Never bothered me again

How well does this middle-aged man remember his long-ago past? I’m not talking about ten or twenty years ago, but longer.  How about 50 years or more ago?  Do I have a vivid memory and how did it find its way back to my present mindscape?

And if I do and dwell a lot on it, what’s that all about?  Would a psychologist answer my question by telling me that my dwelling was my now self healing my then self?  I don’t know and am not about to pay a psychologist to find out.

But I do have one middle-aged man-onset memory resurrection in my mind that first surfaced a few years back.  

I was in the first grade in elementary school.  It was class recess time and I was on the school playground near the tether ball game area.  I don’t recall whether I was waiting in line to play the game or just in the area observing or talking to a friend.  But whatever I was doing, there was this bigger kid bully-type who was causing trouble and this trouble eventually found its way to me.

My next memory is being seated in the school principal’s office with my Dad sitting next to me.  This big kid bully-type was also there.  He was crying while rubbing his upper arm that was very red and sporting fresh teeth-bite impressions.  I recall the school principal telling me, while my Dad looked on, how terrible it was what I had done.

This very old memory then disappears and my olden-days memory fog returns with no further recollection of this event, but I do know this bigger kid bully never bothered me again.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Crazy to be lazy

When I count the number of years I’ve lived with my right hand, pretending to have lots of fingers, and then use my left hand to count the probable number of years remaining in my life, again pretending I have lots of fingers and God willing, I quickly realize how my right hand has way more “fingers” than my left hand.

What do I call this finger-counting activity?  I call it a realization that, even though I may jokingly say how I see a 16-year old kid when looking in a mirror, I’ve lived more of my life than the life I have remaining.  The only exception would be if I live to be 123 years; this is wishful thinking and not likely.

“Wow man!” I privately reflect with a heavy mental inflection like how it sounded when Tommy, of the old-school Cheech and Chong tag team, would vocalize it.  Middle-aged men within striking distance of my age will likely be familiar with this “Wow man!” expression. 

So, with this realization of my fast-ticking life clock, I have this urgency of how I better get to work in my game of life.  This is because each minute, hour, day, week, month and year I waste depletes my fixed reservoir of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years remaining in my life expectancy. 

It’s like taking a dollar bill out of my wallet and setting it on fire.  Sure, I can reach back in my wallet and grab another one, but I only have so many dollars in my wallet.  While I could go to my bank and get more money to replenish my wallet, I could only do this for so long before I’d be flat broke with no money at all. 

Well these remaining years of my life are like all the money I have or could have from all my sources; it’s finite within my limits.

So, when I’m lazy, and I sometimes am, I waste valuable time living my life to its fullest.  This wasted time can only be replaced from my dwindling years of remaining life expectancy.  I must not confuse this being lazy activity with something healthy like rest, recovery and rejuvenation.  The two are not the same.  Lazy is lazy, and I’m sure you and I know both know the difference. 

Therefore, I realize with each minute ticking away in the remaining life I have, how it’s crazy to be lazy.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

To discover in my lifetime

Something I’ve thought for a long time, and shared with others is my honest belief that every single person in the whole wide world excels at something more than anyone else in the whole wide world.  Yes, this is something I really believe.

When I’ve shared this belief with others, I sometimes get an “Oh, yeah” response said with an inflection and tone clearly conveying that the person listening to what I just said doesn’t believe me.  It’s natural to not believe the supernatural on first impression.

But if given the opportunity to explain myself further, I sometimes am successful in getting casual agreement; not always, but sometimes. Regardless of agreement or not, I remain steadfast in my belief.

The essential ingredient in making my belief true as how you define the something part.  Once again, everyone in the whole wide world excels at something more than anyone else in the whole wide world.  Got it?

So, let’s take someone who believes they’re not good at anything.  They may suffer from low self-esteem but have an amazing patience and an ability to listen with great interest while conveying honest praise and feedback to someone who may be “tooting their horn” how great they are at this and that.

I’m not saying this person is the best doing this in the whole wide world, but possible he or she is.  Yes, he may be the best person in the whole wide world of patiently listening with great interest and able to convey honest praise and feedback to someone else who’s tooting their horn about how great they are at this and that.

Get it?

I could give you a dozen more examples but know you’re capable of taking my point and running with it by creating your own examples.  Again, I really believe this with all my heart.  And, again, the “trick” is being able to clearly and cleverly define this “something”.

So, what about me?  What’s it that I’m the best at in the whole wide world?  That’s a tough question for me to answer and maybe it’s for you as well.  Honestly, I don’t have an immediate answer to my question but believe whatever it is, it’s something.

