Huffing And Puffing

"Come on baby, I love you, come back to me." I was saying out loud at the gym while I massaged my right quad on a leg extension machine. Among my many issues is that my right leg does not work well, due to the stage-4 lymphoma in 2014. The leg is weak, and has little feeling. It's a miracle that I can walk and hike as well as I do. Then, again, it's a miracle that I'm alive, because they gave me a 20% chance of living five years... seven years ago. I thought I was dead, then was in a wheelchair, then a walker, and now I hike. In 2019 they took out a tennis ball sized tumor out of my brain, a side effect of radiation therapy. Yes, I am a blessed man. How long do I have? Thank you, Father, for this day.

Topic 2: I'm back to this blog after a seven-year pause to continue documenting myself. In reading backwards, My life is so different from the pre-cancer me... in so many ways.

Topic 3: I'm in Colorado, hiking with daughter Jennifer for my mental health, and praying for a recovery for my best friend and hiking partner, and praying for a way forward… if it’s in your will, Father.

And please grant me perception, awareness and understanding, wisdom and acceptance, and strength and endurance. 

And by the grace of God go I.

- copyright 2021 by Willy

Adjusting My Mind

I have always been physically tough, but not so much emotionally. My daughter figured me out. Earlier this year, she stated it: I live like a monk for five or ten years, then date and get hurt and go back to another five or ten years of living like a monk.

Body and mind are a package. When the mind is broken, the body suffers.

My daughter is right... I am no good at romantic relationships, but I have many good friends instead. Hopefully, old friends don't play cruel singles games. I could write a book but TV has captured them... like the one that went and screwed an old boyfriend and came back and bragged to me about it. Purely a daytime TV soap.

I'm no angel. Nobody's perfect and we all have baggage, but at least let's not associate with devils. Let's leave the poisonous snakes alone.

I've been adjusting my thinking to control my passions. I keep it inside my pants. I hug friends but do not cop a feel. This adjustment is kind of like the chiropractor does... cracks the bones of my mind.

I don't have to wade through bull to find what an old friend's problems are... I just have to accept and accommodate. I've seen my friends when they are a mess due to divorce, sickness, birth or circumstances. Most of us have some degree of neurosis, psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar/mania/depression. However, I am blessed with kind friends, and I like them... otherwise we wouldn't be friends. The question of whether they can be tolerated is made easy by the fact that I'm not living with them. And, my tolerance to anger has been zero: bitch me out once and it's goodbye forever, so my current friends have passed through some sieve already.

I've worked at this and feel like I've got it but I proceed cautiously. I want good quality for the rest of my years. Adjusting my mind will take care of my body, so I can train.



-copyright 2014 by Willy

Bare Knuckles

I quit wearing gloves.

On one level, I quit wearing bicycle gloves, removed the speedometer/computer and tossed the heart rate monitor. I ride my heavy fat-tire bike... the carbon has been hanging from the ceiling for years. When I hike my usual solo 7-mile trails, I change to boots but wear whatever I have on (dress shirt and pants)... I do not carry water nor food but I do carry a phone. Bare knuckled.

On another level, I do not use an electric toothbrush either. At my shower you'll find a bar of soap and a razor... no shampoo nor bottles of any kind. At my sink is a toothbrush, Water Pic, baby oil and hairbrush. Pretty simple, eh?

There's only beer and popsicles in my fridge. I own no iron, no mixer, nor blender. I seldom use the heat or air conditioning at home, and I open my window at work. Do I live like a monk?

I do not use mosquito spray and I do not wave a stick in front of me to break the spiderwebs on-trail. Spider bites are an acceptable hazard.

Given a choice, I do it the hard way. I do not use work gloves at the farm. I use a hand saw, I use sandpaper in a block, I cut up small trees with a bow saw, and I usually drive a screw with a screwdriver. I have better control this way rather than with motorized tools, and it toughens my hands and joints. Bloody knuckles heal.

The world is fragile.

I do have to be careful, because I'm too strong. I have twisted doorknobs off, destroyed vacuum cleaners, and hurt with a handshake or hug.

Why?

Why do I do things the hard way? Not only do I like the accomplishment, but doing things the hard way is training. I will be able to do these things when I get old... while my buddies can't already. Use it or lose it!

Storms took the power down and a neighbor with a generator invited me to watch TV, but I thanked him and said that a candle and my iPhone will suffice. I do it because I like simplicity.

Although I'm a rocket scientist, I like no frills. The more complex something is, the higher the risk of failure and the lower the reliability. In my old cars, I've cut off many unneeded gadgets, and the cars are aging rather well. I like low risk.

Sooo... why live bare knuckled? Because it improves both my body and my character. A lot of people talk tough, but I live it.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

Happiness... What It is.

