My Web Comic.

Ok people, here it is.  

After a very long time coming, I have finally put up my very first web comic.  It even has its own page called "Life and Stuff".

Hit the link and all of your questions will be answered.  Ok, maybe not all, but most.  Alright, probably not even most, but some.

Just go look.  

Thanks a bunch!

When Passion and Purpose Collide

I have good news and bad news and depending on your perspective of this whole blog thing, you could go either way on which is the good news and which is the bad news.

Here is the bad news.  I will be gone this coming week (I'm actually already gone) and will most likely not be able to post while gone after tonight.  Tonights post is going to be short as a result of this "being gone" thing.  Or, maybe that's all good news.

Now for the good news.  I will be back.  And, hopefully, with more content. (maybe that's the bad news) 

I mentioned long long ago that I was trying to work on a comic strip.  There have been some technological hurdles.  I could have done it old school, but it takes a lot of time that I didn't really have for doing cartoons.  Then I upgraded some tech and have basically had to relearn how to draw in order to use it.  

It still isn't perfect.  But it's now useable.  I'll be upgrading the art as I go and improving as I post.

I now have a direction that will lead to other directions and I have to say, drawing again is like breathing again when you didn't realized you had stopped.

It's easy to forget the things you are passionate about when you have been devoid of it long enough.  But this past week I was presented with some unexpected inspiration and, just as a joke, I decided to make it into funny art.

And suddenly, I remembered why I loved to draw and how important it is for me to do so.  The process of creation is very intrinsic to my personality and desires.  Those things haven't been a part of my life for a long time.  The exception being, maybe, this blog.

So, while I have some logistics to work out as far as where I will post strips and what they will be called (I'm thinking "Life and Stuff."), I'm very much looking forward to making it happen.  I have the ideas, now to put them to them to paper.  And by "paper", I mean a digital drawing tool that cost more than I'd like anything to cost.

However, I would like to reiterate this point.  Never lose sight of your passion.  Never walk away from it.  Simply find a way to use that passion in your life and make that passion ride with your purpose.  If you can do that, you are hard pressed to fail in the pursuit of joy.

Have a great night and I will see you in two weeks!

Taste of Awesome

Good evening my peoples.

I hope you're world is grand and significantly lacking in ritual torture.  If you have recently been ritually tortured, then, um, I apologize for bringing it up.

Speaking of torture, how many of you have ever been to the "Taste of Chicago"?

Perhaps I should start with, how many of you have ever heard of the "Taste of Chicago"?

While I will admit right up front that city living is probably not for everybody, it does come with some perks.  There is always something to do.  You can get to most things you need to by walking or riding a bicycle (you know how I currently feel about that bit of joy).  And, there is more food and food diversity than you can shake a truck load of sticks at.

From my apartment, I could throw a rock and probably hit three or four restaurants.  With the same rock.  I'm totally that good.  (I'm not even close to that good.)

If you feel like traveling at all, within one mile in any direction, I can find enough culturally diverse foods to name off most of the countries of the world with.  And they are all (mostly) so good.

Chicago is known for many things, and food is right up near the top of that list.

But once a year there is this week long phenomenon called "The Taste of Chicago".  Every year, a bunch of eateries set up shop in Grant Park between Michigan Avenue and the lake.  Then, roughly every human on the planet (except you if you've never been, and all the other people who don't come) squeeze themselves all at once onto the one street to sample all the good eats and drinks and listen to the live bands playing.

It's really pretty great.  But it can get expensive very quickly if you like to eat a lot.  And, because there are so many things to try, you wind up stuffing yourself like a thanksgiving turkey to the point where walking is much more akin to an egg wobbling across the counter as it tries to roll away.  And even then, you still haven't come close to sampling everything.  You just can't do it.  There is simply too much.

So, you get tortured on two fronts.  One because of how much you ate, and two, because of how much you didn't get to eat.

And then, again(I guess this is technically three), because you feel bad about this food and how much more you want, and then you think about people who haven't had food in days as a normal course of life.

Huh.  Suddenly I feel guilty for going.

Hmm.

One thing my wife commented on this year was something only tangentially related to food.  This is one of the few things here in the city where you get people from all parts of town, North, South, East, West, all hanging out in the exact same spot.

