Category: Motivation

Burn, Baby, Burn…

If you’re anything like me, you enjoy the smell of incense. I particularly enjoy the smell of an incense that’s available locally called “Ocean.” But there are number of more traditional scents, such as sage and sandalwood. And I once read somewhere that the word “incense” is based on the latin term meaning “to burn,” which is kinda cool.

Incense incense burning is usually done in order to produce a particular scent within the surrounding room, but it’s been long associated with the martial arts, religious practices and ceremonies and rituals. In fact, while growing up in the Catholic church I would often attend services with my family where the priest would walk around and “bless” the congregation by shaking a device called a “censer,” which contains burning powdered incense.

Some religions will use burning incense as a way of blessing things, warding off bad spirits or during ritual practices. Most convents and temples of varying faiths will usually have incense burning for one reason or another. Some people burn it within their home just for the pleasant scent (pleasant being a relative term, since my wife tolerates the incense I use but isn’t a huge fan if it).

Is incense a good idea? Like most things in life, there are good and bad aspects to incense burning, especially within one’s home. First of all, let’s agree that burning incense creates smoke. In all cases, breathing in smoke of any kind is never a good idea. This isn’t a new concept; the medical world has been talking about the dangers of smoke inhalation for decades. Ever sit too close to a camp fire? Once the breeze conveniently turns the smoke towards you, breathing easy is the last thing you get to do.

Depending on where you purchase/obtain your incense, they’re mostly made from natural ingredients. This doesn’t mean that it’s any better for you. After all, tobacco and marihuana are natural products but they’re no better for your lungs. But modern incense that you buy at your local retail chain can contain preservatives, chemicals and artificial products that can release carcinogens into the air.

You can Google some research initiatives that were done in the past twenty years. increased levels of incense burning has been linked to certain forms of lung cancer, asthma, tissue inflammation and even rashes. I have no idea how much incense you’d have to burn to be affected by these hazards and ideally, you should be burning incense in a well-ventilated area.

At the end of the day, incense has been around for way longer than we have. Make sure to light and burn it safely, since it is a fire hazard and try not to use it in confined spaces. I have a bad habit of lighting a stick of incense during my workouts in the basement of my home. It’s not so bad when I’m doing forms, but it gets a little hard to breathe when I’m doing something intense like a circuit workout or weights. Actually, that’s kinda what led me to write this post. Burn with care, folks! ☯

Top 10 Comments That T1D’s Hate To Hear…

I think that like most conditions, Diabetes deals with a number of stigmas. For people who don’t have Diabetes or someone in their family or inner circle with Diabetes, they often have more questions than knowledge. This is rather surprising, considering 90% of the population in North America have the world’s information and knowledge at their fingertips, through smart phones, computers, tablets and social media.

The unfortunate reality is that a great deal of information online can be wrong. I think we can all admit that not EVERYTHING you read and/or see on the internet is accurate. This is one of the reasons I try very hard to cite my sources when I write about something (a practice that not every blogger follows). And every now and again, people tend to verbalize what they’ve heard, despite not knowing whether it’s actually correct or not.

I’ve always said, if you want to know, then just ask. I’ve always preferred sharing the information and being up front than having someone make an off-the-cuff comment about MY condition without knowing what they’re talking about. This is why I occasionally like to share some “Diabetes etiquette” so that anyone reading may learn a bit, direct from someone who’s living the condition as opposed to the good old internet.

Indulge me, for one moment as I step up on my soap box and present to you the top 10 comments a person with Diabetes hates to hear (from my perspective):

