Why Does Life Have To Be So Hard?

Perhaps this blog answers one of the great philosophical questions of the ages.  More likely, it just "kicks the can down the road", raising an equally imponderable one.

Why does life have to be so hard?  Because without hardship, we would not grow, and growth is what God is after in our lives, not ease.

Imagine a gym in which all the weight plates had zero mass.  They provide neither inertial resistance to acceleration nor gravitational loading.  You can get some awesome workouts there, right?  Load the Olympic bar up with 7 or 8 big wheels per side and knock out an effortless hundred reps.  It would be great, right?

Well, it might be good for your ego, for a minute or two.  But then two things would occur to you.   One thing is that everyone else in the gym can also effortlessly push the same "weights" you are pushing.  The other thing is that you find it impossible to grow your muscles.  Week after week, you start to atrophy and lose strength.  Why?  Because it is no longer hard.  Your muscles are no longer challenged, so they cease to grow.

It is like that with the rest of life.  Life throws challenges at us.  If we strain against them, we eventually get strong.  It is hard.  Sometimes, we would like to give up, or trade the massive "weight plates" of our lives for the magical massless ones.  But we are not given that option.  So we get in there and lift what we can, as hard as we can, for as long as we can.  And we grow.

Now this begs the question:  Why did God decide to make it this way?  Certainly, He could have chosen to make things easy for all people at all times.  This is the next question down the road, and I don't have the answer.  If I figure it out, I will let you know!

Another Poem - The New Athena

This poem is hot off the press.  I wrote it for my bodybuilding friend, Athena Siganakis.

The New Athena

That famed Athena known by all of old

(Who from the head of Zeus was birthed and hurled)

With Aphrodite, for an apple gold

Competed, and was sung by all the world.

The ancient world declared divine her sense.

In three dominions they affirmed her rule:

In wisdom, warfare, and intelligence,

And beauty was her fair monarchial jewel.

But now the Third Millennium has dawned.

An iron goddess springs from iron birth,

For whom the modern devotee has longed:

A new Athena strides upon the earth.

In beauty, she is worthy of her name,

With muscles far beyond the ancient norm.

Nor could that old world’s pantheon lay claim

To figures of such arch-majestic  form.

But I desire to know her as a whole,

Not only for the glory of her frame:

The wisdom and the warfare of her soul

And all intelligences of the same.

I pray you, New Athena, take this verse

As  token quite inadequate, but true,

(Until such time as fate lets us converse)

Of my esteem and high regard for you.

-           © 2013, Paul Erlandson

YouTube Video Features Eliot's 1963 Meteor!

It's one thing to take video of my son racing his car, and to post it on YouTube.

But it is a different sort of thrill to realize that someone else thought the car worthy of capturing in an extended-length video.

Here is some cool footage of Eliot racing his 1963 Mercury Meteor at the recent High School and College Nationals at Milan Dragway.

All Bodybuilding, All the Time

I'm afraid that this blog is going to get very boring for most of you for the next seven weeks or so.  I have three bodybuilding contests coming up that I will be competing in:  September 28, October 5, and October 19.

The intensity of my preparation for these contests is a bit overwhelming.  Most days, my carbohydrate intake is low enough that I don't always think clearly.  I also begin to have paranoid worries that I will wake up fat the next day, dreams about bread, etc.

It is hard to describe what an all-encompassing, totalizing thing bodybuilding contests prep is.  It goes WAY beyond the lifestyle of a normal "gym rat" or fitness enthusiast.  There are so many little details to be taken care of.  Where did I put my NPC card?  Where did I store the Liquid Sun Rayz tanning color?  Where is my elastic band for pumping up the day of the contest?  How do I get to the venue?  Who will watch my stuff while I'm on stage?

But mostly, my thoughts revolve around doubts of the quality of physique I will bring to the stage.  I think I'm getting fat.  I've plateaued ... should I have a cheat meal or should I do an extra cardio session?  Opt for extra sleep?  Do I have time to join a tanning salon for a month?  I think I'm getting fat.  I look really small in the mirror today.  I'm behind where I was three years ago at this point in the prep.  And, that all-time favorite:  FEED ME!  I'm STARVING!

So, I hope you will bear with my temporary monomania for the next 6.5 or 7 weeks.  At least, you can be thankful it is not you going through all this.  And now, without further delay, a short video of one of my exercises at the gym this morning.

