So Far...

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly; I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom there is much grief and he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
- Ecclesiastes 1:17-18

So I'm 37 today. As I look back on my life, I'm warmed by many things for which I'm justifiably proud. But the sad fact is that I've done little in the last few years but stay alive. This isn't a pleasant thought. I'm up at 0600 dwelling on this unfortunate fact. It's my 5th sleepless night in a row. Pathetic.

But I've realized something living in SF this past year. I have quite a few close friends here but I've known all of them for years. In fact, only a handful of them have been in my life less than 10 years. One of them has been my friend for 31 years and I count him as the best of my blessings. Interestingly enough, I haven't made very many new friends here. That's unusual for me. I'm lucky to have a string of good friends from Honolulu to Islamabad but SF was somewhat of an enigma to me. Particularly because I'm so fond of this City.

But I think I got a grip on this. Never have I been to a place where the inhabitants were so uniformly pleased with themselves. I find this type of smugness absolutely disgusting. It's simply anathema to me. Complacency invariably leads to moral decay and to generally being an asshole. I don't tolerate it in myself which I know can make me difficult to be around. But complacency and excellence are mutually exclusive and I for one would rather be good than happy.

I ran into my old high school water polo coach at the MPSF Championships in Berkeley this past weekend. I was reminded of something he said to me as a kid. "If you're not getting your butt kicked, you're not learning anything." That always stuck in my head so when I read Rilke, I understood its truth.

"Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows.
By being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings."
-Rilke
From "A Man Watching"

I just can't imagine that the point of life is making myself happy. I don't refuse to believe very much but I refuse to believe that. Life is a precious thing. More so than most reaize. It can be snuffed out so easily and for the most insignificant of reasons. I look around at my fellow citizens and I'm blown away by what vexes them. But like my friend Thierry said, "All of us have a box for problems in our head and that box always has to be full."

I believe that we are here to be useful. And to those whom much has been given, much is expected. But this goes beyond making ourselves feel good. Most of the aid workers I've run into in 3rd World nations were insufferable due to their own sense of importance. This was made worse by the fact that many of the things that they did to make themselves feel better actually hurt the people they were supposed to help.

Being useful means not putting yourself first. Ever. Doing the right thing usually means doing the hard thing. I don't know why. I wish that wasn't the case.

I don't mean that you can't have fun. Life should be fun. But can't be about fun. My raison d'etre can't be fun or my own personal enjoyment. If that were the case, life would be a very small thing and I know for a fact that it's not.

This coming year I will endeavor to be more useful, even if it means shortening my overall life. I have no desire to report in a year that I've accomplished nothing. I'll keep you informed.

Mass.

It's my birthday today and for my birthday, I decided that I would attend a Catholic Mass. I've been thinking about this for a long time but I finally worked up the courage to take the plunge. What swayed me in the end was my own sense of protocol. I give people such a hard time about making assumptions. I figured that there were plenty of men I respected who were Catholic and I can't really say I disagree with their doctrine because I don't know what that doctrine is beyond what I hear people say. So yesterday was my step to finding out for myself and maintaining some sense of intellectual integrity.

Far be it from me to judge (when I am no position to do so) but I was kind of put off by the music. I have always been moved to tears by devotional hymns. I don't know why. I never grew up with them. The music is invariably powerful though and I have always been deeply affected by pieces of music such as Ave Maria and the like. The service I attended was much more contemporary with modern almost "poppy" music. I didn't like that. I would have like to hear some Latin too. But that's just the snob in me.

All those who know me that I have always struggled with religion. My cognition is most definitely Hellenic and I have never been able to reconcile that with my strong belief that I'm one of God's favorite sons. Surely, nobody actually deserves as many chances as I've had to be a good person. Yesterday's sermon only confirmed this hubris. Father Michael mentioned both Alexander and Aristotle-- both major figures in my life. The lesson he spoke of was Aristotle's admonishment to Alexander-- "He who cannot obey cannot lead." I felt like he was speaking specifically to me. I was shocked. Yeah, I know it's ridiculous but Alexander is such an important character to me. When I turned 32, I went through a week of serious depression because I compared my accomplishments to date with his. Of course, I found myself woefully lacking.