  1. “Did you eat too much sugar as a kid?” Shaddup! I’m not sure if this is a belief that came out in the 70’s and 80’s or what… In fact, I don’t recall EVER hearing anything about it when I was a kid. But I can tell you this much: modern research has proven that the consumption of sugar does NOT cause Diabetes. That applies to both Type-1 and Type-2. One interesting factoid though, is that the overconsumption of sugar may lead to weight gain. And some research has shown that excessive weight gain can be a component of Type-2 Diabetes;
  2. “Wow, I thought that folks with Diabetes were fat?” Seriously??? How would this be an okay comment whether I have Diabetes or not? Commenting on someone’s weight has been rude and inappropriate long before the advent of the snowflake, but this kind of piggybacks on point #1. Although weight gain can be a contributing factor for Type-2, it doesn’t mean that everyone with Diabetes will be overweight. And not everyone who’s overweight will have Diabetes. I’m no olympic swimmer and the light knows I’d enjoy a slimmer waist line, but I’ve enjoyed the benefit of never being overweight. So, there;
  3. “Should you really be eating that?” Sure, you could get between me and my much-beloved cinnamon roll from Greenspot Cafe, first thing in the morning… But that could be ALMOST as dangerous as getting between me and my coffee, first thing in the morning. Yes, Karen, I absolutely SHOULD be eating that! In all honesty, unless you have significant difficulty controlling your blood sugar levels, you can eat whatever you want. It’s a pretty simple equation: take the amount of insulin required to counter the carbohydrates you’re ingesting. That’s it. There’s no worse reason for ME to eat a powdered, jelly-filled donut than there is for you;
  4. “I think I’d die if I had to take so many needles…” Hmmm, that’s a really interesting comment because I would die if I DIDN’T take the many required injections, test my blood sugar often and have devices attached to my body. Yes, even though I may look healthy, I spend day in and day out combating a condition that WILL eventually be the cause of my death. There is no cure, there’s only treatment. And don’t get me wrong, that treatment extends my life from the two weeks I would likely have WITHOUT insulin to the decades I have from using it;
  5. “You know, I read a great book on how you could cure your Diabetes naturally.” No. Just, no. There is no cure for Diabetes. Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t read it straight: THERE IS NO CURE FOR DIABETES!!! There are a lot of books out there boasting cures, specifically for Type-2, but 99.9% of them are bogus. I say 99.9% because there is some correlation between diet and weight loss allowing a person to reverse the symptoms of Type-2, but there is no actual cure. Eating your bloody diet of quinoa, tofu and lawn clippings won’t suddenly heal my immune system and start my pancreas back up;
  6. “Oh, my aunt had Diabetes, and she did this or that…” I don’t need to hear it. I’m not sure why people feel the need to share stories about other folks who have Diabetes, but everyone I’ve ever met with Type-1 has been unique. Oh sure, our symptoms are mostly the same and insulin therapy is generally the treatment, but how we deal with our overall condition is ours and ours alone. Much like everything else in life;
  7. “Oh, it could be worse. You could have (insert horrible disease here)!” Yes, you’re right. I could have cancer. On the other hand, I don’t. But what I do have is a life-altering condition that I’ve been living with since early childhood and affects EVERY aspect of my life. I live with it and deal with it. I’m quite good at it. But I haven’t ever woken up thinking how lucky I am not to have something else. Such comments are comparable to someone who’s had an arm cut off and saying, “Hey, it could be worse! Your head could have been cut off instead”;
  8. “Oh, is yours the BAD Diabetes?” This one would almost make me laugh, if it weren’t so ridiculous. I’ve never been entirely certain what people are referring to, when they make this comment. And even today, I still have people ask. What the hell is the “BAD” Diabetes? Let me weigh in on this one since, you know, I have Diabetes… There is no GOOD Diabetes. Only good people fighting it;
  9. “You don’t look like you have Diabetes…” This is another laughable one! I’m always left speechless when someone cracks out with this little gem. If they spot my pump or see me testing my blood glucose, it almost never fails. I’m not sure what someone with Diabetes is SUPPOSED to look like, but I can tell you that it’s nothing you should expect. You don’t “LOOK” like anything out of the ordinary if you have Diabetes;
  10. “Are your blood sugars off?” Although this would be a reasonable question to ask someone with Diabetes, especially if they seem a bit off, this question has often been directed at me when I’m in a bad mood. And we all know how good of an idea it is to tell someone who’s in a bad mood that they’re IN a bad mood… Although fluctuating blood sugars can certainly contribute to my mood, it doesn’t automatically mean that’s why I’m cranky at that moment. Maybe you’re just being an asshole. But I digress…

I may come off sounding high and mighty in relation to some of this stuff, but when you’ve been dealing with comments like this for 37 years, you can pretty much custom-choose your soapbox. Diabetes is like anything else. If you’re curious about something, just ask. I’m always more than happy to share knowledge, especially about my condition. It’s a lot better than offering unsolicited advice, especially if you aren’t Diabetic yourself. ☯

It’s Your Job To Know The Job

The job market is a strange thing. Anyone who’s looked for employment can surely relate to that effect, and likely agree. I always get a kick out of the eternal paradox of requiring potential candidates to gain experience, but every place of employment requires five years’ experience in order to get hired. The chicken or the egg, that’s the paradox they’re throwing at you.

