This is our bar

In class the other day at Gracie United in Hammond, Louisiana, Professor Rafael Ellwanger said something that really struck a chord with me. "One of the things i miss about training in Brazil was after every class we would all go out to eat and spend time together. We did not go out to the bar; no smoking, no drinking. This is our bar, here on the mat. This is where we like to be and the people we like to be with." I have never voiced that so succinctly but i have always felt it. Training in the dojo, working on the martial arts has always been where i feel the most happy and at home.

I have never been one for loud parties and huge groups of drunk people. It is hard to vacation with me because i really do not like to sit around and do nothing. When i have a day off what i tend to do is work out or work on skills or projects i have for one of our varied business ventures. That is what i choose to do on my time off. I have a hard time when i have days off in a row and nothing to do. I would rather be on the mat. That is indeed my place of community and where i go to unwind after a long day. It is more vacation than most of my vacations.

Students days, kids and the Renaissance Faire

I have been working at Renaissance Faires and festivals for quite a long time now. Nothing seems to strike fear into my fellow performers and merchants hearts like kids' days. Whenever they are coming up and we have meetings invariably people want to roll out their horror stories and talk about ways to protect yourself from these monsters we have to suffer through. As someone who owns a festival myself and has also been through over 10 years of faires and student days, i have to say to those people who preach the fear and loathe these "horrible" days... shut up.

I have never had a bad kids' day in all my years working as an entertainer and even a few times as a vendor. I think the problem a lot of people have on student days comes from the attitude that they bring with them. There is an expectation that the kids are going to be awful brats and the day is going to be a battle to protect merchandise and feelings against these young humans that are coming through the gate. I watched someone just the other day yell belligerently at a group of students, "Get out of the way, the rickshaw is coming!" The rickshaw was behind them. These students were just walking and laughing with each other, but the attitude thrown at them was one of anger and the seizing of authority. This group of students did not do anything untoward and yet this worker at the faire assumed he had to be hard nosed with these young people. Most people who work at faire are having an awful student day even before it has begun. If you ask someone how they are doing before the day you will here all kinds of negativity about a day that has not even begun yet. People... STOP!

Our perception definitely shapes our reality. If you go into anything with expectations the universe is probably going to give you back what you are asking for. This is especially true when dealing with children, they are sensitive creatures and they can feel your loathing seeping off of you.

Here are some things that i do, and mind you, i have never had a bad kids' day. Try these things. They work.

1. Do not patronize kids. Talk to them like people because they are. Just like we laugh when hearing about patrons who believe that actors or people behind a counter are, "Almost like real people", the idea that every kid who comes to the faire is some kind of mini-monster is just as laughable. Treat them with respect and talk to them like a person. Do not expect them to be "bad" and you will be amazed at the amazing experiences you will have, let alone what they will take home from meeting you.

2. At the same time, they are children and don't forget it. You are an adult or at least you are supposed to be so know your boundaries. If you remember that these are young people and not criminals you can handle almost any situation you encounter.

3. Here is the big one, and the number 1 reason to not hate these days... most of us like what we do and enjoy that faires exists so we don't have to work in a cubicle somewhere... well this is the future of our business! If these kids get hooked now, they are the ones who are going to be coming back and bringing their kids here in the next generation of people. Our music director in NJ fell in love with Renaissance Faires when she came to a student day many years ago. If you can't figure out a way to sell things the kids are going to buy, consider it advertising for the future of your business. Make them love it!

4. Go into the day expecting to play. The students that come on kids' days are ready and willing to play in your world and i don't care what age group you are talking about. If you do not see each interaction as a battle but an opportunity you will be amazed at the fun you can have.

Student days at faire are to me some of my favorite. We are done at 2 in the afternoon and we spend all day with a bunch of people who if you do not send waves of negative energy at them will find you to be a hero by the end of your interaction with them. Some of them can even learn something and some of them may wind up working for you in years to come.

Stop hating on the kids' days everybody.

A public service announcement from the Lords of Adventure. ;)

We are the light of the world

This weekend was all about light. There are some fundamental scientific truths about light that we all kind of know in elementary and high school but do not really fathom how monumental they are. We learn about plants and photosynthesis and that they create their energy and food from the light of the sun. They are green because that color absorbs the red and blue color light which has the most diverse wavelength selection to draw from while reflecting back the green colored light which sits in the middle of the spectrum. Animals then eat plants and get their energy there and are in turn eaten by other animals which get their energy from those animals that got their energy from the plants. All of the motivating energy of every living thing comes originally from the light of the sun.