You might be thinking, "But isn't Chicago one of those great culturally diverse places where everyone is sort of lumped together in this great melting pot of people?  You know, in a non-cannablistic-melting-pot-sort-of-way?"

Yes.  Yes it is.

However, if you spend any real amount of time in Chicago at all, you find it's a lot like many places.  The different groups have a tendency to stay in their own areas.  The south Chicago people tend to stay in the south and the north Chicago people tend to stay north.  Add to that how the city is broken up into "neighborhoods" and how many of the "neighborhoods" are relatively culturally specific.  It's true that there is overlap and the mixing of peoples, but if you zoom back and take a look at the city as a whole, you actually see a lot of groups just hanging out with themselves.

It's sort of strange when you think about it.

But at the Taste?  Everyone shows up.  Everyone all in one place.  And by "everyone" I do actually mean a sampling of everyone.  

And they all show up because of food.  Food, the great equalizer.  Everyone needs it, and most people like it.  Food is one of those things you can't avoid.

And historically, this has always been true.  The equalizer part, not the need part.  Clearly the need part has always been true.  

In the ancient times, when people came together for any reason, whether it was a festival, or a negotiation, or even to work out their differences, they would often sit under a tree and share a meal.  They would do the thing everyone had to do.  The thing that made them equals.  The thing that gave them common ground.  A need and love for food.

And the beauty of this is how it shows that, cultural differences aside, all people are largely the same.  I eat, you eat.  We need to survive, and hope to be happy doing it.  We like to love and laugh and make babies.

Everything else is self focused (not necessarily selfish) world view commentary.  Important, but not absolute.  Or maybe meaningful, but not important?

I'm not sure what the correct way to say that is, but what I do know is, the moment you bring out the food, most of that stuff suddenly vanishes and then we become this group of people who don't know each other and may not even speak a same language, sharing a meal, passing napkins, making space in the line for them, smiling as they walk by.

If only the rest of life were that simple.

Maybe, it is.  Or it would be if we let it happen.

Wouldn't that be something?

Hot Dogs and Freedom!

Hello all and Happy Independence Day!

By now, many if not most of you are well on your way to a grilled beef (or acceptable substitute) induced coma, which may or may not have been assisted by some sort of "lubrication liquid".  

Horse shoes, potato salad, and Bocci Ball may well have been involved also.

Later, as the sun sets and inebriation rises, there will be a frighteningly grand use of controlled explosives designed to look pretty in the sky.  

You know, drunk people and explosives.

'Merica!!

I hope this day has been and will continue to be an enjoyable time for you all.

However, in case one or two of you decided to step away from the hot dog for a second to actually read this (actually, you can probably continue to eat the hot dog AND read this at the same time.  if you can't, it's either a quite spectacularly good dog, or you've hit the second case of MGD already and you think this is a website dedicated to Lynard Skynard.  Unrelated, once you figure out this isn't that, I do recommend their song "The Breeze".  It's one of my favorites.), I thought it might be a good time for a short little thought on the topic of "freedom".

I'm not going to bore you about the subtle difference between the concepts of "independence" and "freedom", nor am I going to go on about the state of government and politics.  

I simply want to talk about what it means to be free.

Freedom can mean many things.  Are you free from oppression?  Free from slavery?  Are you free from tyranny?  Are you free from burdens?  Free from hate?  Are you free as opposed to being costly?  Does your "free-ness" or "freedom" come at the expense of someone else's "freedom"?  If so, then was it actually "free"?

Are you free from self-doubt?  Free from debt?  Free from depression?  Free from self delusion?  Free from all illusions?

Are you actually free or do you just think that you are free?

Or, can you be beholden to another but still feel free?  Is true freedom something that happens externally, or does it happen internally?

What does it actually mean to be "free"?

I'm not going to pretend to know the absolute meaning of this.  My words are simply that.  Words.  But I would like to offer at least one thing to consider, not as an absolute definition of truth, but as one thing that might be true in a basket of other true things.

Freedom, is a choice.  Not just the ability to choose, but more importantly, your choice to be free no matter your physical circumstances.  A person can be a prisoner, but be free inside, just as a person can be free from walls and barriers, but be trapped in a prison of their own mental design.

