Follow up to the Psychobabble
So the next time I went to class, two days later, I caught the instructor. As much as I didn't think of it at the time afterwards it felt like a small vindication, so at least he sees I am not a total idiot. His response was perfect, as it was just so. "That's training." Big deal. Just got to keep training.
Auto-Ethnology (Warning full of self-help babble and martial arts stuff)
“The way is in training.” Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings
There’s nothing like a humbling experience to gain insight into one’s nature. Perhaps that’s why so many ascetics have sought to become mendicants, or practice self-sacrificing habits such as fasting and material abstinence. It’s difficult to cling to illusions of self when you are constantly being disillusioned. It’s impossible to be distracted by glittering objects and escapist behaviors if you have none.
The state of feeling shamed or humiliated is internal. What I mean is, nobody can make you feel ashamed except yourself. The effect on the psyche is to further depress the emotional and spiritual strength of the individual being tried. By humbling oneself, or by being humbled, one is forced to look internally to discover those mechanisms that are flawed, such as they permit the outer world to have such a destabilizing effect on the internal order. A very strong person can hardly be humbled. They understand that the circumstances surrounding life are always variable, and more importantly, subject to interpretation. The strong choose to interpret all external circumstances with a good deal of dispassion and detachment. Yesterday I was a successful (insert pastime/occupation), today I am a beggar. This kind of strain is typically too much for most of us to bear and recover from readily. Which is ironic given that it’s the destiny of all people. As we age and die, nearly everything is taken from us. Entropy is a given. For most of it’s a brutal shock to the system, like putting too much pressure into a machine, revealing the weak hoses that burst under the strain. The end result is that the mechanism can remain forever broken and dysfunctional, or it can be repaired and strengthened; the weak hoses replaced with reinforced ones, to continue the analogy.
I recently had a humbling shock. Like other realizations I've had about life this one occurred through the study of the martial arts, a more or less constant pursuit since the age of eleven. I have often felt, after so many years of study, self-discipline, and effort, that I am entitled to a degree of effortlessness in my training and growth. I’ve worked so hard for so long, I reasoned on some level, that I should therefore be able to learn faster, easier, or better than those around with the same amount of time/effort invested. Why I arrived at this conclusion I don’t know, having often had quite the opposite proven to me time and again, as my efforts haven't always resulted in the quickest application of the techniques that I’m supposedly learning. Yet, there it is, the feeling that somehow I'm more deserving of improvement without working as hard.
And so I'm forced to learn the hard way. After months of inactivity I return to my training to discover that I'm capable of being caught by someone far less experienced. I was in disbelief. I saw what was happening, I even knew how to prevent it. For some reason I just didn’t react in time. I didn’t apply what I knew. I failed.
We all fail. This particular time hurt because of the circumstances. I'm advanced (relatively) in my chosen art at this time. My opponent was a novice. I was in a new school with many unknown elements and all the techniques I know were done slightly differently, and had different names as well. My opponent caught me cleanly and quite beautifully. In reality, it should be a pleasure to forfeit to such a demonstration of technique and ability from any training partner, but especially from one so new to the sport! I should have felt grateful for having been shown a weakness in my game. Instead it hurt because I'm training in a new place and with new people (to whom I felt I must prove myself, display my worth, and otherwise justify my rank and status). Under other circumstances I’d have felt wonderful at having had the opportunity to help a fellow training partner. Instead I envisioned him as gratified at having humbled me, at having revealed me to be less that I cared to present. I couldn’t divine the good in the situation at all. I made excuses: my lack of condition due to recent inactivity, his application of a technique that’s illegal where I used to train, my unfamiliarity with the style of fighting they employ. It was all pointless. I simply got caught.
This brought about a cascade of recognitions about my other failings. All my weaknesses were drawn under a critical spotlight. Aside from my physical failings I recognized the fact that I am (to name just a few): completely self-absorbed, pedantic, egotistical, self-satisfied, vain, long-winded, unrepentant, stubborn, emotionally inaccessible, greedy, demanding, forgetful, mooning, and thoughtless. I could go on but you get my point (and I must reserve some shred of dignity here).
The upshot is to have arrived at the moment I did, where I realized the ability to feel better about these and other aspect of my life is within my power. It’s a matter of choice. I remembered that I must follow the model of those who choose to have greater inner strength. I must resolve not to let myself be hurt by feelings of inadequacy in my training. I can do so by foregoing any expectation of adequacy. I don't practice the martial arts to justify my sense of accomplishment, expertise, or self-worth. I do it because I love to do it. My quality is not measured by my performance, but rather by my steady application of intention, by consistently electing to improve. That is the measure of the practitioner. This recalls the cliché of “nine times knocked down, ten times get up.” So I chose to get up again, to take the lesson I was given, and be grateful for it. Even if I got it from a white belt. Especially because I got it from a white belt. Regardless of the source, it was a lesson I desperately needed to learn.