Much has been written about happiness. And everyone has a different definition of it. Mine includes outdoor activity, like hiking.

I plan several outdoor activities a year that keep me happy. Some are with others, and some are by myself. And it's all with variety and balance, from backpacking to just having lunch outside in a restaurant patio. No, I don't care if it's raining or sunny, hot or cold.

Happiness is having a fervor. And being able to scratch that itch.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

P.S., the ability to scratch an itch, not scratching every itch.

Happiness... On Relationships

My thinking on relationships... if you want to be with the one that makes you laugh, then you'd better find the levity to make yourself laugh first.

And/or just accept yourself and embrace the simple solitude. If so, then there's nobody to have to compromise with, nobody to distract me from Mother Nature, nobody to take away time with which to meditate... and nobody to ruin a beautiful sunset. That congruence, or lack of it, strikes me as funny.

My daughter pointed out to me that I have these cycles where for five or ten years I behave like a monk, then date somebody and get disgusted, returning to behaving like a monk for five or ten years.

I plan to add some damping to that cycle.

I plan to be happy.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

Blessed

There's a preacher out there that incessantly talks about what to do and how to behave in order to get God's blessings. He talks about blessings as though they were a unit of currency. It's amazing that somebody buys this hype. He's done very well, but he's just another silver-tongued devil. But I digress again.

Blessings are not complicated things.

I believe in happiness through kindness, service and sacrifice. And I believe in karma. Thus I believe that blessings come. And they come every which way.

I was climbing a steep and tall mountain a few weeks ago. I should have been up and back down by noon due to the possibility of lightning. I embraced the burn but was nevertheless climbing rather slowly. I started at sunup but there was just no way to meet the timetable. I saw the storms coming right at me and should have aborted but decided instead to continue. The storms went around the mountain and sleeted heavy below. I only got wet in the last ten minutes of my ten-hour hike.

Am I blessed?

I'm very good at science, math... and statistics. When a statistical improbability rears up, I take notice. And there's been quite a few of these. Not 100-year floods every year but 100-year blessings many times a year.

I believe, but not in TV preachers.


-copyright 2014 by Willy.

P.S., lightning kills many hikers above treeline.

How Intense?

That is the big question: How frequent and intense should workouts be? It looked to me that too often or too hard and I'd pop a gasket and go RIP on the spot, but not often or not intense enough and I'd die slowly of organ failure.

The solution for me has been variety: I have a base, and add variation.

I warm up, stretch and self-massage every day.

I do something or two every day, but every day is different. Like weightlift every other day, hike outside two or three times a week, bike out once or twice a week, and do cardio machines (elliptic and studio bike) several times a week. And then do something special and motivational several times a year, like week-long backpacking trips, mountain climbs and bike tours.

Every weight workout is different... in form, type, sets and angles/machines/weights. Every cardio is different in location/surface/machine, time and intensity.

Once a month I do heavy weights as well as all-day hikes or very fast hikes and high heartrate elliptic sessions. I rotate these and warm up very well.

Is it working? Yes, I think so... for me. I do well, but still get occasional injuries, for which I have to take time off or modify my workouts to recuperate. I do seem to get elbow tendinitis too often, so am continuously modifying and cold-packing. Could I do better? Probably, but as compared to what? There are not that many old athletes around. I read a lot, discuss and experiment, but I don't have all the answers. I've been working on this particular answer for decades.

-copyright 2014 by Willy

My Plan

What do I plan to do when I get old? When wrinkles take over? Well, I've never smoked and don't plan to. I will exercise often (but not too intensely) in order to stay tough. I will maintain activities with friends to have a social life but I will avoid mean people. I will eat and drink in moderation, including coffee every morning, to avoid being overweight. I will take a couple of baby aspirin every day to reduce risk. I will not care about wrinkles but will work hard to maintain function. And I will laugh hard and often to avoid depression.

Oh, wait... that's what I already do.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

Past Age 60

The current issue of one of the outdoors backpacking magazines prominently displayed an article titled: "Ten ways To Stay Active after 60." This article joins many others with the same message.

Having lived long past 60, it amuses me that so many lengthy articles need to be written on the subject, when it's just simple common sense. To me, there is only one thing to do:

Modify, but don't stop.

I modified by going low-impact (no running), and increasing my miles to accommodate my reduced metabolic rate. This has decreased my risk for injury and increased my endurance and toughness.

I do not stop for weather nor for distractions. Nothing stops my training. I hike, bike, lift and stretch more, and more effectively. If I stop, I might not be able to get back to it.