Have you chosen to be free?  In this land of relative freedom, and significant lack of overall oppression compared to many places, have you chosen to be free?  Truly free from the things that truly imprison us?

Things like hatred, bigotry, selfishness, vanity, arrogance, pride, ignorance...?  These things are all choices.  Sure, maybe you were exposed to and raised in environments that programmed certain things into your overall view of reality, but that does not mean you can't choose something better.

All those things, and others, are extensions of one of the greatest prisons.

Lies.

The lies we chose to believe, and even worse, the lies we told ourself.  Lies about who we are and what our significance is or is not.  About why I'm better or worse than you.  About what why I hate you.  About why I'm angry.  About why I'm trapped in life.

Lies that I choose to believe so that I may willfully remain ignorant.

Ignorance.  Another great and evil choice.  I realize that there are some places where this is not necessarily a choice, but here, in our country, in the age of information and the internet and access to almost anything we want to find?  Ignorance is a willful choice.

I meet these people all the time.  People who want life no other way than to be negative and hateful and arrogant and ignorant.  People who have woven great lies and believed them into their soul.

But, there are other people.  Greater people.  People who've chosen to be free.  People who love unreservedly.  Who hate no one even if they disagree with them.  People who don't believe they are better than that other person who lives in a way they don't believe in.  People who seek to understand in spite of the difficulty of bridging the gap between bigotry and brotherhood.

Those people are awesome.  Those are the people who've chosen freedom.  Those are the people who have chosen to make their life one of happiness and fellowship.

Those are people I want to know.  They are the people I call brothers and sisters and kinsman and countrymen.  And I don't care what nation or bloodline they came from.

That's because freedom by it's very nature is about the absence of boundaries.  The absence of confines.  If not in body, then in mind and soul.

I live in a country that is both wonderful and imperfect.  In that sense, it's much like every other country.  With aspects of both wonder and imperfection.  And, we do have it better here than in many places in the world.  It's a country based on the principles of independence and freedom and equality, even if the reality has at times fallen short.  But there is one thing that must be understood very clearly.

This country is not what makes you free.

You are the only one who can make you free.

Now, go blow something up in the name of awesomeness!

'Merica!!

Interlude 9: Quality Still Matters, Again, Some More, One More Time

Heeeey, and stuff.

Sooo...

Tonights post is sort of an extension and continuation of last weeks post.  In case you couldn't tell from the title.

As you know, I have a "new" bicycle.  It's great.  I'm really liking it.  I've been riding all over.  And, as I'd hoped, it worked out great for the Sunday run/ride with my wife.  All 16 miles.  She ran while I sort of goofed off.  Up curbs, down curbs, down stairs, small bump jumps... I enjoyed myself like a 9 year old boy when he gets his first "real" bike.

Since last week, I have set off converting my bike to a single speed bike.  As I may have mentioned, for the riding I do, I really only need one gear.  I found the proper hub and gear combo I liked and have purchased it and it is now on the bike.  That is a whole amazing story in itself that perhaps I will share next week.

I have NOT been able to ride it yet as my new tires have not arrived and were not in stock at the store and as the old tire was being put on a new rim (also part of that other story for another time), the old tire split down the sidewall.  I was expecting this would happen eventually which is one of the two reasons I ordered new tires.  So, alas, I must wait till next week, when my new tires arrive, to see how it all worked out.

I have also been trying to nail down all the other bits I need to finish the basics of the bike build.  There are a few things I'd like two do as time and money permit, but there are two other things I need to do.  They are a new seat and hand grips.

The old hand grips were cut down short so the previous owner could put bar ends on the bike.  Which is too bad because they were relatively nice grips.  But, they are old, and too short for my hands, and now they are starting to come apart under the friction of my riding.  So, I have grips coming.  (unrelated, Ebay has been awesome for sourcing new, quality parts at half price or better.  I have no advertising contract with them, it's simply the truth.)

The seat was an absolute necessity.  My old bike had a seat that was about as comfortable as an uneven brick.  My "new" bike's seat is 22 years old and has holes worn through in a number of places.  It is more comfortable than my other bike's seat, but only just.

