Thursday 29 June 2017

This lesson is brought to you by the letter E... eureka!

Once again, I've neglected this space for a wee bit, partly because I've been so darn busy looking busy and partly because I've been a tad lazy. Then one day, while waiting to break my fast, my fingers felt the itch and once I started, it all came back to me. 

It began when the boxing Coach* came back to his round of #ringphilosophy thanks to his (really) psychotic GF drama… 


Then came conversations over chocolate waffles about epiphanies.. It led me to realise how dangerously close I was to falling through the gates of frustration, disappointment and that overwhelming sense that every avenue, lane, alleyway and path I’ve tried seems to have led to absolute naught, every time.

Over the past year, I've continued orbiting in an industry that has been my passion for more than half my life with organisations and individuals that I've felt deserved my attention. 

Ruled by passion and emotion over logic, I have of late been thrown accusations that I am wasting my time, effort, energy and emotions on folks who either don’t notice, deserve care or even bother. 



Training in Ramadhan is hard. Was inspired by Hakeem Olajuwon who
played for the Houston Rockets in the 90s, he still played all his NBA
games while observing Ramadhan. Respect.
“Why? Why do you bother when he / she / they clearly don’t / doesn’t care??!” At times, in the dead of night when insomnia takes over, that small voice in the cavity where a heart used to be would yell out, “for heaven’s sake, stop caring about them already. Walk away.” 

All I know is that I’m sitting on an obscure edge right now. Truth be told, I can feel the anger surge within me, in spite of my pathetic attempts to suppress it. It’s a nasty feeling that is being compounded by the roundabout insults hurled at me by the very folks I have agreed to help.

Interestingly enough, I find these out in the most unlikely situations, conversation openers that begin with, "he / they said to not say anything to Farah," or "whatever you do, don't let Farah find out.." or even one that wins the Olivier Award for ultimate ridiculousness, "I refuse to discuss anything about this with Farah, what does she know.. nothing!" Seriously? OK.

So, do I, should I, ought I stop caring? Some have said that those I try to help don’t deserve all the energy or effort I put in. See that’s just it. I’ve never proclaimed to be an expert at anything. In fact, I think I’m really good at just winging it and on the odd occasion I actually pull it off, surprising myself even. Lately, I’ve felt that that strategy has failed me. I’ve even let myself stumble over something so mundanely stupid and so out of character that it would seem that I’ve been stumped by some invisible kryptonitic force. WTH?? 


Why do I effing bother? Because I care? Because I want to achieve something that I never thought was possible? Because I feel some strange magnetic pull from a deep dark place somewhere in a black hole hidden away in the universe? Because I feel the urge for an impossible challenge? Hell if I know. 

Then I’m reminded of something Morgan Freeman said in Million Dollar Baby -- and yes, live with the fact that all my friggin analogies will gravitate around BOXING.. not kickboxing, muay thai, mma.. BOXING -- “the magic of risking everything for the dream no one else sees but you.” 

And, yes, it seems Tim the Coach senses these things (I reckon he’s super freaking observant.. I really must rethink this relationship...) and out of the blue, Mr. Coach sends me a flurry of cryptic messages, like: “you’re feeling like you’ve been KO’d with still half the bout left to fight. GET UP! 

This is often followed up with, “you’re tripping up shuffling on two left feet, try one foot over the other, SLOWLY, then pick up the pace. Still stumbling? Stop.. start again."

As something that is becoming rather frighteningly too regular when in conversation between jabs and hooks or footwork over the past few months, I’m befuddled. I'm begging him to stop throwing me these cryptograms and of course, he gives his weird smile over his nasty scar under his crooked nose and says, "it applies, you want to quit, give up and stop bothering.. but that's just it, deep down you care too much.. You BELIEVE. Take a step back, breathe, look, then move forward and take one step at a time.. observe, learn and then decide." 



He then adds, but don’t do it for them.. do it for YOU, damned it! Get the satisfaction of doing something for yourself and if it helps them, great, a bonus for them.” 



Honestly, training during Ramadhan has been especially mind-numbingly hard.. 2am wake up calls, intense timed sessions and I always end the session crying in pain. 

Strangely though, in between the ridiculously excruciating footwork and boxing, my mind lapses into a truly bizarre and very surreal state of calm for a brief moment and I’m at ease - yes, panting and sweating profusely with my heart about ready to burst out of my rib cage. Why do I work so damned hard? 

The first epiphany at 3.45a.m is this: though it seems I’ve been enraged at having wasted my time on this, that or those ungrateful sod(s), it seems I’ve overlooked the fact that I’ve learnt something new or picked up a new skill or established a new connection or reestablished an old one. 

The RBF queen - Vivien Leigh as Cleopatra in the 
1945 film Caesar and Cleopatra
I am only human after all and a scorpion to boot who’s lightning quick reaction to bullshit is more instinctual than intellectual and very much predicated on a built-in primal force. Thus, the failure to look past the fire. 

As the stunningly gorgeous Vivien Leigh with the perfectly executed RBF (Resting Bitch Face) so eloquently put it, “My birth sign is Scorpio and they eat themselves up and burn themselves out. I swing between happiness and misery. I am part prude and part nonconformist. I say what I think and I don’t pretend, and I am prepared to accept the consequences of my actions.” 

But most of all, what came out loud and clear ringing through the rigorous pain I subject my body to is as the great Muhammad Ali put it, "it isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe..

It is my choice. I am the one that can slow it down or speed it up, if I want or care to. I can choose what I need to discard and the moves I need to change.

So with Ali's words: "Inside of a ring or out, ain't nothing wrong with going down. It's staying down that's wrong," whispered by Mr. Coach in my ear, the second painful epiphany at 4am is this: 

Yes, I'm down but I'm getting up. I know what I need to do. 
Gloves on... 



And as usual, Mr. Coach has to have the last word and says, "look on the underside of your gloves. What does it say?" I want to say that I think if I had a spirit animal, it'd be an Amur leopard, but what the heck.






* and in case you haven't already figured it out, since I was last on, I only managed one snowboarding return trip to Norway and had to postpone the one planned for March. So, I picked up boxing to fill up the need to be active. I miss snowboarding terribly and stare longingly at my board every night. 



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