ProjectMoment

In the 12-Step programs we make a practice of consulting with, and turning our lives over too, a ‘Higher Power’ in order to help us live well and resolve our defects of character. I won’t go into the value of the practice here, except to say that for me it works wonders.

Each participant in a 12-Step program is tasked to define their own Higher Power. The one I work with is my future self. The me at the end of my path who has been through the trials and tribulations, dealt with our defects, and leads the most effective and realized life we possibly can. This particular Higher Power conception appeals especially to me because it is so inherently compassionate and forgiving about my screw ups. My mistakes are his.

I also happen to be a long time game enthusiast. The reason why that’s important will become apparent shortly.

The other day I came across a blog entry linked from LifeHack.org. The piece, What to do with your life, was written by Mark Wieczorek, and is on his blog site - MarkTAW.com. In the article Mark makes reference to Game Theory, a branch of mathematics founded by John von Neumann. I won’t repeat his entire excellent article here, but this is the section that catches the crux, for me -

“What if life isn’t about winners and losers, what if there was some third path that could satisfy everyone? Salesmen, negotiators, and specialists in conflict resolution call this the “win-win situation.” A position where neither side compromises, and both sides get what they want.

The revelation came to me in the form of a question. “What if there was something I could do now that would make me happy today and make he happy 10 years from now?” Instead of fighting with myself, can I ally with myself and think of something that will make both of us happy?”

So, there you have it. Life is a game, a contest between two players looking for the best outcome. A win-win situation would serve all the most, and would give the highest possible reward. The players are Me-Know and me-future. Or, in my personal reality conception me and my future self.

The idea of what is best for both me and my future self is a powerful one. A story from a meeting I attended almost a year ago is useful here - A man who had experienced a weight loss of in excess of 250 pounds was passing the ubiquitous hostess stand and a twinkie caught his eye. For a brief moment he considered getting it. After all, he had over five years of recovered living by that point, what harm could one little twinkie do to that accomplishment. He decided to think of it as a gamble. If he lost the gamble he would slide back into the black places of obsessive eating, gain back all his weight (and likely more) and lose the life he had fought hard to have. If he won he got… a twinkie. The payoff did not seem worth the risk to him. Nor me either.

From the perspective of playing the life-game from above we can look at the same choice as, what good would the twinkie do the now-me, and what good would it do the future-me. The answer is the now-me would win a brief moment of taste bud bliss and emotional food black-out. In Game Theory terms we can give that a value of 1. The future-me would lose. He would win a memory of a brief moment of enjoyment (value 1), but would lose 16 months of abstinence (value like -300 or something), and would lose out on feelings of not-guilt (value -1000 easy) for a net gain of -1299. Plainly the outcome is pure suck.

Using the mental shift of seeing life as a game also has the added benefit of decreasing the stress associated with the stakes being so critical. Yes, living life well is of utmost importance, but seeing it as a life and death struggle, or a reflection of self-worth adds stress which needlessly muddles thinking on and weighing of options. No, life isn’t just a game, but making a mental game of it helps to keep it fun.

I used to be a fanatic about reading fitness gurus, magazines, books and websites. The fascination took up major portions of my day. I picked up a lot of tips along the way. I still keep my eyeballs in there a bit, but only to check to see if anything useful has actually been done.

You see, the one thing I learned most of all is this - with amazingly few exception it’s all been said before. Jack LaLanne came up with 99% of what Bill Phillips said in Body for Life. Mike Mentzer mostly re-posted what the old greats like Eugene Sandow had already wrote. Don’t get me wrong, I salute the folks like Mike Mentzer and Bill Phillips (Mike Mentzer was a genius in my estimation) who keep the flame alive and carry the message of health to new generations, but very little has been added to the base line knowledge of what it takes to get fit.

My mind keeps going back to the simplicity of calisthenics. Our bodies are our first tool, and every baby knows that the way to get strong, agile, and mobile is to lift and flex the one set of weights you always have with you: you.

Here’s a very simple and effective exercise routine that has served men and women alike since they were first recognizable as such. Get up. That’s it. Lay down on the ground, let your body be completely stopped as if sleeping, then get up. Repeat. There are almost a limitless number of variations here. Speed, position, reps, sets. You can do it with both arms, one arm, or no arms. Both legs, one leg, or if you are fit enough to handstand, no legs.

Do that 20 times as fast as you can I you will be puffing. And, if you are not, just do it 10 more times.

In our modern age we often look to complicate things. In fitness it is not necessary. Just get up.

So there I was, driving home on Friday night from work singing my lungs out to the song Good by Better Than Ezra. The song has the line, “Maybe we’ll see on the 4th of July.” My wife, and I had our first kiss on the 4th of July. After parking the car and dropping off my bags I went out to the cafe to get a cappuccino. While I was at work I had been reading the book On Writing by Stephen King. I had just finished with his tale of being a recovering alcoholic and re-reading his book Misery after a few years of sobriety. He had commented on how prophetic Misery was for an alcoholic writer, the book is about a nurse (a symbol of being institutionalized - which is what they used to do to alcoholics) who drinks heavily holding her favorite writer prisoner and torturing him into writing for her.

So, on my way to get my capp I glanced at the free bin outside of my favorite used book store, Dog Eared Books, and there on top of a large pile was Thinner. Me being a recovering overeater in the 12-Step Program Overeaters Anonymous. I picked it up.

While standing at the line for my coffee a couple of guys walked down the sidewalk outside. One of them was singing, Good.

Life looks back at you sometimes.

In any area of life where we acquire a set of skills, techniques, or tools it can be easy to become lost in the skill and loose the original creativity that drove us to the learning in the first place.

What good is a carpenter without a hammer? What good is a carpenter without carpentry?

What good is Bruce Lee without his amazing kicks? What good is Bruce Lee without martial art?

What good is the Buddha without his teachings? What good is the Buddha without enlightenment?

We, each of us, is a creative force in potentiality. And that creativity is stuck inside until we learn a method for getting it out, and acquire the techniques and tools to make it happen. When the artist gets too focused on the techniques and tools however, the creativity gets stifled there.

In martial art we find creativity in conflict. But we can become stuck in the hand positions, foot work, and snazzy tricks we learn. In a self-defense situation, in its rawest basic structure, we have exactly two choices in our response to an attack - collapse or expand. Collapse can take the forms of freezing or physical collapse. Expansion can take the forms of ‘flight’ or ‘fight’. But, at the base level these are your two options - collapse or expand .

In martial art we aim for expanding. This is where different schools diverge wildly. Bruce Lee would expand his foot right through the attacker’s face. O’Sensei (founder of Aikido, which I study) would expand to join with the attack and lead the attacker away, down, or into a pin. The techniques of martial art (which ever one catches your fancy) are absolutely essential , without them you have no refinement of the use of your tools, but they are only a means to an end. A way to expand creatively in dealing with a situation.

Just like the difference between a painter who has never learned painting formally and one who has years of tutelage and guidance. They can both express their creative urge in the medium of paint, but I am willing to bet the trained painter will do a better job of it.

In Aikido, by my thinking, the basic method is to reach out to touch our attacker, and to keep moving. What options we have then are predicated by the tools we have learned and perfected, but without first touching and moving we have nothing.

The tools are critical, but they are not the aim.