The research on my seat choice led me down an interesting path of discovery.  I wanted a soft comfy seat as I have an old, boney bum.  I talked with the guy at the local bike shop about seats and in my ignorance had asked him about a gel seat.  He recommended against it as he's found a high number of people find that, while the seat is comfy to sit on, they start getting numbness as the seat compresses and pressure begins to be applied to areas of the leg that you wouldn't be ordinarily sitting on whilst on a bike.

I've always wanted to use the word "whilst" in a sentence.

As I started my search based on his recommendations and sampling some seats in his shop, I started reading customer reviews of seats.  As the guy at the shop suggested, people were pretty split on gel seats.  So, I began looking at other seats.  But it was tricky because I also have a specific visual idea for my bike.  This means the seat needs to be a specific color, which dramatically narrowed down my choices.

I found a seat that was the color I wanted and it was the appropriate style for the riding I do.  The big question was, "is it comfortable?"  It looked sort of thin.  So, I started reading reviews on it.

I read hundreds of them.  Seriously.  There was skimming involved, but still.  Out of the hundreds, I only read one reviewer who didn't like it.  It was universally (almost) hailed by everyone (almost) that not only was it comfortable enough to rival high end seats, it's price was very inexpensive (and it is).  Professional and novice riders alike have found this seat to be comfortable and quality.

There is that word again.

Here is what I learned in my seat search that helped get passed my hesitation.  Buying a bike saddle (don't call them seats as I have.  they are saddles.  get it right.  or else.  ELSE!!) is a super individual process.  What is comfortable for one bum is not for another.  Part of this is because saddle comfort is almost more about the shape of the saddle, than it is about the softness of the saddle.  This is because all of our back sides are shaped just a bit differently than each others.  Sometimes more than a bit.  This means, you can have a rock hard saddle that is more comfortable than a super cushy saddle, if the cushy saddle isn't shaped right for you.

I'm a little nervous about getting my saddle because I've spent money on it and once I get it, it's mine.  That, and another truth is that it takes time to break in any saddle you use, quality or not.  So, you can never truly tell right away whether or not it's going to be just right.

However, today I experienced the reality of proper saddle choice.  I was at the gym and decided to do some stationary cycling since my knee still isn't prime for running.  I found an open bike with a nice cushy saddle and rode on it and could never get it comfortable.  In fact, I finally had to stop riding because I went numb in, um, sensitive places.  

Soft saddle, shaped wrong.

And now for my point.

A persons walk is much like a bike saddle.  It is usually a very individual thing.  What is needed for one person does not necessarily work for another.  It is not always a "one size fits all" type of proposition.  What brings a person to a better place spiritually, philosophically, etc., may be very unique and specialized for that person.  It may not work for someone else.

Don't walk another persons path just because they walked it.  Maybe it is the right thing for you, but, maybe, it's not.

This is a tricky thing for a pastor to say, but it's the truth.  My way may not work for you.

You need to do the leg work.  You need to find the way that works.  No one can do that for you.  Conversely, no one should try to make you walk a path just because they said so.  They might not have any idea what is best for you.

Do your home work.  Find what is best for you.  Find the way that guides you the best.  Don't do the thing not shaped properly for you simply because it's there.  There is always a better way.

Do that.

Interlude 8: Quality Matters

Hey class!  How's everyone doing today?

Excellent, glad to hear it.

Except for you, I'm sorry to hear about it.

Well, I have exciting news for you all.  Are you ready for it?  You sure?  Here it comes.

I have a new bicycle.  That's right.  I have a shiny red new bicycle.  And by "new", I mean a used, 22 year old bicycle.  23 if you factor in build date vs model year date.

For some of you, (all of you?), this is probably underwhelming news.  I doubt a single one of you is anywhere close to whelmed.  However, I am pretty stoked.  "Stoked", a word almost as culturally old as my "new" bicycle.

Not that this matters to most of you, but allow me to explain.

For those of you have been longer time readers, you might remember my historical affinity for bicycles.  If you don't remember (or never knew), feel free to catch up by reading this old post of mine Lesson 10 - Soft Like Concrete.