Father Michael asked me to rate my level of interest in the Church. I wasn't quite sure how to answer that. I'm not interested in joining anything for the sake of joining. I don't have the pressing need to be a part of any community. But I'd like to understand my spiritual longing better and if there is indeed a plan for me, I'd like to be of some use.

A friend of mine (who is a Buddhist) said to me when I first got out of the hospital and battling a bout of depression revolving around my shit state that even if I spent the rest of my life in a room doing nothing, I'd still be worthwhile as a person. That idea shocked me silly. A man's worth is measured by his usefulness. If I'm sure of anything, I'm sure of that. As the saying goes, "Talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God." My unfortunate circumstance is that my particular talent is mostly centered around violence. I'm not sure what that means.

But as usual, this leads me back to the Arts. At it's core, martial arts are about training specific instincts. For instance, when somebody pulls you, your body instinctive answer is to pull back. Vice versa if the person pushes you. Well,at its highest levels, MA training seeks to change a person's reactive instinct to resist. This is extremely difficult, particularly under pressure but it can be done and reliably so. It's taken me a long time to realize that the true gift of the arts is beyond the physical and self-defense realm. This training method gives me a glimpse of what it takes to train my emotional responses. If I can train my body to react properly under stress, I can do the same with my emotions and much the same way.

So how do you train instinct? It starts with basic foundational training. I have a strong foundation in traditional martial arts and I've always felt that this grounding gave me certain advantages when I started studying the hybrid arts when compared with those who started with the hybrid arts. There were ineffable qualities that a person picked up from doing things by rote, from learning certain inviolable rules that cannot be learned any other way. It is not enough to know the rules, they have to ooze from your pores. My students are most guilty of saying, "I know" every time I make a correction. The fact is they don't know. If they did, they wouldn't make the mistake. Knowing it in their heads means nothing to me. I only care if they can do it. And that's the connection to the emotional. How many times do we know the right thing but fail to do it? It's much easier to see this phenomenon when its big and physical as opposed to when it's subtle and emotional. But despite the difference in proportion, what goes on in the body is exactly the same.

I wonder if this is the same with religion. I've been trying to create an ethical framework for myself out of a million different things and I think what I've come up with is some kind of Frankenstein monster. Is it the same as the martial arts? Do I have to learn to framework, live it, believe, breathe it in the very fiber of my being in order to earn the right to move beyond it? Why should this be any different from everything else I've developed a high level of skill in? All wisdom and skill comes at a price and the more acute my understanding, the greater the price.

I've paid the price with my body to know and understand what I do. I've never regretted it for a second. I suppose that was only preparing me for this. I'll keep you informed.

Mission District Kung Fu Brothers.

Readers of my blog will remember the martial arts class that I'm teaching. I have about 9 students though only about 4 come very consistently. None of them are particularly athletic but all of them work very hard. (I'm speaking of my consistent students.) Truth of the matter is: out of all the many students I have taught in my life-- many of them world-class athletes-- I am most proud of this group of middle-aged nerds.

I think we've been training maybe 20 weeks and I cannot believe the growth they've achieved emotionally. Physically, they're still kind of retarded but none of them are by nature fighters and there's only one natural athlete in the group. But I've never had a group willing to risk more than this one and I'm proud of them.

Aristotle talks about the courage of superiority. I'm used to seeing that. I've trained many high-level guys in much more intense modules where the potential for injury was much greater. But these guys were used to this stuff so there really wasn't much of a stretch to make them do dangerous drills. My students now have to push themselves and confront personal demons just to come to class. That's big deal. One of my students is a committed pacifist who has only come to train because he agreed with my belief that pacifism means nothing without a capacity for violence. Another student has trained martial arts before but in a way that never gave him the personal growth he sought. Why? Because there was no risk and the training asked nothing personally of him. Both these men have grown incredibly in the last 5 months. They are different people now and live in their bodies in whole new ways.

