Leisure Activities on the 49th Parallel
What do I like?
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. — Aldous Huxley
Why are we here? What is the meaning of the human experience? Who am I?
Pretty deep questions that would solicit some seriously self-serious answers from seriously serious people who will tell you how serious they are about taking things seriously.
I, being a slightly less serious person, come to postulate (what a three-dollar word!) on something a bit shallow on the surface but applicable to our daily lives: What is my favorite pastime and leisure activity? I will explore this question and look for the answers that might bring some insight.
Taking the topic of leisure time and turning it over, throwing it around, and kneading it like dough, I found that for me, there are many different activities in the world that interest me and occupy my time. Could I pick a favorite?
Cooking. Holy shit, I love cooking. I love to be in the kitchen, making two to three things at one time. I love the idea of making new things to try and then trying again. Each time making the dish better than the last or trying some twist on it.
Cooking for others is the Mecca. I like cooking for my wife, for myself, for others, for you, whoever. If people come over to our house and I am the one who prepares the food, it’s going to be a good day. Good food and good drinks amongst friends and loved ones are the closest thing to a heavenly experience.
When I make a good meal, I feel like Da Vinci toiling away, painting the roof of a church with art that no one else will truly be able to understand. It’s like supplying dear friends with golden goblets of happiness. Cooking is a devilishly self-indulgent hobby that feeds my ego as well as my gut.
Writing. What can I say? Writing is like a form of self-therapy that I did not even come to until much later in life. Taking thoughts, putting them on paper, and then solving the puzzle of figuring out what it means, what it is, and what it can be is pretty spectacular. It is a self-produced puzzle that takes the mind on an intense jiu-jitsu match of attacks, counterattacks, and submissions. Writing sucks, but in the most holy and righteous of ways.
Speaking of jiu-jitsu, what a beautiful breakdown of the mind and body. I love it.
I started training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu years ago, and, cards on the table, I suck. But wrestling sweaty men using their full force to choke me out is a physical language that also helps me grow and evolve in a stupid amount of ways.
Learning BJJ has been one of the catalysts of my life. I began training as a teacher, living on partying and part-time working at a full-time job. It beat me down mentally and physically. Showed me how to lose and how to improve. It combined elements of the physical and the mental. It taught me discipline. It taught me to strive for more. It taught me to do hard things. It made me a man (cue audible groan). Hell, without BJJ, I don’t believe I would ever have become a person deserving to meet my wife or reach my accomplishments.
Practicing BJJ is a way of connecting with the world. It is everything, and it is nothing. Yes, I like this leisurely activity.
Jiu-jitsu is the most difficult thing I have ever loved. It leaves me battered and frustrated. Learning how much you have to learn can be disheartening. But that’s life. That does not mean we should say “fuck it” and walk away. Maybe part of the art is learning to move forward and keep learning.
Suppose you asked me to come up with more favorite ways to spend my leisure time, I could. I love going to the park with my family. I like reading (fucking hope so). One of my favorite things in the world is drinking with a few friends and just talking absolute shit. I will go right now if you invite me. I can go on and on. Due to word restraints (hello, Dear Editor), I am prohibited from boring the readers’ eyeballs with more of my reflections on the activities that give me pleasure.
But what does this amalgam of hobbies mean? Is there a larger Truth at work or play? Have I found it?
Maybe, and take my words and thoughts with a whole shaker of salt, but maybe you and I, Dear Reader, have found it together already. I write these words on a computer screen, and I can feel our psychic connection at work.
I admit to the world that there isn’t a single activity that I can elevate over others. While spending the precious time that I have left on this absurd plane of existence is too, well, precious, I choose them all. They are all different, but they are the same. The leisurely activities I have pontificated on (Three. Dollar. Word!) are all cogs in the grand machinery in the process of creation, the process of living, the process of being.
Creating. Living. Being.
This is why I am here. This is the reason. This is who I am.
Yes, I have found my favorite form of passing my leisure time:
I AM THE UNIVERSE.