Now, I already had a bicycle.  Back in the year 2000, I think, my wife and I decided one day on a whim with no research and even less common sense, to just purchase a couple bikes because we wanted to ride bikes.  They were cheap Target specials and, fortunately, we didn't pay that much for them.  But hey, we had bikes and we rode them.  They were both mountain bikes, which made sense because we were living in Colorado at the time.  In case you didn't know, that's where the mountains live.  Not that we ever rode them in said mountains.  

Ya.

Fast forward to 2014.  We are now living in Chicago.  As it turns out, there are not a lot of mountains in Chicago.  These old bikes were full suspension bikes because, um, they were suspension bikes and isn't that what the cool kids rode?  I mentioned we just sort of did it, right?

As such, these old bikes are heavy.  HEAVY.  My bike tips the scales at just a smidge over 50 pounds.  That may not sound like a lot, but for a bicycle, it's obese.  Morbidly obese.  But, hey, it looked super cool and, to be fair, the frames were close to indestructible.  I learned this recently when I decided to research the bike I already owned.  

In Chicago, a bicycle is more than just reasonable transportation.  It makes a ton of sense.  One doesn't measure travel time by distance here.  Most places I will ever go in the city are within four miles of my home.  Much of it less than two.  If we head downtown it's more like 12ish if you go straight, or 15 if you take the lake front path.  And, you can do those trips in not much longer than driving if there is any traffic at all.  In fact, the shorter distances, especially in traffic, are often faster for cyclists.

I started riding my bike more recently.  Especially when my wife started running 14 miles at a time, just for fun.  No race.  No event.  She does it just because it's a Sunday.  So, I decided I would ride and keep her company.  I run, but I can't run that far yet.  And now that I messed my knee up (which in theory should heal up good as new), the bike is making more sense as opposed to jogging.

After that first ride/run session, I learned the truth about my old bike.  It is, and always was, a giant, heavy piece of (insert preferred negative term, here).  Navigating paths and people and hopping curbs and descending stairs (that's right, down stairs), the weight and overall uselessness of all those suspension components became crystal clear.  I'm not saying there aren't good suspended bikes.  There are tons of them.  Mine simply isn't one of those examples.

But mostly it was all the extra weight and floppy, rattly, parts that, no matter how much fine tuning you do, will not change.

Sooo, I decided it was time to upgrade.

Now, as a former design guy, the look of the bike mattered to me.  It needed to have the appropriate function, but also the right style.  

I began researching bicycles.  I hadn't really kept up once I went to college, had a car, and got married.  (Hence the garbage bikes we bought shortly there after.)  It became clear that what I wanted was a single speed bike.  I realized that I was pretty much using the same gear all the time on my bike.  I had found one that allowed me to ride slow, accelerate well, but also ride fast enough to tackle street riding.  

I then realized that I really like the simple, clean look of fixies.  Those are the fixed gear bikes all the cool kids in the city ride.  They look like old road bikes, but with out all the gears and switches.

The problem was, they have those super skinny tires.  Which are fine except that their designer never road a bike on Chicago streets.  The problem isn't the endless potholes and cracks.  It's all the energy it takes trying to find a path that's rideable between them.

Ok, it's the potholes and cracks.

But also, I didn't like the harder ride of the thin tires and I wasn't keen on the gear options on the brand new bikes.

I looked at beach bikes and the like, but I just couldn't find the thing that made me all giggly in my insides.

Then one day I had an accidental epiphany.  One could argue that all epiphanies are accidental, but whatever.  I was over at the church and one of our youth rode up on a bicycle.  It was an old Raleigh.  But it wasn't a road bike.  It was an old mountain bike.  And that's when it hit me.  I had missed the obvious.

I needed to find an old mountain bike and convert it to single speed.

Here's why.

The older, first and second generation mountain bikes all had frames that more or less visually mimicked the road bike frames, except they were much stronger, and just as importantly, were designed for fatter, more comfortable tires.

And... and... because they had no suspension on them, like every single bike we all grew up with, they are much lighter.  

Problem solved.

Except, where do you find one?  And, which one should you get?

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why God invented the internet and Ebay.

