Sunday, December 24, 2006

$6 Million Dollar Man

I dedicate this post to that once bronzed character of fame: Steve Austin.
As the New Year is on our front porch and knocking fiercely, we all have the opportunity to create new goals for ourselves. While looking in my journal today at church (I know, GREAT usage of time!), I realized that I only fished 19 creeks/lakes/rivers the WHOLE year! This makes 2006 an all-time low. At any other time and in any other circumstance, this would make me sad. This year, I'm happy that I didn't branch out as much geographically whilst waving a fly stick and in the pursuit of besting large salmonids. I hunkered down and learned so much from my education, and I wouldn't trade that for 300 days of amazing fishing.
So besides the obvious goal of exploring more rivers now that I have a marketable trade while paying back my college loans, I am fixin' to create a reachable fitness goal: To get a 6 pack and decrease my body fat percentage.

I am a 6'5 195 lb 31 year old man. I believe my body fat % to be around 18%. I am focusing on dropping that fat and turning it into muscle. In fact, I would like to weigh about 210 by June of 2007. I believe that through a simple plan of hitting the gym 4 times a week, tackling the ever difficult "Herschel Walker workout" (300 pushups, 300 situps in 30 minutes) and running and swimming beyond my heart's desire will help me feel success. At that point that I can look into the mirror in 6 months and imagine the narrator from the 70's action series and hear him say: "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. Better than he was before. Better…stronger…faster.”

This may mean putting down the Haagen-Daas for the extra bite and eating more peanut butter smothered bananas. But the way I look at it, I accomplished an educational goal that I thought impossible 2 years ago, so why not continue to propel myself into a better world? Why not continue to search through my life and discover either where the wells have run dry, or where there are NO wells to begin with? Might as well break out the shovel and startin diggin' for the jewels of self-discovery, accomplishments and a greater sense of self that will enrich my life and continue to bring me happiness.

"We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first progressive man. Kevin Wright will be that man."

Thursday, December 7, 2006

To Assign a Title

It is high time that I put my thoughts, events and experiences on paper, and since we live in a tree-friendly world, I will pass on the paper and go straight to the web-based world of the eco-friendly internet.
My equal in height, appreciation for trips to SoCal, and sliding down the stairs while reminiscing of Hans Christian Anderson has motivated me to begin my new blog (aka D-Man). And with some much needed help of a plant-drawing sharpshootin' Cornhusker, at 2 a.m. I might add, I have constructed a blog for those privileged individuals and myself to observe while I bounce through the unpredictable and yet so wonderful passages of life.
But before I break ground on my feelings of an amazing life, I will take a step back and tell you a little bit more about the title of my blog.
Back in 1968 (with some direct quotations from Wikipedia, since I cannot find my Structural Bodywork book after my 88% final that I am currently suffering burnout from), R Buckminster Fuller coined the phrase "tensegrity". Tensegrity is a word that massage therapists often use to describe the relationship between the skeletal structure and the fascial lines/muscle fibers of the body. The word itself is a combination of (tens)ion and int(egrity). Or as Wikipedia suggests, "when push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other." Basically, push is divergent, pull is convergent.
I thought this a fitting description of how I want my life to be. Thanks to the capitalistic and social world we live in, we are often pushed to achieve financial security meanwhile exhibiting joy in our recreational pasttimes. I think a lot of my fellow Earthlings share in that fortune cookie wisdom, but I will be honest when I say that I think that the fellows of the "old school" think you should work til you drop, retire and THEN play. For me, I just can't imagine working myself into the ground until I am 65 only to throw my back out and not be able to enjoy my free time. I believe that both goals can be achieved at once. It may wear me out twice as fast, but if I am having fun in the process, well, isn't that the point?

I believe that it is my personal calling in life to bring balance to the life of those I come in contact with, work with and work on, meanwhile bringing balance back to my own. I love the words of a famous writer whose name fails me now, when he said "At the end of my life I want to be thoroughly used up." I also share that same desire, yet will do everything I can to alleviate too much tension and too much compression and therefore, keep my sanity, achieve metaphoric financial peristalsis and find a corner of the earth that is close to moving water and carve out my niche.