We need to take a minute to let that sink in. We all, every living thing, ultimately are eating sunlight, solar energy, nuclear fusion reactions from over 92 million miles away. When we think about the implications of this it is kind of staggering. Every action on the earth by a living creature is ultimately solar energy made manifest in matter. The plant converts light into its energy and stores it in its leaves and body like a battery. It is there as potential. As an animal when i eat a plant my cells and mitochondria convert that into energy and action of my muscles. My typing on this keyboard is sunlight made matter in the world. Every time i hit a heavy bag or strike a chord on a guitar, it is an explosion of stored energy that originated in the sun.

I believe this is the same for thoughts. If thoughts are electrical energy in our brains and consciousness then they too started out in the the star that centers our solar system. I am not a dualist who believes that mind stuff and body stuff are somehow different. This is the topic for another blog, but my studies have led me to believe that everything is a type of energy moving at different speeds. Matter is energy slowed down to a lower vibration. If this is the case then that energy that becomes our thoughts and our consciousness originated in the sun too.

The planets in our solar system, the meat of my body, everything that is exploded out of stars, at least in this theory. We are made up of stardust people. That is pretty epic. And the sun originated out of the greater galaxy which arose from the greater universe. Whatever that source of the start of the universe was, this blog originated there too. That is where our sun came from. It all ultimately has the same source and has emerged and evolved and grown into this epic dance of the myriad things and creatures and planets and galaxies and photons and rivers and rocks that make up this amazing drama that we can not begin to completely fathom. We are all a part of something magnificent.

I have been looking at the Two-slit experiment again and i feel like in that scenario you are putting energy into a system and it is like a very primitive consciousness. Our brains and bodies are like a very complicated version of that experiment. The system takes that energy and goes to a myriad different places with it, but it all starts with light, with energy, with the Sun, the universe, with the Beginning of things.

Remember, we are all a part of something magnificent!

The Way is in the Training

Once you get the ball rolling, you have to keep the ball rolling.

I have seen a lot of people who have a similar problem. They get really excited about something in their life, be it learning an instrument, working out, getting organized or improving their business. They stay in this state of excitement and inspiration for a few weeks usually, and then it is back to the old routines. This kind of motivation is not very helpful and is kind of counter productive to the whole theory of the rolling of the ball. We need to find ways to keep the ball rolling once we have found it.

I have been very lucky that i tend to stay pretty energized with my projects and training. It took practice though. We have to train ourselves to be the kind of person who will not quit on things. I read "Living the Martial Way" quite a few years back and the instruction to "Train as a warrior trains" sunk in with me. There are several things we can do to help this along, but it is really a matter of focusing your will. Here are some things that i think help to make us get past the excuses and effect positive change. These are laid out in terms of martial arts training or exercise but they can apply to other goals as well.

1. Start out reasonably. Do not think that after years of inactivity you are going to jump headlong into three hours of training a day. You are not going to stick with this. Start out with reasonable expectations.

2. Find an exercise or style that you enjoy doing. Whatever you want to commit too, you have to enjoy it or you are doomed to failure from the beginning. If you hate running that should not be the cornerstone of your new exercise regime. I train in martial arts because i love doing it and i am happy to do it everyday. I like doing that better than i like going on vacation. It is easy for me to stick to it because i found the training program that i like to do.

3. Get involved with a group that shares the same goals. Find a group of like minded people who want to train in what you do. A martial arts school can do this or a basketball team. Find a group on Facebook that will help keep you motivated or pick a fitness buddy to go to the gym with. This will also help with number 4.

4. Hold yourself accountable. Do not let yourself off the hook when you skip workouts or training sessions. Life happens but commit to doing what you have said you were going to do. If you find your new commitment important you should go at it with the zeal with which you go at showing up for work. When you don't go there are consequences. Find ways to make yourself accountable. Post your workouts on social media to a group so people can see what you are doing or start a blog. Keep a fitness journal. Donate to charity every time you miss a workout. Skip a favorite TV show if you miss something. Anything but find a meaningful way to reward yourself for staying on task. If you meet your workout or training goals maybe you go out to eat at the end of the week to a good restaurant, maybe you see a movie. Something. Be accountable.