I started searching for old mountain bikes.  Or as the internet calls them, "vintage" mountain bikes.  Even if it's from the 90's.  Sigh.

That's how I stumbled across the early 90's Bridgestone mountain bikes.

"But isn't Bridgestone a tire company?"  I hear you ask.  Yes.  Yes it is.  But they have also been importing bicycles to America off an on for a long time.  Currently, they do not, but their last round of bicycle importing (Bridgestone is actually a Japanese company) came from 85-94.  Mine is a 92 (frame stamped 91, but I'm sure I'm the only one who cares).

I won't go into all the things I learned about these bikes and the various models.  But I will say this because it helps me get closer to the point of all of this.  The guy who was designing the mountain bikes for Bridgestone at the time decided to go against convention.  As a result, he almost single handedly set the tone of all mountain bike made by everyone for the next decade.  Better frame geometry.  Better frame construction.  He did all the stuff that the then current frame makers felt didn't matter.  He was even criticized for it.  But in the end, his bikes set the tone.

Most people probably don't even remember these bikes were made.  The bike aficionado's do, but other than that, not many.  But those who do all say the exact same thing.  These were some of the best (but not THE best, just being fair) bikes made during that era, maybe ever, especially for the price.

And that was the thing.  They were stronger, better made, not as light as some, but they lasted and won races.  But most importantly, they were less expensive than the ultra expensive competition bikes.

In 1992 the bike I now own cost just under $900.  I picked it up for barely a fraction of that. I've spent more money on shoes than I did on this bike.  And you could argue, "ya, but it's old."  My response is twofold.  One, shut up, it was only 1992.  That's not old.  Respect your elders.  Two, quality is quality.  Strong, straight, excellent build quality, good condition, old paint not withstanding.

Now, I have a bike I can modify slightly and have exactly what I needed, to do what I wanted to do.

But here was what surprised me the most.  It shouldn't have, but it did.

This bike is older than my old bike.  A 21 speed mountain bike that hasn't seen adjustment in a long time.

Once it was delivered (Ebay rocks), I reassembled it, aired up the tires, and it rides better than my old bike ever did, even when bran spanking new.  It's solid, smooth, quiet, and oh so light compared to my old bike.  It was like a revelation.  Right now it weighs 27 pounds.  It will probably weight about 4 pounds less when I'm done.

But oh man, the quality.

And this is the great lesson.  Quality matters.  I will stick my neck out and say that this is true 100% of the time.  Quality often costs.  But, not always.

More importantly, quality matters in every part of our lives.  Not just in what we do, but how we do it, and who we do it with.  Quality matters in who we are and how we live.  Quality is that thing in life that makes your eyes light up and your heart speed up and causes you to have that slight twinge of regret when you find quality when you hadn't noticed that quality was what you'd been lacking for so long.

Do not just exist and complete life.  Live it with quality.  The amount of your years matter, but not nearly as much as the quality of the years you live do.

Seek the best you can in all you do.  Not costliest, not the most quantity, but the best quality you can muster in all things.  It is here you find the beginnings of satisfaction in everything you do.

Have a truly great night.

Lesson 23 - Fear? Or You?

Last night I went on a date with my wife.  We do stuff like that because we love each other and we are awesome and don't suck.

Completely unrelated, I have issues with arrogance and vanity.

On this evening of happy joy time, we went and watched "Cirque: Shanghai - Warrior", a "Chinese" acrobatic circus.  (I say "Chinese" because I don't know that every one of them were actually Chinese.)  It wasn't "Cirque de Sole" amazing, but it was still pretty good.  They started off with really simple stuff and just progressively cranked up the difficulty until they were performing feats of insanity that only people who are high or crazy (or both) would even consider.  

There were high balancing people pyramids, high tossing and flipping, tumbling, balancing, juggling, and often all of it at once.

The last three main routines started with the hanging ribbons, where someone (a duo in this case) wraps silk ribbons around their arms or legs and then is lifted off the ground where they swing around in lazy circles while performing stunts, in the air, hanging from ribbons which are not actually attached to them but are only being held on to, generally one person at a time while the second person is holding on to nothing but the first person.

And of course there are no nets.  For anything.  Ever.

