Colorado Adventures That Make My Heart Smile

4.5.18 - Vital Root on Tennyson ~ 12 PM MT

We’re sitting at Vital Root after enjoying a well-crafted, fresh, lunch filled with flavor and crunch.  There’s a woman breast-feeding out in the open and it’s kind of hard for me to focus, but here we go.  Heather thinks that breast-feeding in public should be less stigmatized and a more common practice, and it does make sense in the same way that we should be more in tune with where our food comes from.  As we distance ourselves or create social stigmas around human practices that have gotten us to where we are as a society, we are very literally losing some of the community associated with our humanity.

The last three days have felt like a vacation in Colorado: on Monday Heather and I lounged in the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs outside of Buena Vista; on Tuesday Heather rode Limbo and I climbed at Earth Treks in Golden; and on Wednesday David Miller and I carved down the slopes at Keystone and smiled and laughed in our descent.  Each day contained moments of levity that are within a couple hours of our home in Arvada, providing us places of refuge and relaxation to panoramic summits and high speed descents with meandering roads and adventures in between. 

The common thread running through all of them was a sense of gratitude that continuously left our lips.  Heather and I were borderline tripping balls as we gazed to the sky in a creek side hot springs pool, thinking upon where we are both literally and psychologically.  The strong sunrays, the quickly drifting clouds and the smell of the fresh green pines combined with the sound of the constant trickle of the cold creek over the warm rocks lured our minds towards serenity.  The next day, clinking our glasses together at Kline’s Beer Hall after each of our endorphin sessions on horseback and climbing wall, respectively, made the pints go down that much easier.  On the chair lifts and on the slopes, Miller and I smiled and laughed, asked and answered, and thought, felt and shared stories.  When we plopped down into lounge chairs beneath the blinding high-noon sun we were billionaires, basking between snowcapped mountaintops gazing upon the best that the world has to offer.  There is luxury and then there is gratitude and appreciation – without the latter, the former is empty and broken, but without the former, the heart can still smile.

It’s weird to think about a person meaning more to you than your longest friends, but David Miller has achieved such status.  There is significance in the way he approaches conversations, welcoming the mundane and the magnanimous with an equal hand as if each holds equal importance.  In a paradoxical way there is wisdom in understanding the whole spectrum and listening to each wavelength as you try to hone in on someone’s frequency.  We all walk around with our own thoughts, suffering through our troughs and celebrating our crests, and it’s easy to forget that everyone around us has their own path but when you talk to Miller you feel like he’s listening in an attempt to sync up.  Being completely in concert with another’s wavelength is more than likely impossible, but that’s how I felt on the mountain with Miller – and that’s what happens when you listen to a song that resonates with you; or when you somehow spend an hour or two in front of a piece in a museum. What I’m trying to say is when you find someone who tries to sync up with your wavelength, don’t let them go, because they don’t come around that often, and human connection is invaluable. 

Nihilism: The Teenager's Escape from Reality

3.27.18  - 5004 Cody Street ~ 9:10 AM MT

            I’m starting to write at 9 today, which is a step in the right direction.  Once I spend a few minutes or hours sucking at the teat of mindless information it’s difficult for my mind to focus and get back on track.  When I first wake up my mind may be groggy but it’s the most clear that it will be all day. 

            Yesterday I helped a friend, let’s call him Mark, paint a room and we talked about everything from nostalgic video games (Link’s Awakening for Gameboy) to what animal we’d want to be reincarnated as (some type of bird).  He talked about that he doesn’t have much time to do anything and the time that he does have he enjoys being by himself and gaming, proclaiming that he has “no responsibilities to anyone but himself.”  At the time it seemed very appealing, carrying an air of total freedom, but I can’t help but think that it’s ironically one of the reasons he’s depressed.  He often uses it as a rationalization for sleeping in until noon and he never applies himself.

            I remember when I used to sleep in that late and I’d feel crummy.  It was tough to feel good about myself when I wasn’t leaving the stamp of my uniqueness on anything on any given day.  Floating through life is fine and all, but at some point I thought, “this is how you wake up middle aged never really doing anything.”  Pleasure and leisure can only get you so far but fulfillment lies in a putting in a concerted effort at something that you don’t mind doing over and over again, improving upon it every time.  When you sleep through the morning and coast through the afternoon, the only thing you get in exchange is whatever you’re dreaming about. 

            Heather helps me by pulling my productivity towards her end of the spectrum because that’s her default.  It’s also why we’re good together: because we bring each other towards a happy equilibrium.  Too much of anything is detrimental, just take either Mark or Heather by themselves—unhappy and caught in a cyclical pattern of what they know and what they feel comfortable doing.  I could definitely use some work getting pulled to the side of productivity but I tend to think I hover more around the center than either of them. 