These are some small things that i do. It is important to find ways for you to keep at your goals and not let them fall by the wayside. Life transformation is not easy and adjusting your will takes time and patience but it can be done. You can affect change.

Who are we?

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it in the process that he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." ~Nietzche

There is a lot of back and forth on the internet presently about Syrian refugees and them coming to our shores. I have seen a lot of vitriol and anger coming especially from the side that advocates closing the borders and protecting our own. I even saw one person say that he would gladly kill every one of them and not lose a minute of sleep over it to protect his family. Have we been gazing too long into an abyss? Are we not being wary while we wrestle with these monsters that we ourselves are not becoming monsters?

What is it about terrorists and those who would take innocent lives to make their point that we so loathe? Is it not that they do not lose a moment's sleep over trying to kill every one of us to prove a point? What is, or at least what should be better about America and what we stand for is that we do not do this. What exactly do we like about ourselves and teach our children to strive for if we become a people who can flippantly say we will not lose a moment's sleep after killing every last one of them? It is possible this person meant every last one of the terrorists who want to destroy us, but what was being talked about were the 1000's of refugees. There may well be, and probably are some vicious killers in the midst of that mass of humanity, but there are definitely some innocent victims, infants, hard working men and women who just happened to be born in a less fortunate circumstance than we were. I do not doubt that there are some among us who do believe they would willingly kill all of them for an ounce of safety. Those among us who believe that and feel that way are the same as the enemy we claim we are trying to defeat... in short, those who flew planes into our buildings, and killed masses of people in Beirut and Paris and elsewhere in the name of a cause... we are the same as them. We cannot hold the moral high ground anymore once we begin to feel that way. We are at that point also monsters.

We all want to keep our families and loved ones safe, but unfortunately becoming hard and heartless does not help that. It is actually counter productive. Our adventures around the world looking out only for our own interest helps to breed this hatred of us. We exploited Cuba for our own interests... and then came Fidel Castro. We used the Mojahideen in Afghanistan when it was a convenient tool against the USSR, and then abandoned them in the end... and then came Osama bin Laden. We instigated the creation of an anti-Syrian force that we knew would be extremist... and now we have ISIS. We keep doing the same things and expecting different results. We support monsters that destroy a society in our own self interest and then wonder why generations of children grow up to hate us. I am not saying that the actions of extremists are justified, just that we had a hand in creating them with actions that are also very unjustified and in the long run are detrimental to our security. We make stupid decisions on the world stage over and over and over again. It is not a partisan problem either. The Obama administration is raining death from the sky on people all over the world with our drone program... the Bush administration gave us the Iraq War... there is not a side of our political world which is free of these bad decisions.

Back to the refugees... I heard my first friend on the blocking refugee side say, "you want to accept these people without checking them, i am all for refugees but letting them in unchecked is suicide". OK, we can get somewhere. I am all for thoroughly vetting the people coming into this country. We have to do that in an efficient way however. We have translators who worked with our military who we have been left to die because of paperwork and we cannot do that here. I do not know exactly how we do this but we can think of something... we put a man on the moon. Maybe we make a safe zone in the Middle East where people are free from danger and can be checked as we need to. Maybe we team up with Egyptian billionaire guy who is buying Greek islands to relocate people who are in harm's way and they can wait there. Maybe that is even a final destination, who knows. The goal is to get people safe, to me that does not have to be here if we have a viable alternative.

We can be compassionate and smart... we can be strong but loving... we can protect ourselves without turning our backs on the world. With great power comes great responsibility. We need to be the ideals we claim to be standing up to protect. We cannot become monsters ourselves or else all of our service men who die in these wars we have created are dying for nothing and that is unacceptable. Shame on our politicians who take military action lightly and send our sons and daughters off to die without a strategy and a plan for political reasons. We cannot let this happen to these brave men and women who are flying our flag on foreign shores. What we are doing has to mean something of value. We are better than those who would wage war on innocent civilians to try and get us to hide under our bed sheets and give up our freedoms for a sense of safety. We went into Europe and Asia and lost millions of American lives because we were better than fascism. We won with most of our principles intact. We do not have to choose between taking care of our veterans and letting the huddled masses who need these shores come here. If we want to make America great again we have to remember what it is that makes this country a shining light on the hill. It is not money or economic security, it is not that we have bigger bombs then everybody else. This place is great because of the ideals that we stand for and what is written in our Constitution. If it is just our wealth and military might, then we are Rome all over again, and empires always fall. It is the people here and all of those people, regardless of the color of their skin or their religious affiliation or sexual orientation is what makes us strong. Are we truly something amazing that has happened to the world or are we just the next Roman Empire that has passed its zenith and is heading toward slow decline?