I don't stop.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

I Have Grown

As I've gotten older, my life has become more fun. I learned to avoid problems. Life is no longer scary. Kids have gone and so have mothers, wives and other problem relationships.

Surround yourself with the right people in life and things go smooth.

I no longer worry about breaking a leg nor stepping on toes.

I just go.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

Devil or Angel

I have been having a great time for the last year or two with some long-time good friends. They're terrific... smart and capable.... and I enjoy them.

But the devil does show up eventually to mess things up. Relationships are unstable. People are more complex than rocket science... by far.

I am good to the core... no drama, and what you see is what you get. 

Recently, things seemed to be in a fix. Nothing was working... arguing back lengthened it and a calm response did too, silence did not work, and laughing enraged them worse.

I chose.

It is a simple thing I tried: I chose to translate rage as terms of endearment. No matter what they said, I hear "I love you." So, I smile and think back "I love you too," and I mean it.

How can you argue with that? They know I do this, I smile, and the instance is defused.

I can't change them, but I can choose to wear rose-colored glasses to interpret those instances of devil into angel... for my mental health. It's a good way to decline an invitation to an argument. It works... when I remember to do it.

No, I don't know what I do to enrage them, and they can't tell me either. And, yes, I know I'm no angel.

The more usual solution is to just leave.


-text copyright 2014 by Willy.

Risk

The TV was full of babbling weathermen being interrupted by the EAS. Their excitement, brought on by the unfolding weather threat, was communicated to the public as fear. Two people died that evening.

Afraid?

A few hundred people may die yearly in the U.S. due to tornadoes, but 35 thousand die due to cars, 74K to diabetes, 157K to stroke, and a whopping 685K due to heart attacks. Every year! Fear a tornado? Hell, it's best to hike during a tornado... which I did.

I do not accept their drama. I don't fear a tornado, I fear inactivity... and drive a big new truck.

Fear inactivity.


-text copyright 2014 by Willy. Statistics by the CDC.

Frozen?

Studies have shown that the single treatment that can relieve fatigue, anxiety, depression, arthritis pain and reduce the risk of diabetes and age-related cognitive disorders is exercise.

Sometimes we get emotionally wounded... it's not that we don't care, it's that we get emotionally frozen. And this makes us physically frozen too. Unable to focus. Unable to do.



It is depression.

We need help in moving past this so we can start fighting for life... we need a hand to get out of this big bowl we're in.... so we can move again.

The solution? Besides a good counselor, is regular exercise.

Yes, it is a chicken and the egg thing... which us engineers solved long ago: grab either one and the other follows. In this case, exercise will make your emotions follow.

Focus... with exercise.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

Life is Too Short

I have figured it out: I've noticed that people at work that do solo work (like coders) have a social life outside of work, but those with people-intensive or team work would rather enjoy nature's solitude.

My office is a Grand Central Station. What is yours? Some people drive me crazy. I know that we need a social structure for good mental health but life is too short to put up with fools. I used to tolerate them but it is better to choose properly and avoid them. At work and elsewhere, seek the happy medium. To me, nature's solitude is a great option.

Keep calm and hike on.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

Trust

"Trust is earned in drops but lost in buckets." - Anon.

I knew her for 10 years and dated for a year before we married. An hour afterwards, she tells me: "Now that I've hooked you, let me tell you the way it's really going to be."

Horror!

You think I have trust issues? Yes, and that was 27 years ago, and the marriage immediately crumbled. Of course, I have trouble trusting people... who doesn't?

Horror stories abound on a range of issues, primarily financial... but it's all about trusting people... with getting work done and with growing our retirement fund... or not.

At my building, top management went to the same church. Because they knew and trusted each other, there was preferential treatment, of course. If you need to get something done, you get someone that you know (trust) will do it.

Specific trust.

Life is all about specific trusted relationships... knowing who can be trusted with what. Specialists, if you will. We shop for a doctor who will refer us to other specialists but we don't ask him about career advice. We also trust mother with dinner but not with love advice.

I enjoy my weightlifting workouts with my buddy Dallas but don't trust him about cardio because he gets winded jogging a hundred yards. I enjoy bicycling with buddy Ray but not weightlifting because he can't. I enjoy others because I trust them... in some way.

Putting trust in another can either be risky and awful, or a wonderful trusted relationship.


- text copyright 2014 by Willy

The Don Quixote In All Of Us

For most of us aging athletes, our fear is not physical deterioration but mental. Dementia and Alzheimer's seems all too common in my world. I know of no scientific study correlating this, but anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. Maybe it's because athletes live longer.



As a kid, the story of an old man fighting windmills was amusing. Books were everything then... both my escape and my reality. I learned about chivalry, loyalty and mental disease, and hoped to someday battle such a monster... windmills, not mental illness.