I bring this up because I applied for a job last year, right before I took my walkabout in New Brunswick. If memory serves correctly, it would have been sometime around September of 2019. I won’t get into the details but it was a pretty enticing position, with the promise of a peaceful existence for my family and I. I eagerly applied and even visited the community where the job would be, all in the hopes that they would hire me.

Considering my current state of life, I was pretty motivated. I provided more information than was required through the job posting and kept in contact with the community’s mayor repeatedly over a three month period (the job was posted through the community’s town office). When I had an unrelated medical appointment that saw me travel past the community, I stopped into the town office and introduced myself, met the staff and even examined some of the equipment I’d be using if I were hired.

There was a lull, of course. The Christmas holiday came and went, and there wasn’t much news during those weeks as everyone was on holidays and no one was really communicating. I was warned that the community moves slowly and that every decision they take is extremely painful in how long it takes. I took the comment at face value at the time, but man, were they NOT kidding.

I got back in contact with the mayor sometime in early January of 2020, after the holidays had passed. That was when I discovered that the position was not only a significantly lower pay rate than what I currently enjoyed, it was only part time. I was crushed. I got into some in-depth discussions with the mayor about finding the funding to increase the position to 40 hours a week, but it was all left in the air.

Honestly, I kind of put the whole thing on the back burner and forgot about it for a few months. COVID-19 came and changed the world, and most of the little details I had sitting on that back burner became insignificant. Then I got an interesting e-mail last week from a “hiring manager” for the community in question. He was reaching out to have me fill out and complete a shit-ton of documents for an “application package” to get hired for the position I had coveted, some months ago.

I know exactly what you’re probably thinking. “If you want the job that badly, suck it up and complete the paperwork they’re asking you for…” First of all, shaddup! But seriously, there’s a trend that seems to see employers asking for the moon when all they need is the shadow. I felt as though I was either being slighted or not taken seriously, especially considering that I was more than adequately qualified for the position I was applying for. That may sound like a vanity (and it probably is), but it’s no less correct.

I politely informed the hiring manager that I had already submitted a resume, cover letter and all the pertinent certification and training documents that constituted a complete application package and that some of the requirements he was proposing were top-heavy and not appropriate for someone experienced in the field of employment we were discussing. He confessed that the position was still going forward as part-time, which I felt meant I could speak freely since I wouldn’t be pursuing the job anyway (I can’t surrender a full time job for a part time one, especially at a lower salary).

I contacted the mayor and informed him of the issues I felt were of concern. I was surprised when he responded and thanked me for my input and told me he would be discussing it with his hiring board. But I felt slighted at the fact I was being put through the ringer for a job I was already qualified, trained and experienced to do. and I’ve been dealing with that obstacle for the past two years.

With the end of the quarantine on the horizon, there will be a vacuum in the working world. Some jobs will never come back to what they were; the absence of certain positions will have shown employers that those positions will no longer be required. More’s the pity. Some jobs will need to be filled, and only those who are able to swallow their pride and fight to gain employment will be able to find it. Perhaps I have a bit of pride I need to be rid of, myself.

My mother always said, there’s no shame in any job. Even the most menial of jobs need to be done by SOMEBODY, so if you happen to be that SOMEBODY, do the job to the best of your ability and with pride. Then, you’re guaranteed that you’re working for a reason, no matter what job you do. I had to pass on this job, but employers need to understand that they may need to swallow some pride as well. Long, convoluted application processes won’t be the status quo, especially since the applying populace won’t have any of it. ☯

Cause And Effect ⚖️

I used to love physics in high school. Yes, I was one of those freaks; I even took some of the advanced physics classes in my senior year for extra credit. A part of me gets a headache every time I even THINK about some of the concepts we studied in those classes, while another part of me absolutely immersed myself in it and considered it the highlight of my high school years. And no, before you ask I didn’t carry a pocket protector or have a little strip of tape holding my glasses together.