Get the Ball Rolling

The first part of the Adventurer's Code from the Lords of Adventure's Adventurer's Handbook, "Get the Ball Rolling." Super important concept and i find it to be a big part of the code that most adventurers have a hard time with.

Procrastination is so easy. Things that we are going to do later, we do not have to do right now. I have friends who have stated that they were going to do something, definitively, years ago and those things are never done, will never be done. The reason is because a lot of people have no actual capacity to get the ball rolling. It is easy to have ideas, but to take those ideas and make them actual in the world requires action and it requires the will power to actually create and perform.

I had a friend once who told me, "Man i wish i was as good at martial arts as you are." My response, "Well, start training now and then in ten years you are going to be pretty awesome... or, don't and then ten years from now you know what you will say? 'Man i wish i was as good at martial arts as you.'" He did not begin training and ten years and more have gone by. I buy into this and i might take it to the opposite end because i am always trying to work on things. I might actually need to learn how to relax and just sit sometimes, but that is another blog. This blog is about getting the ball rolling and making something awesome out of your life while you have it.

I have seen it over and over again. I have wanted to do things with people and try to get us working, next thing you know over a year has gone by and we still have done nothing. We only have a limited amount of life that we get and there is SO much amazing creation that we have the potential for. Do not waste your life away thinking about what you are going to do later. Start it. That is what the code means. Get the ball rolling now. If you want to learn a martial art, a musical instrument, if you want to make a sign for your business or ask somebody out on a date... do it now. Right now. Get the ball rolling. When you stop reading this do the thing. Not kidding. You don't have time to wait around or years are going to pass you by.

Rocky - "I'll do it tomorrow."
Apollo Creed - "There is no tomorrow! There is no tomorrow!"

If you would like a copy of the Adventurer's Handbook, get it online: Adventurer's Handbook Online

True Faith

"I feel so extraordinary, something's got a hold on me, i get this feeling i'm in motion, a certain sense of liberty..." ~New Order song, True Faith

The name of that song inspired some philosophy in me back in the day. What exactly is True Faith? What i came to back in college when i was wrestling with the concept is that True Faith is to Know. That is a lot deeper than the things we believe. Even deeper than some things we think we know in that mundane day to day kind of way. We feel that we know that the earth is solid, it is fundamental to our world view and when someone lives through an earthquake to witness the earth churn and pulse like liquid, if frequently leads to therapy. Fundamental beliefs, things we thought we knew shake and are not as firm as we thought. I don't know that this chair i am sitting on will not collapse beneath me but i act as if i do know it. Can we acquire True Faith? Is it possible to know anything in that enlightenment type of level?

Most religions offer us things to believe in that it takes faith to believe. There are those who are reading this i am sure who will claim that i am wrong and that they know for a fact that their religion, relationship with the gods, their personal salvation, etc. is a fact that they know to the core of their being. That does not work to prove anything to the person who has not had the experience and frankly, there are lots of people out there claiming that they know religious truths that contradict a lot of other ones. There is a faith there, sometimes a faith that will lead individuals to do heinous things in the name of what they believe.

I have sought out this True Faith for a long time, i have thought it was a call from somewhere just beyond the borders of my conscious world that beckons me to come and find it. I do not have True Faith in that and i only believe it sometimes.

I am not going to get to True Faith in this blog and if you think you have it bless your heart and i hope you are right. But, i would like to look at a couple of things that suggest to me there is more going on in the universe than we can just observe and that we can actually look at with a scientific eye and observe. These things are just really, kind of cool. They suggest to me at least that we are all connected and a part of the universe in a deep and fundamental way.

The first is sacred geometry. There are sequences in the universe that repeat everywhere. They are ratios that exist in our bodies, in seashells, in hurricanes, in the arms of galaxies, on the coast of New Jersey, in the spin vectors of particles... everywhere. They repeat everywhere. Same ratios. Like a fingerprint of something. I can make assumptions poast that if i am inclined, but we can observe the ratios and look at them. An awesome stone carver friend of mine has a metal caliper that finds the Golden Mean on your body, in a leaf, in anything because it is everywhere. That is really awesome. I cannot say anything about it past that with certainty, but i can say and look at it in the world. I don't have to blindly accept it because it is there and can be measured and seen, over and over again.