I think that I'm a better teacher now. After my injury, I had to look at what the arts meant to me. I can't fight anymore. I'm a mere shell of my former self. I can defend myself with a knife but I'm not getting into any streetfights. There was this moment in my life right after my injury where I was incredibly despondent. I spent so much of my life practicing something that was apparently meaningless. It took me some years to snap out of that and realize that the lessons that I took away from the arts were still with me. The broken bones and bloody noses bought me something valuable that I can share. I love the Arts and what they gave me. I'm beyond grateful that I have the opportunity to share what I know.

Rationalized Cowardice.

I went to dinner with a lovely young lady the other night. We also went to a movie and got to see the preview for Lions to Lambs. I didn't think much of it but at the end of the movie, she mentions to me that she didn't want to see Lions for Lambs because she didn't believe that terrorism was real. She thought it was something made up by the Bush Administration to take away our civil rights. That effectively ended out date and any possible respect I could have had for her. First of all, I wonder what were the rights she was complaining about losing. As a beautiful white woman, I'm rather sure she's not under any risk of being sent to Gitmo. But that wasn't what really bothered me. Her attitude is indicative of the general cowardice I see here in SF. Make no mistake-- this idea that terrorism doesn't exist has nothing to do with reality. It's all about justifying inability.

People here don't want to see Islamic Terrorism for the problem it is because they have no way to combat. it. They cannot fight back physically and all the bullshit they've spouted for some many years prevents them from even considering such an action. So they're left with a couple of options. They can put their fate in the hands of others (thereby indebting them in a way they could never allow) or they an define away the problem and pretend it doesn't exist. That's much simpler because by doing that, they make the bad guys people whom they have some way to affect, not people who just want to kill them. I've asked people here what would they do against somebody who was there to kill them? They invariably say that they would reason with him and try to get on his good side. That's silly and ridiculous. If a person means to kill you, you cannot convince him otherwise. You cannot be on his side. That terrifies most people and rightly so.

Plain and simple: most pacifism here is just rationalized cowardice. These miserable people only show courage against those they know would never hurt them. Pathetic.

Useful or Not

"Anybody can have the will to win but not everybody has the will to prepare to win."

A old coach of mine used to say that to me all the time and the older I get, the more I see the truth in this statement. At a geopolitical level, it's why I'm not afraid of Al Qaeda. I'm well aware of the damage they can do as well as have done but I'm not fundamentally scared of them. Why? Because any fool can strap a bomb on and blow himself up. That requires no skill and because of that is limited in the overall damage done. But few of those guys have the discipline required to spend years honing a craft and warfare is nothing but the most serious of crafts. I don't see that changing and until it does, I don't see them winning in the end.

It's not just a Muslim thing. People in America are guilty of this type of sloth too. We recently had an oil spill in the San Francisco bay. It's pretty serious and many experts say that there will be environmental effects for the next 30 years. That's bad. But seriously, what do you expect? Shipping is important to commerce and San Francisco runs on commerce. This is the risk you run. But that's not what pisses me off. Tons of volunteers have been inundating the beach to help clean up the spill. They do this out of goodwill but none of them have any hazmat training. I'm not familiar with ship fuel but I know that jet fuel is extremely poisonous. I can't imagine that ship fuel is much different. Okay-- these folks are welcome to help but they shouldn't expect any tax dollars to help with their medical bills if they get sick. And on top of that, they may simply get in the way. If they were truly concerned about something like this, they would have gone to haxmat training long before something like this happened. It's just self-absorption that drive most of these people now. They talk about incompetence but how would they know. What do they know about cleaning up hazardous materials?

I ran into this same problem after 9/11. I was at Ground Zero but I had the training to be there. We had to turn away hundreds of people who were furious. They were frustrated and felt the need to so something. But we simply couldn't use them. Especially in a situation like that were people could have gotten hurt. Basically, if you're not trained and don't know how to folow orders, you just get in the way. It may go slowly but that's because there are too few professionals for that kind of work. Think abut that the next time you have to pay taxes.

Bottom line, you don't have a right to help just because ou want to help. You are either useful or ou are not. It has nothing to do with intentions. In the real world of emergencies, intentions count for next to nothing. And good intentions often do more damage than indifference.

One more time for those who weren't listening...