I had an interesting discussion over a week ago about the concept of karma. Much like most of us have at some point, some folks try to seek out some form of faith and are uncertain where to look. During this discussion, it was mentioned that the concept of karma was considered more as a result of cause and effect as opposed to some form of intervention from a divine presence. I think this was an interesting comment, especially since that’s basically what karma is; cause and effect.

Nature and the universe has a way of balancing itself out. Think about the course of your day and how things end up. If you walk up to a hornet’s nest and kick it, you’ll get stung. Cause and effect. And this happens in just about every aspect of our lives. Looking at it simply from a physics perspective, Isaac Newton once explained that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. He was mostly referring to the exercised forces on objects that counteract one another, but the concept is very much the same.

The so-called “Law of cause and Effect” states that every effect has a specific and predictable cause and every cause or action has a specific and predictable effect. The back and forth that takes place within this law is a result of the choices you make, the decisions you take and the path you choose to pursue in life. Sounds a bit like karma to me…🤷‍♂️

I could get into Einstein’s theory of special relativity and REALLY give everyone a nosebleed (myself included), but quantum physiques was never a specialty or forte of mine. If you want to seriously fall down the rabbit hole without the benefit of a net, feel free to Google “causality” and see how long it takes before you need several shots of Fireball to make the buzzing in your head come to a stop. But I digress…

Karma, such as it is, is defined as the effect on one’s life from accumulated causes they’ve generated. Yes, within Buddhist terminology, karma is considered as “the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.” I think that’s pretty spot on, and whether you buy into the concept of reincarnation or moving on to another form of existence, the message if pretty simple: live well and you’ll be well. Live badly and you may live badly.

Something from my Catholic upbringing is working its way up to the surface… Something about living by the sword means dying by the sword… Really, if you look closely enough at most schools of faith and even people who believe themselves to be Atheists (because believing in nothing is still believing in SOMETHING, but I’ll save that for another day), there’ll be something similar or identical to this concept.

So effectively, I’m sure you’ve noticed that those who intentionally do wrong, live a life of violence, commit crimes and harm others, usually don’t go on to retire at a ripe old age, hugging their grandchildren while sipping lemonade on the porch. There’s a lot to be said for living a “good” life and doing “good” things. No matter what your faith or your thoughts, living as pure and noble a life is what every person should aspire to. ☯

How Is It Snowing In July? ❄️

I’m not happy. Not. Happy. Ask me why… Go ahead, ask me! Here’s the thing: I had a pretty comprehensive post written up for today. It was controversial, hard-hitting and I cited a couple of sources. I had worked on it for over an hour, reviewing, editing and finally scheduling it to go live. Then, I had a change of heart. I thought about my post all afternoon after I had worked on it. Then I ultimately deleted it and we have this tawdry whining instead!

You see, I got to thinking about how my post would be interpreted by the folks who would read it, and I succumbed to a fear that many writers develop at one point or another. I was worried about who my opinion may offend or upset. In modern vernacular, I was worried about the wrath of the snowflakes!

Honestly, that concern should truly be the last on my mind. After all, I’ve often said that I don’t give a shit what other people think about me or my opinion. But it stands to reason that when you write a blog that you WANT to have people read and share, you try to provide content that will help keep the readers, not lose them. So once the thought crossed my mind that someone would be offended by today’s particular post, I deleted it without thinking. And now, I’m kicking myself in the ass. Because I compromised my writing in response to the possibility of someone else’s sensibilities.

Here’s the real kicker: the original post was ALL about how people in modern society get offended and insulted easily by EVERYTHING. As much as I regret that I didn’t just let the post ride, it’s also taught me an important lesson. Society as a whole has started to change and alter itself in order to conform with everyone else’s sensibilities. People who celebrate Christmas can no longer wish it upon others for fear that it will offend those who don’t celebrate it. Everyone has a gender of their own and become offended and insulted if you make a mistake in that regard (Did you just assume my gender???) A joke that would have otherwise been seen as a satirical way of approaching a sensitive topic is now seen as racist, prejudice, inappropriate or whatever… There’s no freedom of speech anymore.

