I’m going to share a few quick musings about experiences of the mind. They are categorically disparate, and only a handful of the stories are my own. These kinds of topics lead to great conversation, so let me know if you have anything to share.
…
“Do them until you max out. Then when your body can’t do anymore, you can do 3 more.” My coach Manu instructed me as I stood, arms shaking, fatigue accumulating in my torso as I readied myself for another set of dips. He was trying to teach me something about limits.
Training continued, day after day of pushing my body to its furthest extent. I thought I would try to be clever about Manu’s ‘3 more’ surprises – I never knew when he would tell me to do a few more reps. I would do my sets until I knew that my body still had 3 left in it, then stop and pretend like that was my max. Manu would make me do another set instead. Then another 6 more. He saw right through me.
Just two weeks in, my upper body looked like I’d fought off a bear. My palms were gone, skin torn from wrist to bottom of my middle finger. Manu would help me wrap gauze over my hands before our four-hour long sessions. I bled through the gauze. My forearms were raw, exposing an inch-long loop of whatever lays underneath your skin in a perfect circle. I was told to start wearing long-sleeves. I tried it once, but never wore one again since it interfered with my ability to perform the skills. This kind of training continued for weeks.
You shouldn’t be able to do 3 more. If you really, truly achieve your maximum reps, or time, or weight, it doesn’t make sense that you can do more. But you can. These weeks in Montreal made me question what the heck my mind is actually doing. Sure, some people say that your mind will limit your body so that you avoid injury or avoid going ‘too far.’ This is fair. But what about when you need to achieve something beyond your believed boundaries? What happens to those barriers set up in your head?
Consider the flipside – when you feel like you’re incapable of even the simplest things. Just the other day, I couldn’t even get through a minute of mountain-climbers. A minute! Some days I can sprint for 4 hours during a field practice. Some days I can play 8, 90-minute ultimate frisbee games in a single weekend. Some days I can’t do a minute of mountain-climbers. Makes sense.
…
When you woodwork, it’s easy to get attached to whatever you’re building. To make something with your own hands, to design it, to see its slow progression from idea to physical existence. I was making a flight holder (like one you might find at a brewery for small beer glasses). It had been a while since I’d built something legitimate with my hands, and you could tell. The holes were a little off-center. The cuts were slightly lopsided. Regardless, it was made with love.
We decided to stain our wooden creations. I placed the flight holder on a large piece of cardboard that was spread flat on the garage floor. Prying open the can of a cherry-oak stain, I felt like a true handyman. With my admirable woodworking skills, I could make anything. Even build my own future home. I was empowered.
I waved the brush over the sanded wood and watched as the stain dripped over the porous surface. It was imperfect, uneven, and mine. I rotated the plank, taking extra care to cover each surface and corner, even checking that I’ve covered all internal edges of the circular holes. I left my creation on the floor to dry overnight.
The next morning, Adison strolled into the kitchen admiring our work. She held my flight holder by the handle, turning it to observe the various design features. That’s when I saw it, the entire top portion of the plank, completely deprived of any stain. It was an entire chunk of raw, original wood, screaming out into the day.
I was positive that I had covered every crevice of the object the night before. I checked it multiple times, turning it over and over to make sure I’d done it right. How could I miss such an obvious spot?
…
The conscious mind seems to only be able to process 50 bits of information per second. Human speech has a universal transmission rate of 39 bits per second. So when you’re talking to someone, and they’re also texting their friend, just know that they can’t actually be comprehending everything you’re saying.
This knowledge won’t stop me from trying to multitask though 🙂
…
There’s this cheese dish: it’s a large portobello mushroom with an equally large slice of brie placed on top. You bake it in the oven for a while, until the cheese is melted and the mushroom is cooked through. Serve it with crackers or bread, and watch as it’s devoured in a matter of minutes.
You eat this combination over and over. It’s a staple in the kitchen. Easy to make, feeds lots of hungry mouths, self-serve, etc.. It’s the flavors that are really interesting. The mushroom is rich and has that poignant, unique piquancy that’s hard to forget.
Fast-forward a few years, and for the first time ever, you eat brie on its own. Wow – this tastes a lot like portobello mushroom. This is the moment you discover that all these years, the flavor you knew so well to be attributed to the mushroom, was actually the brie all along. The drama!
…
You know that feeling when you wake up after a night of excessive drinking and promise yourself, “I am never drinking again,”?
Then a few days later you pop open a bottle of wine and start the whole process over again.
What?
Have you forgotten the hell that your body just went through? The pain? The nausea? The pure feeling of defeat and regret?
…
This house I visit a lot has an acoustic guitar. It’s a light oak color and not too fancy – it has plastic strings and is easy to play. The design around the soundhole is an intricate pattern slightly darker than the body of the guitar.
Sometimes when I visit the house, the guitar is displayed in the living room. I’ll pick it up, play a few tunes (although ‘play’ is a generous term for what’s actually happening) then set it down again. The guitar’s true home is actually in the basement bedroom, on a proper guitar stand in the corner. I see it come and go from that spot, but regardless of where it ends up in the house, it always ends up there again.
Fast forward a few days and I’m looking at the guitar in the living room. We decide to bring it downstairs to the musician that lives in the basement, and we place it on her bed as we chat. I turn my head and see the guitar where it’s supposed to be, in the corner of the room on the guitar stand. Then I look at the bed I’m sitting on and the guitar is there on the bed, where I just put it. Then I look up again and see the guitar in the corner.
That’s when I figured out there are two guitars.
…
I wanted to share these stories in an attempt to capture a thread of those moments when you can basically feel the neurons of your brain rewiring. It’s the feeling when you discover that something you always believed was wrong this whole time. Or it’s the feeling when you find out that your perception of reality was off a little bit and it finally gets fixed. I’m not sure why these phenomena occur, but if you talk to people about it, you’re likely to get funny stories. Sometimes it’s embarrassing, sometimes it’s really relatable. Let me know if you have any good ones.