Okay. We all know that chicks require time and money. That looks like this.

Chicks = Time X Money.

We also know that time is money so that looks like this.

Chicks = Money X Money or Chicks = (Money)2

It's a given that money is the root of all evil.

Money = Square root of (Evil). Sorry, I don't know how to make the square root symbol on the computer.

Therefore, (Money)2 = Evil and

Chicks = Evil.

That's has to be true, right? The math certainly works. Well, I certainly don't believe that all chicks are evil but I have to say that I have a really hard time dealing with San Francisco women in general. The women here are pretty kooky. Am I generalizing? Of course, I am but that doesn't mean I wrong. I have this theory. If you want to get an idea of what the women in any given town are like, you only have to browse the personals at Match.com. I've always found Match.com to be an interesting tool. Fundamentally, I suppose the idea is sound but it's bound to fail because the personal profiles say nothing about a person as they actually are. They only describe how the person views him or herself and we all know how undependable that information generally is. But if one had nefarious aims, then the information is invaluable because a large part of seduction is playing in with how your target view herself. If she fancies herself smart, you simply spend dinner talking about how smart she is. If she thinks herself kind, you emphasize her kindness. Match.com profiles while doing nothing for meaningful long-term relationships are wonderful dossiers for a person's triggers. Interestingly enough, if you go to different parts of the country and browse the profiles, you'll find them remarkable similar. NYC girls are all the same. As are Atlanta girls. San Francisco girls too. You get an idea of the feminine forma mentis of a certain place which is interesting I think. For example, pretty much every woman on Match in San Francisco considers herself well-travelled and worldly. I know a lot of women in this town and I haven't yet met one who's actually worldly. Spending a summer in Europe doesn't make you worldly. Not hardly. Every woman on Match here fancies herself as smart. That's not true either. I know lots of very smart women but I have yet to meet a truly smart one here n SF. I know that can't be right because there has to be an abundance of smart women here in SF. I'm thinking they must be computer smart because when it comes to IR, they're all pretty uninformed. They all have vibrant exciting careers and value their friends and family. They all are as comfortable in the field as they are at the opera. It's the same old shit. But worst of all, they all seem to want men who are successful in their careers (i.e. rich) but put their family first. Now that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. You don't get to do that. A man who's successful-- truly successful-- in his career is going to neglect him family to some extent. There's no way around it. And it's simply unrealistic to expect a man who dominates his field to capitulate to his woman the second he comes home.

I think this expectation is why there are so many single women in their 30's in SF. They simply have expectations that defy reality. They have this habit of mind that I find annoying. In their need to be nice, they tend to render things meaningless. I used to argue with my ex all the time about her friends who were on psychotropic meds. My feelings about this are simple. A person who acts out is either crazy or undisciplined. A crazy person has a chemical imbalance that they cannot control. Their misbehavior is not a moral issue, it's a medical one and they require medication. An undisciplined person acts out because he is weak and lacks character. He doesn't need meds though they may help him. He needs an ass kicking. A person is either rightfully taking med (which makes him crazy) or taking them because he is undisciplined (and lacks character). It's that simple. But my ex refused to call any of her friend either crazy or undisciplined. She refused to make a call. I thought it was just her but it's not. My buddies fiancee refuses to say a friend's son was emotionally off because he was acting out due to exhaustion. She insisted on calling it exhaustion. Yes, that's true but the result of his exhaustion was being emotionally off. The lack of willingness to call something what it is simply because you wish not to label something is the primary indicator of the level of shoddy thinking that passes for compassion here in SF. It's a flaw of affluence and the result of a meaningless life.

I guess that's why people here are so kooky. Life is just too damned pleasant here. I think pretty much anybody who's spent their 20's in this City will be forever damaged by an inability to comprehend reality.

Okay, this is turning in to a rant so I'll leave it with this-- at risk of offending a lot of women.

I am sick to death of women thinking they're my intellectual equal simply because I've slept with them. I know lots of women who are my intellectual equal or betters for that matter. That fact has nothing to do with whether I've slept with them or not. But why is it that I have to suddenly take a woman's opinion about the danger posed by a nuclear Iran simply because we've been intimate? How ridiculous is that? That makes no sense to me. I refuse to do it. I sick of deferring just because it's expected of me here.