The real joke behind it all is that snowflakes have caused the very thing that they’ve tried to stifle. People poke fun and make jokes at snowflakes’ expense more and more with every passing year. For the most part, people are having none of it. But every now and again, it almost feels as though the sense of entitlement and the reflex for being offended by everything just doesn’t seem to be worth the argument. ☯

On A Rainy Day ⛈

The only thing worse than having our movements restricted by current quarantine requirements, even if some of those have lessened, is being restricted even further by inclement weather. Considering the majority of my day gets spent in the sunny outdoors watering my lawn, tending my flowers and cycling, rainy days can throw a damper on my mood and my ability to follow my usual routine. It’s even worse for a restless five-year old boy who is used to coming and going from the backyard at his leisure.

My son Nathan is restless by nature, and is rarely satisfied with anything placed in front of him. He has a ton of toys, games and a small amount of electronics (not least of which is his own iPad) that he plays games and watches cartoons on. None of that prevents him from moving on from one thing to another almost without end, driving his mother and I insane in the process. So a rainy day with no school and no means of burning off energy outside can be burdensome to everyone in the household.

That’s where I decided to get creative and build a bird house with him. I called him downstairs on the promise of a fun surprise that would keep him busy for a while. He had received the materials to build a bird house as a Christmas gift, which I promptly hid away for fear that he wasn’t old enough to properly build it. My second fear is that he would likely damage or destroy some of the required parts, which is what he often seems to do with a lot of his toys.

The finished product, in all its glory!

He approached the wooden pieces with unconfined glee and started grabbing at everything in sight, including a small screwdriver and several small screws. I had to contain his eagerness long enough to explain that there were instructions to follow in order to properly build the bird house. I also explained that if he followed instructions and correctly assembled the project, that I would attempt to hang it outside his bedroom window so that he can watch birds come and go.

We worked diligently for almost an hour. One of us holding pieces of wood steady while the other one turned the screwdriver to fasten them together. It was tiring work for his tiny hands and he often relinquished the tightening of screws to me as he held the wooden pieces instead. But close to the end of that hour, we had assembled his small bird house and he quickly scooped it up to go show his mother and to keep it in his bedroom until we hung it up outside.

An angular view, showing how the pieces are bound to one another.

The only hiccup is that our bird house is plain, unfinished wood with no colour and Nathan insists that it needs to be painted. Further, the rod at the front for birds to stand on needs to be glued in place and we have no wood glue to work with. I promised that in the days to come, I would obtain glue and some bird seed to fill the little receptacle at the front. Then we can install a hook and suspend it from the overhang outside his window.

All in all, it didn’t kill off the entire afternoon but it kept Nathan busy for about an hour and has him pretty excited about the prospect of watching birds from his bedroom. It was a definite change from the usual things he would be stuck doing on a rainy day, like watching cartoons or grating on my nerves. Yet another example of how there is always something to be done. Sometimes it just takes a little imagination. ☯

I’ll Just Leave This Right Here…

I’m usually pretty loud and wordy, a trait that I’m quite confident I inherited from my mother. Although I usually have the ability to control my volume and she’s pure-blooded French-Acadian and for a gentle woman, her voice not only carries volumes, it never stops. ANYWAY… I sincerely love my mother, so don’t interpret the above-comment as something negative.

I simply bring this up because I realize that my posts can often become long and convoluted and can be quite the read. So today, I’m keeping it simple with the above illustration. I forget where I found it; it was a couple of week’s ago. But I think it carries an important message about controlling one’s emotions and maintaining self-control when faced with the obstacles of daily life. Enjoy! ☯

Don’t Be Rude!

Do you remember the last time someone was intentionally rude to you? How did it make you feel? Did you dwell on it? Did it sit on your mind for a period of time after the exchange was over? Maybe not. Perhaps you’re the type of person who has thick enough skin that other people’s comments simply slide right on off your shoulders. Or maybe you’re in denial. I don’t know, I’m not a therapist or psychologist. But I DO know that most people who say they aren’t affected by rudeness, still are.