What did stick with me most was to avoid the impossible Quixotic goal to keep something from happening. That's crazy.

We all take away something different, don't we?

Avoid the impossible.


- text copyright 2014 by Willy.

Scary TV

Yes, I am old enough to know better but I accepted a suggestion to view and analyze an old TV Chick Flick series to either learn something or discard it. The one with the four thirty-something girlfriends in NYC looking for love.

The script was well written, and I laughed unceasingly at their antics... specially at the sad and dramatic parts. They went shopping for shoes and men to the extreme.

Summary: They talk of scoring a rich husband and an even richer divorce (in Season 1, Episode 5); they said that intimacy was a bitch (in S1/Ep10); did not like the shape of an engagement ring (S4/Ep12); and continuously showed how neurotic they were.

In the end, the protagonist lands her ultimate contest... an emotionally damaged but rich guy... although she herself was as emotionally damaged as they come.

It's just entertainment.

It was hilarious and scary, both, because it hits home. The war between the sexes has not changed for many of us. In High School we asked: Does she like me? But now, in hindsight, It's been about me being scared that things won't work out and somebody's going to get hurt, and then I'll have to deal with messy emotions.

Does anybody survive the onslaught of constant emotional pain? If they survive, won't the scars last a lifetime? So, why look for trouble? Why look for intimacy in perpetual motion? Why not take a breath and be satisfied with the way it is.

But that wouldn't make a good movie, and would not be good entertainment... and entertaining is what this Chick Flick series is. Lord help us all if we used them as example.

Oh, wait.. we're there! I've met these neurotic critters before.




- copyright 2014 by Willy

Herman And Other Bullies

A half century ago, the bullies were everywhere... in my barrio, in the ghetto, school, and even in church.

The best way to deal with a mean person is to avoid them but school was compulsory attendance. Bullies operated in gangs and the threats, pranks and gang beatings were a daily occasion.

Fatherless youth.

These youth grew up in fatherless homes, devoid of hope, totally centered on themselves and the moment, heedless of the consequences of their actions, terrorizing those around them as they act out the frustrations of their unchanneled and undisciplined lives.

In 8th grade, Herman delighted in getting nose to nose and yelling at me. One day, I gave him a right hook to the stomach while bending sideways. He puked right there at my desk. I still got the gang beating, but from then on Herman just yelled from afar. That right hook put up an effective fence between us.

Fatherless adults.

Bullies are still here and everywhere... abusive cops, manipulative witches, church pastors that are wealthier than the people they serve, and gangs of professional legal thieves called bankers, lawyers and politicians... that sometime run entire countries. These must be the same fatherless youth of a half-century ago... the same nastards.

Know what's going on.

However, we must realize that we give them power, and we don't have to... we could effectively fence them off: We can use dash cameras, credit unions, avoid the stock market, boycott churches and even vote the bums out.

We can think, and we can do. We can enlighten our youth to the bully's tactics, and how to counter them. "Keep calm and adjust your fire," goes the old school ditty. Don't let them intimidate you. Instead, laugh quietly at them.


- copyright 2014 by Willy.

P.S., Collective praying works too. Become part of a bigger effort: Pray. "Lord, put this country back on track." Every night at 9 pm Eastern time.

Prayer

Prayer is not just the rosary... with the litany of Our Fathers and Hail Mary's. And it's not just because the church tells us to.

Relaxation, meditation and prayer are as important to mental health as weights and cardio are to physical health. Not only that, but every physical feat starts in the mind. Given this lead-in, and the fact that I'm hyperactive and terribly anxious by nature, my absolutely favorite prayer is the Serenity prayer at the left margin of this blog:

Lord, give me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

My second favorite is the Saint Teresa of Avila's prayer, here in its original Spanish and in its translation:

Nada te turbe.
Nada te espanta.
Todo se pasa.
La oracion todo lo alcanza.
Quien a Dios tiene
nada le falta.
Solo Dios basta.

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing affright you.
All things are passing.
God alone never changes.
Patience gains all things.
He who has God
wants nothing.
God alone suffices.

Find one you like or need... and keep it handy.


-copyright 2014 by Willy.

Injuries

Heavy is relative. At my age, I do not quickly recover from an injury. The mantra among the over-50 crowd is "press to lift another day." No more single-rep max days. However, there is no chant for the over-60 crowd, since there are almost no over-60 weightlifters. A few oldies do cardio... most walk the mall. I have admiration for the very few that still tinker at the gym: They look like they can lift a bag of groceries. I feel blessed to do what I do.

For us oldies, it's not about heavy weights. It's about risk versus reward... there is no reward for that risk.

Let's be functional.


-copyright 2014 by Willy.