            Mark also lets his cynicism paralyze his action in the form of anti-capitalistic nihilism.  He’s not wrong—it’s just too much for a human mind to carry with it, especially if you’re going to exist within the capitalistic structure and enjoy some of the luxuries it provides.  Perhaps I’m too cut and dry or I’ve bought into the system as well, but when you hold beliefs as strong as him I think that you have to either separate entirely, removing yourself from participation in the system as much as possible; or you come to grips with the futility of overthrowing it, accept the benefits it awards you, and you try to combat it in the most productive way that you can as an unique individual.  I don’t think he believes in some widespread Marxist revolution to overthrow the owners of the means of production (I used to) but I don’t see any value in nihilism.  It’s like a teenagers way out of the existential crisis of capitalism.

            My argument against nihilism is also the same one why I don’t harbor negative feelings towards people most of the time—because they don’t provide anything useful to me.  When you do things in life that have no positive purpose you are essentially keeping your needle close to neutral, perhaps even tilting towards the negative side of things, and I believe life is more than that.  You don’t have to achieve greatness, you don’t have to get a PHD or discover something new; all you have to do is try to leave the unique imprint of yourself somewhere everyday (with exception to intentionally hurting others), and try to err on the side of positivity. 

The Existential Tug-of-War

3.21.18 - Various Locations ~ 1:41 PM -9:10 PM MT

            I just got out of TIPS training and despite the fact that the trainer was nice, I still think that the whole thing is a racket.  That being said, it was nice to clarify the accepted Colorado truths of hospitality: that you CAN serve someone without an ID and that the police CAN lie to you to entrap you.  The process was pretty painless on the whole.

            I followed it up with fries and a beer at Fate Brewing (highly recommend!) and proceeded to run five miles and climb for an hour at Earth Treks—my stomach felt somewhere between a washing machine and a college party—nonetheless, I powered through and managed to enjoy my calorie-burning.    

            I came home to eat the leftover Blue Pan Detroit-style-pizza (I say goddamn!) and watched a leaked video of Buffalo Bills wide receiver Zay Jones who was naked, trying to jump out of a 30th floor window.  

            Here comes the cliché, “athletes and celebrities are people too” that everyone says in unison when things like his happen. It’s sad that things have to come to this for us to remember the humanity of eachother.  I think the core takeaway of what happened with Zay is that mental health is not to be taken lightly, and that we have to be careful choosing the lens in which we see the world.  Who knows the way Zay has been looking through the glass but it’s clear that he’s hit a critical breaking point.  This is just a reminder that our mental health should always come first because the human mind is too powerful to be taken lightly.

            We don’t even know the extent of the capability of our brains yet we press forward with technology as if we can handle the perilous unknown that we are creating.  There will always be nostalgia for a simpler time but the time we find ourselves in is scarily precarious.  Our psyches are bombarded with information, temptation, and subversion almost every second of every day and we’re supposed to stay sane, confident, and working towards a worthy goal in life.  Not to mention that the information we’re being fed is intelligently crafted to manipulate or affect our very sensitive psyches.  Thus, it’s not a mystery when public figures meltdowns like this—the pressure for the average 21st century individual is enough—without the eyes of the world judging you 24/7.

            For most of us in the western world we lead relatively simple lives even though we long for more. Part of it is our culture of rampant consumerism and entertainment, but the other is that the human mind seems to long for acceptance, notoriety, and accolade.  We go to school, we find a job, and we hopefully find a partner and start a family and in between all of it time passes us by.  We wind up climbing into our death beds wondering where the time went watching the reel of our regrets on repeat.  I think that the human mind is confused, caught somewhere between the comfort of the simple and the ambition for innovation, getting yanked back and forth day-in-and-day-out in some sort of existential tug-of-war. 

                                              At least that’s how I feel sometimes.

            That’s why I focus on happiness in the now, assuring that Heather and I hash out our inner workings to the best of our abilities.  Our minds can be scary places and talking to others makes our own feel less alone.  Sharing intimate stories and thoughts reveals to the world that we are alike even though our insecurities tell us that we aren't.  Sometimes we need to silence the thoughts in our heads to let the words come from our lips to make us remember that we all suffer and that misery loves company. 

            Pain is inevitable in life, but the way we process and react to it, whether we share it or lock it up can make all the difference.  The lens in which we choose to view the world determines the reality before our eyes; let it be tinted with the courage to share the pain that stirs inside you: first for the benefit of yourself; and second for the benefit of mankind. 