Bodybuilding Methods for Fat Loss -vs- the Armchair Dieticians

I've had several discussions on weight loss with folks who know everything about it, but for some reason cannot lose their own excess fat.  Maybe it's just me, but I don't think you should cop a know-it-all attitude when conversing with people who are very successful in doing what you yourself cannot do.

This is my rant about it.

Thoughts on Tribal Behavior

I have noticed a certain set of behaviors in myself and others which I will refer to as "tribal" behaviors, because they are centered around the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own group or "tribe".

I first noticed this in terms of my own attitude and that of others in the bodybuilding tribe.  When I use the term "bodybuilding" here, I mean something rather narrow.  I mean competitive, sanctioned, official bodybuilding.  I don't mean hobbyist body shaping, or recreational lifting, or power lifting or cross-fit.

I spend enough time reading the various bodybuilding forums online, that I unconsciously started to adopt a supremacist view of bodybuilding as over against all other forms of physical activities.  Without even noticing it, I began to assume that everyone in any gym I frequent has the same body goals as myself, and that most are simply unaware of how to attain them.  This is of course, a fallacy.

Some prefer more "functional" kinds of fitness, such as cross-fit or even (dare I say it?) running!  And in my conscious mind, I realize that this is good and okay.  But in my unconscious mind, I began to forget this, and to assume a superiority of the goals and aspirations of my own tribe.  An example is this:  Whenever I see a new person in the gym, I assume that he or she is a prospective bodybuilder, and I begin to mentally craft a program that would take them in the direction of bodybuilding success.  I make a mental picture of what the person will look like after 3, 4, 5 years of bodybuilding training.

But this morning on my way to work, I saw a young woman running down the street.  She was graceful, fluid, light on her feet, and FAST!  I thought to myself (brace yourselves):  it is okay that she is not trying to be a bodybuilder.  She is perfect as a runner!

And from that brilliant little realization came all these other thoughts about my tribal thinking in so many areas of my life.

Nowhere is it more prevalent (in my case, at least) than in the car hobby.  I like old American cars from the 1950s and 1960s.  That's pretty much it, for me.  There are outlier cars I like, of course.  A few modern cars, a few European cars, a very few Japanese cars, etc.  I also like "old school" pre-war hot rods.  I'm narrow; I admit it.  I have identified a tribe, and I stick with my tribe ... because it's the best!

But my son's experience in the car hobby has given me pause to think.  His passion for the car hobby exceeds mine, and he belongs to my same tribe.  But he mingles extremely successfully with those of other tribes (the import "tuner" crowd, sports car types, the resto-mod group, the off-road truck tribe, and pretty much any other car hobby tribe that is out there).  He has a wonderful way of expressing his central passions without in any way negating the validity of the passions of those in other tribes.  I could learn a lot from him!

It is similar in music.  I like garage rock and psychedelic music from 1965 to 1971, and that's pretty much it.  That, and Anglican Church choral music.   And blues.  My son, on the other hand, can appreciate garage, psychedelic, and blues music, without limiting himself in that way.  He is friendly with my own musical tribe.  But he connects successfully with so many other musical tribes, such as Techno, Electronic, and Dubstep.

In thinking about my own tribal behaviors, I have tentatively come to the conclusion that it is okay to view the distinctives of one's own tribe as superior.  I mean, really, how could you not?  I think that it becomes a problem when we become so narrow-minded and petrified in our minds and souls that we cannot be happy for the beauty that others have found elsewhere.

I am still thinking this through, so I would value your comments on the subject!

My Cumulative Progress from My Last Five Years in Bodybuilding.

I don't often quote George Bernard Shaw, but for purposes of this blog entry, I will:

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

In late 2007, an Anglican friend (from my parish at the time) stated that people unavoidably lose muscle mass every year after the age of 35, regardless of exercise and diet. 

To me, this sounded like the sort of defeatist thing said by the kind of person not willing to work hard enough to make progress.  

I set out to prove my friend wrong. I gained 15 pounds of muscle in 5 years. 

 June, 2008 on the left. August, 2013 on the right.

I realize that not everyone (yes, Mom, I'm talking about you!) would view this as progress.   Tastes vary in that regard, of course.  But I am still happy about the changes I have been able to make to my physique while in my fifties.  I look forward to carrying another 15 pounds of muscle by age 60!