To be rude is defined as being offensively impolite or ill-mannered. The best example that comes to mind is several months ago when I pulled out into traffic into the path of an oncoming vehicle (allegedly). The person took active steps to follow me to a red light and went on to call me by a plethora of inappropriate names and insult me for cutting him off. To this day, I can neither confirm nor deny that I ACTUALLY cut him off, as it’s not my nature to go pulling out into traffic if there’s a risk of a collision. But whether he pulled into my lane or was speeding or I DID cut him off, I can’t be responsible for other people’s perception.

So, why are people rude? Rudeness breeds suffering, the elimination of which is at the very heart of my beliefs, yet it seems that people do it with impunity. As much as we often don’t like to think so, many of us are rude to others in the way we interact with others, the things we say and the things we do. Sometimes this rudeness happens without our knowledge that we are doing it.

Most of us spend our childhood being taught by our parents (and grandparents) that’s it’s wrong to be rude, disrespectful even. But as we reach adulthood, a sense of entitlement often makes us disregard those teachings in relation to how we interact with others and how we treat them. Although none of this is anything new, it’s important to remember not to escalate the situation or reciprocate the behaviour.

A person’s behaviour, whether rude or not, will often be rooted in their own self-esteem and perspectives. That person who bumps into you in a public place without apologizing may be going through something that actively occupies their thoughts. There’s a good chance they weren’t even aware they bumped into you. The person who screams or swears at you in public for taking a parking space or possibly cutting them off in traffic has likely forgotten about you ten minutes later and the interaction isn’t worth the stress you allow yourself to feel as a result.

As difficult as it may be to smile and walk away sometimes, rudeness is one of those behaviours that feeds on itself. If you let someone’s rudeness get to you, you’ll likely be rude to someone else and so on and so forth. Kindness is the best reaction to rudeness and walking away from the situation is always best. Don’t contribute to the suffering in the world. Light knows, there’s enough of it as it is. After all, you can only control your own words and actions; never those of others. ☯

The Sound Of Silence…

Last week, I awoke to a quiet house. I’m never a fan of Monday mornings… They usually mean I have to get some work done and the week has started, the calm and free time of the weekend has evaporated and dealing with the outside world sets in. But anyone who has children and lives in a “typical” family-oriented home will understand why silence can be a bit of a surprise, sometimes even concerning.

My usual Monday mornings involve a colourful choice between an infant wailing for food or a parent’s attention or my rambunctious five-year old son who thinks that my abdomen makes a pretty good trampoline if I’m quietly sleeping. In fact, since the advent of COVID-19, I’ve set an alarm every weekday morning but have never reached it as my children usually wake me up before I get there. Which is fine, right? That’s pretty normal for a family household.

But last Monday, I awoke to the dulcet sound of Joe Satriani’s “Always With Me, Always With You,” which is my morning wake-up alarm. It’s a smooth, guitar-based instrumental that allows me to wake without being jolted out of my slumber as though someone has connected a car battery to various parts of my body. Anyway, after a moment’s confusion I realized that I couldn’t hear a sound, which in this household is an abnormality.

A mild sense of panic set in as I wondered what was going on. The temperature was in the low teens with a steady rain, so I knew my oldest wouldn’t be playing outside (at least I hoped he wouldn’t) and Monday is a day off for my wife. I stepped out of my bedroom to find my son snoring softly in his bed with his iPad playing cartoons next to him. This is an oddity in itself because he went to sleep here in my downstairs office, last night. This means that at some point, he transitioned upstairs to his bedroom without waking anybody; a miracle unto itself.

The baby was quietly sleeping in his crib and I found my wife sitting on the couch, tinkering on her phone. We said good morning and chatted for a few minutes before it was agreed that my wife should go back to bed and sleep while the baby sleeps. I got a cup of coffee and toasted an english muffin and escaped to the solitude of my basement, which is where I do all my research, indoor workouts and my writing. I settled in and enjoyed my breakfast in a quiet solitude that any parent can agree rarely happens.

So, I sat there… Took sips of my coffee and actually played Mega Man 2 on a badly coded game emulator on my computer. I read a few chapters of a book and checked out a few things online and enjoyed the silence. And you know what? I honestly don’t understand the folks who claim they can’t stand being in silence. It’s wonderful. You can be alone and collect your thoughts, you can enjoy some much needed down time and it’s good for your overall mental well-being.

