Recent improvements in my health have given me the freedom to screw my head on straight. I’ve been grappling with Post Concussion Syndrome for about two and a half years, and it’s just now starting to clear. Cardio, meditation, breaks and work, and prioritizing sleep have been vital in my recent recovery. I can’t thank Dr. Joel C Morgenlander enough for prescribing me thresholded cardio to accelerate my healing. I am so thankful for the friends and family that helped me maintain my sanity while being half a man with a shattered identity. Who needs an identity anyways?

I’m very grateful to be blessed with impetus to wise up in my early twenties, because wisdom and the world benefit from compound interest. I’ve learned how to fight, but better yet when to fight. Although I’ve had to give up martial arts completely, I feel closer to it than ever before. My life is steeped in it. My martial arts spirit is now just a part of me I know how to release productively. Whatever needs destroying will be destroyed. Most things need building though. Our minds, bodies, and hearts especially benefit, and any benefits we reap compound to benefit the people we interact with. Each of our lives have incredible, entagled effects on the world. We form a web of help and harm with our actions.

I almost killed a kid with reflexes and intentions I could barely control at the time. I had a vision mid-punch. I saw a glowing purple, golden web and a hole punched through the center. I saw the church choirs singing, the funeral bells ringing, and the announcement at school. I suffered from PTSD after the altercation, and it’s an isolating disorder. My isolation was shattered by a Joe Rogan podcast.

On her podcast episode, Miriam Nakamoto tripped mushrooms while an amatuer Thai boxer, and thought about accidentally killing her opponent in the ring. She saw a golden web with a hole punched through it. I had to pull over on the highway. Who knows how many people have had this vision? Over how many generations?! I am so humbled to have been shown a shared wisdom passed down for generations of the noblest apes. Wisdom is, has been, and always will be rediscovered in many different cultures in many different centuries. The least I can do is contribute my simian site to the infinite churn of human wisdom. I’m renaming this site to The Infinite Churn, because I’m still awestruck and humbled by our shared vision.

Giving up martial arts was hard for me, but the further I am from it the more I see how it’s never been apart from me. A warrior is someone who knows love through strength in its many forms. To be able to use zanshin for kindness is the ultimate martial art. There are other ways to the same truth of love. To aim your bow at the roots of clinging, dissatisfaction, and despair is effective too. To find zanshin through flower arrangement is effective too. Once zen steeps your vision, it’s easy to turn that vision towards compassion. If you don’t use your abilities to give love to the world, you are not fighting the right battle.

Love is sometimes cutting off the finger to save the hand. You must have the clarity to let go of what causes suffering, but know what’s okay to keep around. If you are not training in earnest to increase your strength, you do not know what a fight looks like. You do not understand that everyone is born to die, and this is the fight of your lifetime.

Mastery is as mundane as instinct. The master appears no different from the novice until you see their reactions. A skilled reaction is the sign of training. A skilled and spontaneous reaction is mastery. There is no more satisfying skill to garner than kindness.

“Be kind whenever posible. It is always possible. [Get good, son]” - Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama

Thank you Miriam and Joe.