A New Hope

Another blog? Why, Stanley, why?

F&FB hasn't been updated since January of this year. Why not blog over there instead of starting a new one? Well, for one, I felt that the title of the blog limited it in many ways, and that I had outgrown it. Don't get me wrong. I love baseball. If I started talking about why I loved baseball, there would be no reason to continue this blog. I should just return to F&FB and continue there.

But it's because I love life more fully now that I've moved beyond baseball. "The Game" (pronounced with the same hallowed reverence that one might pronounce "The Pope," "The President," or "The Cutter") just doesn't matter to me in the same way it used to. The particulars of sports have boiled away for me and the richness that I'm left with -- the metaphor, the principle, remains.

And the more that I journey in this world, the more I realize that my true desire is to continue to shed limitation. Nomi Network, faith, triathlons, running, writing, science, fitness, travel, exploring, everything... the totality of my life moves and throbs with the kaizen principle of continuous and limitless improvement.

"Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential." -- Bruce Lee

I'm not sure that I've always had this urge for expansion and growth, but like that other Lee, I know that I have it now. What were my former hopes? Find a safe, easy job pushing paper in some stable company. Find a shy, quiet girl to marry. Have kids. 2 of them. One boy and one girl, the boy being the older one. Get 2 cars. Serve in Church. Live a quiet life and pass on surrounded by weeping family.

Is that all life really has to offer? Is this all that life is good for?

Most people that I know in life... work, church, other fellowships, anywhere, I'm not sure that they know why I want to do the things I do.

Because it's fun.

That's the simplest way to say it. But it's much deeper than simply "fun." It's joyous. It's a deep-seated satisfaction -- taking what others say is impossible, a fact of reality, a law of nature and overcoming it. Why is it that so many people around me have dead fish-eyes, unblinking, unresponsive to stimulus. Where are those with hungry, resolute eyes who can only look upwards at challenging the impossible, at fighting adversity... because it is adversity? Where are those who refuse to be satisfied, refuse to settle, refuse to stay still and live quiet lives?

That's the purpose of this blog, and more fundamentally, I believe it's the purpose of my life. I want the blood and sweat I shed to be life-producing rain to a dead world. Your life doesn't have to be like this. You can change. The world can change. Don't let your heart keep hardening itself against the pain of hope, the demands of hope. Don't settle. Don't goddamn settle.

If you're reading this out of some vague obligation from friendship, then fine, read. If you are reading this and feel your heart reach out, then don't stay away. I've been searching so long for kindred spirits to struggle alongside me.

OK, so that's who I am and what I want. What can you expect from this blog?

1- I made this primarily to find a public forum to discuss meditations and ruminations that I have from time to time. In the past, I would go on a posting frenzy, updating multiple times a day, for weeks at a time and then go vacant for months at a time. From now on, I'm going to try and keep a regular M-W-F schedule of updates.

2- I promise you no stupid trash on this site. No celebrity gossip, no "OMG, THIS PIZZA IS SO DELICIOUS", no random brain farts. I'll do my best to make sure that there is viable content here.

3- Long posts. I know tabbed-browsing is the arch-nemesis of long posts. In fact, the current disposition of most internet users is antithetical to deep thinking, but I'm going to do my best to eliminate fluff.

4- Diversity. I'll be drawing inspiration for my posts from everything that interests me: art, fitness, competition, law, literature, music, food, family, faith, fantasy, science fiction, regular fiction, non-fiction, diction, rhyming, dining, etc.

Well... let's get started.