Eventually the bubble bursts, and it didn’t take long for my son to track me down and begin demanding breakfast. But having that little bit of quiet time every now and again can make a huge difference in one’s life. I highly recommend it. Whether you have a workout, read a book or flat out do NOTHING and just relax, everyone should enjoy a little calm and quiet. Every once in a while. ☯

The Most Unlikely Sources…

Something important to bear in mind is that inspiration and learning can come from some very unlikely sources. Every Sunday, I try to choose someone that has taught me something, guided me or inspired me throughout my life. I hate to admit it, but it’s been a challenge. I’ve mainly tried to keep this contained to martial artists, including the likes of Michele “The Mouse” Krasnoo, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Ronda Roussey and even Miyamoto Musashi. All of these folks have had an impact on my life and have inspired what paths I’ve chosen.

But I’ve also made a point of including people who have inspired or guided me in other ways, like my father. Ultimately, we can find inspiration in negative places as well. I only say this because the subject of this week’s “inspiration” post is someone who has had about as much negative (if not more) influence on the general public as positive. I am referring to a reasonably well-known action star named Steven Seagal.

It may be considered an unpopular opinion by some, but Seagal played an integral role in my interest of the martial arts. After all, he’s a master of Aikido, studied/taught in Japan and starred in a number of action movies that came out during those impressionable years when I was young enough to be impressed but old enough to think, “Hmm, this martial arts stuff is pretty cool!” He moved to Japan and studied Aikido there, and claims to have also been the “first non-Asian to open a dojo in Japan.” Whether this is true or not is anyone’s guess, but he’s had a colourful life prior to returning to the United States where he began acting in movies.

He has starred in almost five dozen movies, although a good number of those beyond the mid-90’s went straight to video. I first saw him when I was ten years old in a movie called Above The Law. In it, he plays a police officer and martial artists who uncovers a government conspiracy and helps put an end to it. Sounds pretty heroic, right? In fact, the majority of his movies have involved the protagonist being some sort of military/police/operative who ultimately saves the day. But that’s the whole point, right? We usually WANT to see the hero win. As a kid, I was awe-struck by Seagal’s ability to use grappling and striking as a means of defeating even the most difficult of enemies. And all of his films up until the late 90’s were pretty bad-ass. I can still watch some of them with deep enjoyment, although much more criticism on his martial arts technique.

Then it gets a bit convoluted. Seagal identifies as a Buddhist and martial artist. This holds some special meaning to me, being a Buddhist and martial artist myself. But it stands to reason that someone who practices a religion devoted to the elimination of suffering in the world should be doing just that, shouldn’t they? Seagal has been the subject of a lot of controversy recent decades, including allegations of sexual assault, violence against the people he works with and has ongoing feuds with the majority of his Hollywood counterparts, notably Jean-Claude Van Damme, as a prime example. Not a very Zen-like approach to life, especially a blessed one such as his.

In recent decades, Seagal has become something of a walking joke when one considers his strange political views, ongoing opinions about how other martial artists aren’t “true martial artists” and his apparent lack of self-care where his body is concerned. The man has ballooned up to the point that he almost looks like a cartoon character! My wife and I recently watched him on Netflix in a film called Maximum Conviction, where he starred alongside Steve Austin. Once again, he was portrayed as some sort of specialist who simply couldn’t be defeated. The movie basically starts out by having him beat up a prison inmate who happens to be over twice his mass!

I’m not saying that a genuine martial artist would be unable to defeat a larger opponent, but given the fact that he was 60 years of age in that movie, couple with how he’s let himself go physically, one needs to face reality at some point. It’s no surprise this was yet another straight-to-DVD movie. Even WITH Diabetes, I consider it a point of health, personal care and importance to try and maintain my physical fitness to the best of my ability; a task I feel that I’m still on top of, despite my gut slowly trying to overtake my efforts. But I digress…

My point is, Seagal helps to provide guidance in a very specific way: he’s shown me how NOT to be. His behaviours definitely don’t fall in line with someone who is a true student of the Buddhist or Martial Way. His concepts and abilities with the martial arts have been questioned for decades, both for their authenticity and truth behind his claims. None of this is how a true martial artists or Buddhist would be intended to behave. When I need to know how NOT to comport myself, I need only think of Steven Seagal. ☯