Zen and the Art of Speedskating

Rest weeks are wonderful things. How many jobs are there where you truly improve your skills by moping on the couch! As I have stated before, one of the most important truths of training for performance is that your hard work merely creates a climate for improvement, actual improvement and strength gains are biomechanical processes occurring while resting, processes that, like a garden, need careful water, nourishment, and sun/sleep before they bear fruit.

But really, here is what my coach has assigned for today! This is a direct cut and paste from our training plan.

Th: rest, nap, rest, TV.

I can do that, and at least in this effort, I am sure I have excellent technique!

Since I have made a choice to be without TV (why? This is extremely well stated said by a blogger I admire, in his post Filtered) I will be doing busy work around the house, and reading a lot.

Reading is an amazing thing, really. Its easy to forget about books sometimes, they don’t beg for attention the way that TV does, or chime at you like incoming email, yet they create such astonishing landscapes within your mind!

I finally unpacked all my books yesterday, and instead of them glaring at me that I have failed at my multi-decade plated aspirations of being a “serious” writer, they welcomed me like old friends. I rooted through them with relish, every one I opened contained some nugget of essential truth: Norman Mailer, Ted Hughes, Gilgamesh, Collected essays from 125 years of the Atlantic Monthly, Haiku anthologies, minor novels by Jack Kerouac, Paperbacks published during WWII wondering what the hell will happen to the world.

But I then I picked up “Stephen King, On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft,” my brother gave it to me long ago, and the inscription within read:

To Andrew, Christmas 2000, NEVER FORGET YOUR ART! -David

Usually I avoid these kinds of tomes, they often remind me of a football wide receiver trying to describe how to throw the perfect pass. But this is a brilliant book, and it’s fueling the fires.

Reading Stephen’s own experience, I am more convinced than ever that writers are not quarterbacks! Writers are scrambling downfield ready to catch what the world throws their way, running & dodging, eyes skyward, waiting to leap up and catch that awkward shape of an idea whizzing through the air. There are always defenses/life elements in the way, and when you feel like you have caught something, then it gets really dangerous, life will tackle you brutally & pin you to the ground, so you have to run & drive towards the goal like its all you have ever done.

I recently started musing how much time I have spent on this blog, and on this website, what would my bank account look like if I had spent that time working instead? Money is quite terrifying right now. I sat down to write this post an hour ago, what am I doing?

Yet, I feel like I have caught the pass, both here in these words and in my life in general, and there is open field ahead, if someone runs me down, catches me from behind, its my own stupid fault, right now, this year, I have to run with this life, this idea, as hard as I can.

Filed under: from home