The next for me is light. We are made up of stars. What we ultimately eat is light. It is what fuels are bodies and is what we are. Eating a lot of colors tends to be pretty healthy diet and i think that is because you are eating the spectrum of color and various kinds of light energy. Think about that. We are children of the stars. I can't say anything else past that without it being assumptions and theory, but we can look at the action of photosynthesis and see how plants eat. It is that energy of the sun that fuels the plants that ultimately fuels everything. Beautiful.

Is it True Faith? Nope. But, it is rational faith. We can look at those two things and observe them. It is not the enemy of faith to be smart and to deeply question everything. I like proof. There are a lot of things that i believe that i cannot really observe or give you definite observations of, but with these two, you can look at them. Don't take my word for it. Look up the study of light, check out the Golden Mean. Really cool stuff. I cannot prove this objectively, but to me it suggest that the universe we live in is beautiful and amazing. I am happy to be a part of it.

Unfettered

I want to figure out what the limits of my human potential are. Reading Weightlessness by Tom Fazio has really kickstarted my training and brought everything to a new level. I have been wearing ankle and wrist weights throughout my day until about 5 PM. When they come off i feel superhuman. Not only that, it is a giant second wind. The actions and efforts of the day fall off me with the weights that fall to the ground. I have also been working a lot on doing planches. This is an exercise that i used to look at and feel that it was impossible to achieve even as i watched it on video after video. They seem weightless as well. After a month of practice, those things all seem within reach.

With my martial arts training i think the ultimate goal for me is to become completely unfettered. I always talk to my students about the various gears we have in our thoughts and minds. We have a distinct shift when we switch between these and it stops us for a moment and slows us down. I want to break these down and have seamless transition between all of these pairs. Some notable ones are between hands and feet, left and right and the biggest from a martial arts stand point is the great gulf between attack and defense. I can see the look of those shifts on my training partners. I can also feel them in myself when i hit one. Often times if you watch people fight, they will tend to throw some punches , then throw some kicks. When you can transfer seamlessly between your punches and kicks you become a fighter of another level. You force your opponent to fight a war on two fronts. If they have not broken down this division through training, they will have to pause for their brain to catch up as they shift thought between the hands and feet.

Even watching professional fighters you can see the gap between attack and defense, except in cases of the elite. Most often you will see one person attack, then the other. When you can intercept and attack into the attacks that are coming at you, you have achieved another level. When someone is not prepared for this and you make them defend when their mind is in attack mode, they really cannot defend themselves. You cause a hiccup in their thought process and shut their brain down for a split second in which you can steal the attack from them.

I want to be unfettered in my acting as well. Improv theater training is a great way to train this as well and i do believe learning and excelling at improv theater has helped me be a better fighter. To be a master of improv comedy your brain must be free to flow and react to any situation. You say "yes, and" to whatever comes at you as you must in a fight.

This is my quest. I am not about a life of mediocrity or the mundane. I want to always excel and learn and improve myself, that is truly what it means to be a warrior.

Training & Defying Gravity

Music rings in my ears and pulses through my body as my hands and feet fall into canvas with a thunder born of muscle and aggression and focus. My nose is filled with the smell of sweat and glove leather as i dance and weave, evading the attacks of invisible opponents that only i can see. There is no text messaging, no questions about logistics of business or festivals. My body grows stronger as it struggles to survive and receives messages that presently, it is not strong enough to do what is being asked of it. I live three minutes at a time. I am free.

I am an addict. I cannot get enough of the sweet release of endorphins as i punch and kick and elbow and knee my way through a workout. I am never more alive than when my whole system strains and works to become more than it was the day before. My good friend and training partner Brad of years ago who was a fighter told me that i was in the shape he would be in when he was getting ready for a fight. Bruce Lee said that a warrior of life must always be in fight shape because our ring is the street and there are no bells or schedules to let you know when a fight may occur. I took that to heart and i train now to be in shape every day and any day that the need may arise.

When i am working out i am free. It is not just physical but it is a spiritual situation. I have been finding that lately, thanks in great measure to The Tribe of Motivation that we started on Facebook and a book called Weightlessness by Tom Fazio (i highly reccomend it) i am in the best shape of my life. I find myself doing planches and muscle ups which at one point in time seemed impossible. I have been going about my business on a daily basis with 5lb ankle weights and 1.5lb wrist weights strapped to my body. When they come off i feel like i am defying gravity, like i am John Carter of Mars.