Peritas!!

I got my dog this weekend. His name is Peritas and he's a little under 5 months. He's a little Maltese-- maybe around 3 pounds but he's a spunky little guy and amaingly well behaved. Right now, he's lying down in his crate with the door open while I'm typing. He's only been with me since Saturday but he's already a big part of the household. He's pretty well trained already. He's used to using the puppy pads and he's been really consistent so far. He does a bit of whining when he's alone as all puppies are wont to do but he calms down quickly and amuses himself. I have to get him some new toys. Everything I've purchased for him is all too big. We haven't started training yet-- beyond housebreaking-- because I want him to get settled in his new environment gently but we'll begin with "SIT" today. I'm excited. He's a really good boy.

He's really changed my quality of life in the short time he's been here. I forgot how much I missed having a dog... If I can figure out how to post pictures, I'll post some of him.

Training-- of Dogs and Man

I'm getting a dog. I'm really stoked. To prep for this happy day, I've, of course, done my reseach. I've read about a dozen dog training books and I'm relatively well versed on all the different theories of dog training. It remains to be seen if I can apply those theories but it feels good to have an intellectual road map for what I'm about to do. It also made me realize all the mistakes I've made with my dogs in the past. Admittedly, I'm going through a fair bit of guilt now that I realized that I did not take care of my dogs the way I should. I've had to come to terms with the fact that I've been raising dogs for my emotional needs and not theirs. That's wrong. A dog is a living creature and derserves to be treated as such. It doesn't need to be spoiled like a baby but more important, I cannot deal with my emotional issues by humanizing it. Thinking about this has made me think about kids and how they are being raised here in San Francisco.

My ex-girlfriend's sister-in-law still breast feeds her 6 year old boy. Now, that's just simply disgusting. She's a doctor and apparently a very smart one so there's no telling her that she has no common sense. Her arrogance has steeled her against all who would counsel her to make better decisions because it's abundantly clear that she's breastfeeding for her own sake rather than the boy's. Even if it were true that breastfreeding at his age provides his immune system with an advantage, it's simply not worth the psychological damage it is in variably doing to the boy. God forbid if his friends find out when he's older. He'll never live it down. The will tease him unmercifully and he'll never get their respect due to no fault of his own. I'm blown away at how selfish his mother is. She has used her considerable intellectual skills to justify her desires and emotional shortcomings rather than think about what's best for the kid. That's solpsism at it's worst.

The truth is that I like this kid. He's fundamentally a good soul and very concerned with the well-being of others-- a proper tone for the man he will grow into. I remember being very sick around him once and he went out of his way on occassion to check if I was okay. It wasn't manipulative charm like it is with most kids or young girls. He stood nothing to gain from my good will. But this is why this situation makes me rather upset. This good kid is going to be ruined by his family-- mostly because they can't get out of their need to fulfill their desires at his expense. He is going to have to stand on his own two feet one day as a man. He will have to earn the respect of other men-- no mean feat. To start him off at such a disadvantage is unfair. It's far worse than growing up in a poor neighborhood or with physically abusive parents. There is dignity in overcoming those things. But overcoming late-stage breastfeeding will inspire nothing but ridicule. And no man should have to live with that.

I genuinely wish the best for this kid. I have great personal affection for him. He's clearly got athletic genes and he comes from proud family heritage. (His grandfather earned the Navy Cross by ramming his ship into a U-boat in WWII). I hope one day he desires more for himself than the coddling he is receiving. I hope that he sees that he can do more and attempts to receive a commission in the US Military. I don't say this of all little boys but I have the strange feeling he would do well there. We'll see.

But back to my dog. Yeah, I'm already spoiling him and I haven't even received him yet. He's got a mink bed and lots of toys. Expensive food and his own little area in the house. I have no problems getting him the best of doggie stuff but there's no free lunch. To those whom much is given, much is expected. This dog will have some high expectations. He will be allowed to be a dog but he's still a reflection of me. I'll let everybody know how the training goes.