What Time Is It?

ADVENTURE TIME!!!!!!!

I consider myself to be at least a reasonably outgoing fellow these days. I enjoy spending time doing stuff I’ve never done before and really getting in and experiencing everything life has to offer.  This is somewhat hampered by the fact that I am abjectly terrible at starting my own adventures. When left to my own devices I basically revert to my most introverted state and curl up and watch Netflix or similar. As soon as someone suggests a thing – I am at it like a bull at a gate. This phenomenon can cause those in my life no small amount of cognitive or emotional dissonance as the change can be quite jarring.

It took me sometime to realise I had this limitation. Prior to really understanding it I actually conceived myself to be far more of a shut in that I actually am. This lead me to shying away from some of the more adventurous or dynamic people in my life, because I thought i would ‘bring them down’ or some other self-deprecating stand in. I considered myself to be ‘just a nerd’.

The moment I started to realise I was ‘secretly’ quite in love with adventures came when a girlfriend of mine invited me geocaching. Now at the time I was working my way to 100% completion on, the then brand new, Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor so I had a viable alternative but I jumped at the opportunity to get out in the fresh air with good company.   Whilst we were traipsing all about the hills enjoying ourselves and getting properly sunburned and dehydrated  I began to ponder the importance of the moment I found myself in. I, a self confessed nerd boy, was actively engaging in adventurous outdoor activity and really loving it. I cast my mind back over my life and began to wonder if this woman was changing me….GASP!

When I really stopped to consider it it became rather obvious that she wasn’t – both of the significant partners I had been previously involved with had been outgoing and vivacious human-women-folk but somehow I had either forgotten, repressed or otherwise my absolute enjoyment of active and adventurous conduct. It boggled me then, as it does now from time to time, how poor I could/can be at self inspection and understanding. How inaccurate and negative my self talk can be when I let it run thoroughly unchallenged or unexamined.

This chain of inquiry also begot another – I began to consider this complimentary experience in terms of the time honored mantra : “Opposites Attract”. Now this seemed perfectly reasonable as an explanation on the day. But some years have passed since that moment and this and my feelings have become somewhat more nuanced. I have come to believe that giving oneself entirely over to the idea that opposites attract can lead you down very dangerous and ill suited pairings – I had a few. Thinking I was seeking adventure I began several involvements with humans that were clearly incredibly poorly suited partners. Similarly when reacting poorly to some of the more outlandish pairings I have attempted I have run into the arms or partners who, through their absolute similarity to me amplified all my worst qualities and became unchallenging or boring. I think perhaps a far healthier and more helpful way to seek out potential romantic partners is to remember”We are attracted to complimentary personalities”.

What I mean to say is – I am not a fantastic self-starter for adventures but one of the things I look for in a prospective partner is being good at just that. Not because it is the opposite of myself but rather because it a strength that compliments and ‘makes up for’ my weakness. Rather than fairly reductively searching for people that just don’t ‘look’ like ourselves I think it is far more helpful, and far emotionally healthier, to look for those individuals whose happiness is derived from similar pursuits but that go about it in different way and have slightly different strengths. To find someone who can teach us more about ourselves merely by experiencing their life as they otherwise would.

I think that if we adopt this slightly more nuanced outlook of complimentary pairing rather than similarity or opposite pairing we run far fewer risks of boredom, flatness or lack of compatibility and begin to enter a world where even if things don’t work out long term we can honestly say that we learned new things about ourselves by experiencing our weakness through the strengths of those that love us.

 

Krom And The Church Of Iron

So I have mentioned from time to time that I really find value and enjoyment in daily trips to the gym. I enjoy the self-aware ‘bro-science’ humour trends that have emerged. I love the idea that the modern trend towards fitness and wellness culture are already being viewed with ‘ironic’ skepticism. Rather jarringly though I also adore the feelings of mastery, control and achievement that this practice has brought into my life.

To me the gym is a source of contentment and inspiration for me. The ancient Greeks proposed that A healthy mind could only inhabit a healthy body and certainly I function best after a good workout each morning. But more than that the daily pilgrimage to the holy house of Krom focuses me, centers me in a way that nothing else really does. The only other time in my life I experience the zen state induced in me by a good set of curls is whilst deeply engrossed in a video game – and not just any video game only highly competitive raiding in WoW has ever elicited such a deep state of focus from me.   It strikes me as the perfect continuation of the aforementioned ‘ironic’ humour that two so diametrically opposed disciplines should have such similar effects on my mental state.  Something so ‘Nerdy’ as WoW and so ‘Masculine’ as lifting finding a soft spot within my psyche.

The Church Of Iron is also the one place on earth that really feels like it deserves the title of being holy to me. The gym is a place removed from the rest of the world, dedicated to the betterment of man. Yes I admit this is a wholly sohpisitic reading of it , but to me after years of experiencing the true dedication of not only myself but my gym ‘family’ it really strikes me as true. So much of our modern culture is about segregating us – about encouraging us to ourselves as wholly separate and divisible entities in order to play on our fears and make us more malleable to neoliberal influence. The gym, when looked upon charitably, is a building where all men and women are made equal before the force of Krom. No one is ‘king’ of the gym, everyone no matter their strength is humbled by the endeavor for gains or tone or fitness.  When in the presence of the divine iron we are all made one, made to pray in the same way to receive that which we crave.

The gym is a place where one can commune not only with the divine but also with the self. It is a place that we can work together in to achieve the impossible. It is truly one of the most gratifying experiences to help someone with a lift they’ve never made before – a new height of their personal story. The time we get to spend in reflection as we focus and push past our boundaries has the ability to make better people of us in small daily and incremental ways.

The summation of this is rather a simple thought – Despite being a nerd, despite being primarily a skinny white guy I adore the gym. I adore the dedication and passion i get to display and see mirrored in those around me . I adore the pursuit of self betterment, I adore the generosity and humanity displayed by those who share that journey. For every arrogant or obnoxious gym rat you meet know that there is a monastic follower of the god of gains. Every time someone tell you that gym rats are just meat heads please recall the lady reading her med text book on the treadmill. For every person decrying the gym know there is someone for whom it is a daily grace.