I have notebooks chronicling my workouts back to 1997 and it was the same then, that is when this life of training began. And why? What is it about hours in the gym that keeps me doing it? I decided long ago that i never wanted there to be something that i could not do because of a lack of fitness. I would not be unable to play hockey all day with my friends or chase after my little cousins or play Archery Tag with our cast for 7 hours straight. My training has prepared me for all of these and i for the most part really do never tire. Make no mistake, i CAN keep up with you. And my life is more full for it.

It is also about finding my human potential. I was given this one life and i want to find out what its limits are. What can i do? What skills can i learn and what feats can i perform? When i see something amazing being done by someone i am not content to watch, i want to do it. So far, i have found no limits and i am feeling weightless nowadays.

Mostly, it is about Thoreau. "I went to the woods so that i might live deep and suck all the marrow out of life and not when i come to die discover i have not lived." That is from memory, but i think it is pretty close. Walden changed me, fundamentally transformed my outlook and i have been truly living ever since. Thank you Tribe, thank you Thoreau, thank you Bruce Lee and Guru Dan Inosanto, and mainly thank you to this great amazing mystery of life living itself that has granted me the grace to partake for whatever walk i have here in this earth. I will not squander it with mediocrity.

Dualism

Apology and fair warning, this is going to get heady and philosophical.

The philosopher Spinoza said that the chief problem with Western Philosophy is dualism. That is the categories we make that are mutually exclusive with each other and they have cause a lot of problems for us in the West. Mind/Body, Self/Other, the individual/society, etc. etc. Taking mind and body for example, they look like completely distinct and separate things. Mind is a non-extended something and body is matter that exists physically in the universe. We think they are related somehow, but there is a problem figuring out how this non-extended something interacts with the body since typical though usually is that somehow our mind directs the body. It is a problem, at least for philosophers who worry about these sorts of things.

There are lots of kinds of body, or let's use the word matter. We don't have a problem figuring out how they interact with each other because they are all extended in space and have mass. It is easy to see how a car interacts with the telephone pole. Even though are different kinds of matter, it is not a mutually exclusive dualism between car and telephone pole.

This statement of Spinoza's woke me up philosophically. What i happened to be studying at the time was the great philosophers who all had their personal tome. Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature," Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," Hegel's "The Phenomenolgy of Spirit," etc. etc. So, i of course wanted to have my own, mine was going to be "The Codex of Energetic Monism." OK, not sure exactly but energetic monism was the crux of the thing. The idea was and i still believe this, that there is really only one kind of stuff ultimately and it is energy. Matter is just energy in a slower state of vibration and we can see this with all the energy that is locked up in any atom. This is not super important for where we are going, just pointing out where my head space was.

The difference with my theory, and i am sure it is not just mine, there really are not any original thoughts out there, was it did not try to solve the mind/matter problem by just making everything either one or the other. People have tried to solve that problem by saying that things are either just all thought, or just body (chemical reactions n the brain = thoughts, brain states = mind states.) I don't like those kinds of explanations. In the beginning we were beings, undifferentiated and then someone came along and started to classify. We have these thoughts that seem to exist outside of space, and we have these bodies that seem to exist in space, they are two different kinds of stuff. Saying we are either body or mind forgets that we made that distinction in the first place. I was looking for that state that happened before we made the split, which is an illusion, it is a useful illusion but an illusion just the same.

Now, mind/body is only one of the dualisms that affect our lives. Subject/Object, Practical/Spiritual, Local/Global, etc. They are all illusions. You do not have to be bound by the term. When i am learning a practical martial art, it is also very spiritual for me, really the practical and the spiritual are the same. When i am helping a group of five students, i am helping the world. You are not separate from me, and you also are. We don't have to worry about it. Separating self and other, body and thought usually leads to denigrating one side of that equation which leads to one half of the thing. For a long time we have thought of the thought as pure and the body as banal, and thus arise all sorts of issues with female body image, feeling guilty about sex, etc.

If we can bring down these dualisms it would solve a great deal of our problems and ultimately i feel like they are at the root of a lot of our problems that plague us today and throughout history.

I welcome your thoughts. This is something i have thought a lot about and really makes up the core of most of my beliefs. Have an amazing day, and see your fellow humans as your self too.