In reality this insight into my training is the least of the benefits I’ve garnered from this experience. I’ve also come to realize how my failings have affected my relationships, particularly those of a romantic nature—all the most recent ones that I’ve had. In each I was too distanced from my own feelings to be able to connect in any real way with the people who were trying to get to me. They were knocking, ringing, and some even banging down the door, but nobody was home. This pained me greatly to acknowledge that my own selfish behavior had caused hurt in these people. I took from these people the physical comfort they offered, and little else, all the while offering little more than the physical in return. Is there anything more painful than to truly see our reflection and note the monsters we sometimes permit ourselves to be? It sucks to hurt people by accident. It really sucks to look at how often we do it on purpose, while making believe we didn’t. I have resolved to never enter into another romantic relationship without being fully available in all senses. I'm not going to be unfair and offer less of myself to another, because in the end I hurt myself most, when I finally have to look at myself. When I finally have to realize that my solitude is my own creation; the havoc I wrought around me is just the bitter icing on the cake.
So in the end of all this, what can I do but say thank you? I will go to class and give that white belt a big sincere hug because he doesn't know what he’s done for me. He may one day, but until then I will do my best to help him, and others, the way he helped me. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to utterly smash him all over the mat until he achieves greater self-awareness. Just kidding. I’m going to do my best to be available in every sense in my training, to absorb and share as much as I can in my training relationships, as I will in all my other relationships. The way is in training.
Buenos Aires, Retiro. Settled Into My Badass Apartment! Too Bad It's Time To Move
I am behind on my trip notes from August but I've had people asking about what I’m doing here in BA, what it's like, etc. So I’ve decided to post some notes out of order, and I’ll fill in the missing parts later. It’s been fairly smooth settling in, the allergic reaction I suffered to the fleas this summer while camping is almost completely gone but there are still some scars where they attacked en masse. I started training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu here and running to try to get back in shape after two months of doing nothing except riding the motorcycle for ten hours a day.
I’m living on top of a building overlooking the River Plate with a fantastic view of all the variants of a city in microcosm around me. I can see the train station of Retiro with the famous clock tower in front of it, the rich neighborhoods of Palermo, the poor Villa 31 slums located in the middle of the wealthiest land in the country (which the other residents consider a cancer on the locality, because it's growing and it's so bad at times that even the cops don't want to go in there), and of course off in the distance over the water I can see Uruguay on the horizon. There's even an esoteric recluse metal artist visible from my window, his rusting junk piles of scrap waiting to be turned into shining sculptures. At night the view is impeccable:
As much as I love it here, come to find out almost as soon as I moved in and got set up with cable modem, office furniture, bus schedules and whatnot, I have to move out! I'm staying with my cousin, and her landlord decided to sell the place so we are getting ejected. She will move in with her boyfriend and I am left to fend for myself. Well, nothing is easy but what can you do. I'll find someplace else that's cool too but it's just a bummer because this pad is sooo sweet!
Onto a topic of awesomeness of another kind: the food. As you may have heard, lots of meat here, the best in the world. Argentina also makes excellent, inexpensive wines and I've been gorging myself and life is very, very good. Here's a sample of the way the typical barbecue is prepared. My uncle hard at work and believe me it was as good as it looks:
Now onto recent headlines. They talk about how bad the crime is here in Argentina, both institutional and otherwise, “todos son chorros” they say, particularly about the politicians, but I haven’t seen it that much personally, at least not any more than in any other country, the US included. I guess it depends where you go, what time of day, and what state of mind you're in, like anywhere else. Years ago I had a camera stolen at a restaurant here in Buenos Aires, but only because I forgot it on my table and when I went back it belonged to the waiter. But of course I'll call you if it turns up, he said. Right. Another time a cheeky cabdriver pulled the switcharoo and suckered me out of $40. I knew it was a scam and would have gotten out and told him to go suicide himself but he had my bags in his trunk, which were worth a whole lot more than $40 to me. Other than that I have been fine here during the many times I've visited.
That’s why I was cracking up so much when I read about the Bush daughter’s phone and purse getting snatched from their table at a restaurant. Ha! Their personal secret service agents didn't even notice! That’s hilarious. (Maybe it was the same waiter that has my camera?)
Taken from Yahoo News: “ABC reported that the theft was not the only difficulty the Secret Service faced during the fraternal twins' two-week visit. One of the agents got into an "altercation" after a night on the town and was beaten, the television news organization said, citing police reports.”
How the hell do you beat up a secret service agent? I thought those guys were cast from molten titanium and trained since the age of six in pits with hungry dogs? And what about his gun? His pepper spray? A black jack? Nothing? First a theft from under the nose, and then an ass whooping on top of it? So I guess that in terms of security, the Bush twins were given the benchwarmers for their visit here. Do you think these guys will ever get invited to another white house softball game when they get back? Will they ever receive another Easter ham from Barbara? I'm guessing not. I’m still giggling over it.
