface level, the question appears flippant. Not everything in life is supposed to be fun. Within everything that we strive for, we accept that there are hills and valleys.…

You introduce an input into a function to get an output. If you want to change the output, you can either change the function or the input. In life, what should we change? The function or the input? In life, neither is particularly certain. Here I am. Here’s where I want to go. What do…

The key to getting the work done – and the work done well – is consistency. Showing up every day. Or every other day. But at what point does the “not quite every day” begin to erode to where it is no longer doing what it is supposed to. I am trying to blog every…

Call and response. The sound of me responding to the early morning alarm. Dreams interrupted. Darkness greeting me. The dog ready to go (only to be asleep again in half an hour). I love the productivity of mornings but not the whip of the alarm. I dread that time of the year when the days…

Fact is if you train long enough, or do anything long enough, including writing, you are going to have one of these days. More than likely you will have several of these days. At first, this day will appear like any other day really. Stretching and chatting with team mates before class, breezing through the…

Is it the world’s oldest story? Rags to riches… …to asshole. At what point does the dream shift from art to ego? Or a suitcase full of cash? Our culture has become one of celebrating the sell outs, those who posture and pose, those who swagger and swear, to reach the ultimate goal: the payout.…

There’s this concept in exercise called Greasing the Groove. Let’s say you want to do 10 pull ups. But you can’t. How do you approach getting to that goal of 10 pull ups. One approach is the steady linear approach. Over time, you start with what you can say a set of 5 pull ups,…

Instead of spending my early mornings putting down a thousand words per day on a story, I am stuck on two words. Two damned words. The title of my upcoming fantasy book. Two words should be easy. Right? After all it’s only two freaking words. This is the third day in a row of combinations…

Website slow loading. Waiting on hold. But also, more importantly, a few words shared. Common ideas that bridge the divide between you and me. As artists, we are in our heads, our bodies forgotten, except when unwinding from tortured positions. But we can connect. Because even if our struggles are different, they are the same.…

Between what we are and what we want to become. That is the essence of a meaningful life. But that is not where it stops. What matters is how we carry ourselves between here and there. Especially when failure and setback fills that space between.

Show up. Do the work. Don’t worry about the outcome. Love the process. Connect with others.

There’s a certain tension between comfort and fear. It’s there for a reason. After all, some of the online success profits are identifying a fear and then using that to get you to buy something that they are selling. They are selling the idea of freedom, or at least, opening with those cards. Is it…