At one point the girl is hanging by nothing but her neck from the guy who is hanging on to the ribbons with one arm.  Then she is laying horizontal on his toes  in a "planking" position while he is holding on to the ribbons.  Then she wraps the ribbons around her thighs, does the splits, hangs upside down, grabs him, and they float off.  The ribbons are not tied.  Simply wrapped around a couple times.

Then there are the twin cage hoops that rotate around a central pivot with a dude in each cage hoop.  A cage with no sides.  Sometimes they are in the cage, others they are on the cage, on the outside, 30 feet in the air, no ropes, no nets, while the entire apparatus rotates on a central access, one cage on each end, in giant, fast, circles.  The guys jump into and out of the cages all in transit.  They get on top, and as the cages crest the top arc, fly into the air as the centrifugal forces launch them into the air and then they land back down again as both them and the cage come back down in their arc.

And then, they do it while juggling.  Then they do it while jumping rope.  Once the guy got his foot caught in the rope.  He stumbled and bobbled and almost fell off, but kept his footing, and then tried it again.  Nerves of steal doesn't even begin to describe what it would take to not only try it, but to almost die, then try it again with barely a pause.

Then there was the spherical cage where not one, but four motorcycles drove inside of and then drove around in it and upside down in different patterns without running into each other. One mistake, and everyone has a very bad trip to the surgical ward.  But they didn't even hesitate.  They were confident and focused.

As I sat in the audience and watched these and other things, I reflected back on my gymnastics days.  I was never half as good as any of these people.  But there were some of the things they did, basic things, I used to do.  The handstands, the pyramids, bits of tumbling and flipping... I remember doing those things.

But I remembered the other side of it.  I remember why I was never as good as any of the people I watched last night.

As I thought about it, I realized the problem wasn't one of skill.  Please don't misunderstand.  I'm not saying I was that good.  I'm saying it wasn't  skill or the potential to be that skillful that held me back.

It was fear.

I remember doing handstands on the ground.  Pretty easy once you practice, gain some strength, and make it almost second nature.  No problem.  Then, you start doing handstands on other people.

This sounds hard.  It really isn't.  If you have a good strong person under you, (they are called a "base"), they do a lot of the work for you.  You simply need to stay tight and straight and use proper control to get upside down.

It's pretty simple.  If you can do a proper handstand on the ground, you can do one on a good "base".  I've done it and I've taught it, and I've done both sides of it.

Here is where the problem comes.

You do it on one person and it's no big deal.  But now add a second level.  Now you are three people in the air.  From a structural stand point, if you do it right, it's still pretty stable.  But suddenly you are way off the ground and you are upside down staring at it.

I've seen people do it 6 or 7 people high.  I never made past just the one.  Not because I couldn't do the handstand, but because I was scared to death.

Adding one more person didn't make my part of it much harder.  Yes, it is harder for the people under me, but for the guy on top, it's still fairly simple.  There is some extra motion to balance out, but I found I could stabilize lots of motion when I was down low, but up high...?  I would freak out and bail every time.

We used to train doing handstands by having someone try to push you around while you were on your hands.  Not super hard, because it's pretty easy to shove someone over that way.  But we would try to simulate a shaky footing.  I was pretty good that way.

But the moment altitude was involved, I totally would lose it.  I was afraid.  My fear defeated me before my skill showed my brain that I could do it.

As I thought about this, it wasn't hard to see how this is true in most areas of life.  People will "fail" more out of fear, than out of ability.  We don't walk a certain path because we don't think we can.  We don't make certain choices because we've rationalized away the decision.  But in most of those cases, if we are honest, we made those choices out of fear of what might be, instead of what IS.

People are very capable.  With focus, and training, we can do almost anything.  We are rarely limited by ability.  What limits us is our fear.  Fear of failure, fear of damage, fear of pain and hurt.  And, while the dangers might be real, so is our ability to overcome the danger.  We have the ability to over come the fear.  We have the ability to realize that fear is simply an illusion.  It's not "truth".  Real, but not true.

Don't let fear keep you from something greater, from realizing the height of your potential.  You are not your fear.  Don't let fear define you.  

Let you define you.

Be more.