"We Are What We Repeatedly Do"

2.25.18 - Brittany’s House off Independence ~ 9:46 AM MT

            Coming back from an Internet black hole, 30 minutes later, I’m finally putting some work in.  Its really hard for me to focus when there is so much content to consume, making it really easy to divert my attention to passive activities.  I’m grateful to have Brittany and Mike’s house to take refuge, although I wish their fireplace worked. 

            The thought that’s been bumping around my head is to unify all that I’ve been thinking about since studying philosophy in a non-fiction work about living a meaningful life in the 21st century.  My immediate response to my own thought is: who are you to say how to live a meaningful life?  To which I respond, I studied philosophy, Aristotle intensively, and have meaningful interactions day-in-and-day-out.  If you are what you consistently do, then what does that make the average American?  A consumer: products, food, entertainment--that is what our culture is known for. 

            I used to think about dismantling the ideology of businesses, how ethics should be enforced onto ad agencies and mega-corporations because it’s not “right” to manipulate the psyches of the masses to make a quick buck.  A realization on that idea is that the inertia behind the consumerist exploitation of the American population is so great and monolithic that it’d be like an ant standing in front of a tank rather than a person in Tiannamen square.  A disruption of the system through bureaucratic means not only sounds like an unconquerable uphill battle, but an exercise in futility.

            Instead, focusing on the tenet of Aristotle, you are what you constantly do, in order to have a meaningful life you need to make meaningful decisions.  You need to exercise discipline in your consummatory choices, recognizing the need for pain, for silence, for the higher cost of quality products to live a more meaningful life.  Unless you’re willing to live a meaningless, surface-level life, in which case that’s fine for you to Snapchat your days away, Facebooking until the screen on your phone burns your retinas.

            Aristotle’s tenet, then, is a phrase meaning that life is a pattern of decision-making.  It doesn’t need to be framed in good or bad decisions, but rather healthy or unhealthy ones.  We do not need to invoke a 21st century code of morality to live better lives, all we need is some science.      

Happiness: A Focused Effort on Self-Improvement

It took me awhile to get in front of a keyboard today.  I'm still putting up the same obstacles between me and my writing.  A blank page forces me to come face-to-face with my potential and I sit and stare, like I'm waiting for a divine strike of inspiration. The thought of perfection paralyzes my hands and mind. The reality is that I just have to endure the pain if I want to be a professional writer.

I watched an interview with David Foster Wallace in an attempt to lure inspiration from the depths of my consciousness.  It still saddens me that a man with so much intellect and insight into the human condition took his life.  It saddens me to think about what else he could've contributed to the progress of humanity.

In the interview they spoke about the allure of drugs and entertainment and how they both provided a certain escape.  DFW linked these concepts to the ideology of self-gratification that pervades U.S. culture, where this hedonistic pleasure-center is constantly fed.  He touched on class as part of the problem as it is the privileged graduates holding Masters and Bachelors degrees that have the ability and affinity to engage in higher culture, while the uneducated are trapped in a cyclical poverty.  Let's face it - the endurance and focus necessary to read stuff like Infinite Jest is going to lose 9 times out of 10, even in educated circles.  The trick seems to be to expedite the transmission of self-developmental content in an engaging, inexpensive, and for lack of a better word, subversive manner.

A fulfilling life requires effort, discipline and thoughtful action, which are all products of self-development.  The problem is that mainstream media undermines all of these.  The passive satisfaction of our thoughts and desires renders the active life a laborious endeavor, devaluing the fulfilling process of work in favor of comfortable stupefaction.  Work has been an adversary to humans for millennia, but its stigma has grown exponentially since the dawn of the industrial age.

What would the argument for a life of fulfillment rather than comfort look like?  The Aristotelean aim was towards a happiness made possible by virtues like temperance, courage, friendship, honesty, etc.  The world we live in now subverts these virtues in the name of capitalistic enterprise; which means that our current system of values stands in opposition to our actualization of happiness and fulfillment.  We are given instruments enabling passive unhappiness and we are told that we are lazy, ungrateful leeches on the society.  MAYBE if we were given empowering tools rather than those determined by economic and capitalistic ends, we would be a more effective generation!  

This mostly sounds like entitled wishful thinking, but it's important for me to hash out these concepts.  Self-development is critical for lasting happiness and we live in a culture that undermines it around every corner.  Happiness and fulfillment require effort, discipline, and thoughtful action, which means that if want better lives, we need to make a concerted, focused effort on improving ourselves.