And this something is something I hope to discover in my lifetime.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Free universal basic fitness?

A couple days ago, I read about how the country Finland is about to embark on a new program offering free money for two years to help the unemployed get back to work.

It’s a new approach for Finland that began on New Year’s Day 2017 of what’s being called universal basic income (UBI), where people receive a standard amount of money just for being alive.  The proponents suggest that by handing out money to everyone, regardless of their income status, UBI prevents people from falling through the cracks.

The internet article where I learned of this pointed out how this experiment will provide clues about how people behave when they receive “free money”. 

Will they sit on their couches all day waiting for their next free money shipment, or will they use the money to make their lives better?  The answer to these questions depends on who you ask, the skeptic or the proponent.

I’ll be neither but use this idea in the context of physical fitness and call it universal basic fitness (UBF).  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone who is now overweight and lacking baseline physical fitness could magically receive a constant stream of universal basic fitness for, say, two years?

What would UBF recipients do?  Would they sit on the couches all day watching television and continue in their unhealthy eating and lack of exercise lifestyles that got them to where they are?

Or, would they use their new UBF to make their lives better by eating healthier and engaging in regular and sensible exercise?

I’m not sure the answer to this question either and suppose, just like the case of UBI, it depends on whether you ask a skeptic or proponent.

So, I’ll answer this question in the context of me, who at this moment has what I would say is UBF, but who is a far cry from higher levels of physical fitness he has enjoyed in his past.  I’ll take my UBF and run with it in an attempt of returning to a higher level of fitness, rather than slide down a slippery slope fitness and health decline in my aging journey.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone in need could receive two years of free universal basic fitness? 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Another sarcasm spasm

I don’t know about you but let me tell you a little about me.  At this point in my middle-age man life, with more years of life under my belt than years of life remaining, I’m endowed with a large treasure of life experiences that make me the person I am today.

Many of these experiences are pleasant, and hopefully they bring out an intrinsic goodness that I believe resonates in me most of the time.  But, unfortunately, there’s also a dark side.  Some might describe me as one who wears a coat of thick-skinned armor, known to frequent the jaded-zone, perhaps has been dealt a genetic wise guy deck of cards, and has a proclivity of doling out rough-around-the-edges sarcasm.

Yes, this I must confess.  I don’t do so proudly although maybe when my wickedness is not in remission, I might privately smirk in a devious delight when describing my dark side.

As a sexagenarian who soon will begin year three of this decade of life, I suppose it’s time for me to grow up and answer to a higher-calling.  I should exhibit omnibenevolent behavior all, rather than some, of the time.  There’s no justification in me dismissing my dark side behavior by pointing out that every other middle-aged man is no different.  Since when should my measuring stick be that of the lowest common denominator?

So, I resolve to do better than what I’ve done in the past and get out of, once and for all, this gutter where I sometimes enjoy being. 

To rub lotion on my thick skin and soften it up a bit.  To spend less time in my jaded-zone.  To leave being Mr. Wise Guy to someone else who is further from figuring it out than hopefully me.  And to give a big boot to my rough-around-the-edges sarcasm once and for all.

Will I lose a few acquaintances and friends along the way in my transformation journey such as those who enjoy my vocal creations?  Perhaps, but time will tell.   

Regardless, it’s time for me to be on high alert, starting right now, so that I no longer succumb in moments of weakness by having another sarcasm spasm.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Now it's your turn

I find myself taking notice more these days as an observationist of sorts, paying attention to people going about here and there doing this and that in their lives.  And in my observations, I’ve learned how I take great delight in so doing. 

I’ve always been one who enjoys the great American pastime of people-watching.  It’s good entertainment and, more likely than not, there’s always something to learn; sometimes big lessons and other times a little one.

Like observing the young mother with her little infant child in a stroller as she does her shopping in a grocery store, sporting the happiest face you can imagine and totally immersed in motherhood.  What an honorable profession is motherhood. 

Or observing the young father and his young son, both sporting baseball caps walking at a brisk pace together as a big jock and little jock duo.  Like the young mother, I enjoy taking notice of the look in the young father’s eyes who is totally enjoying fatherhood in the moment with his “best bud” little son. There’s nothing else he’d rather be doing.  Like motherhood, fatherhood is the other honorable profession.

Or the young man eligible bachelor all dressed for success out in public trying to look good and available and, perhaps having his “mating-call horn” in a locked, loaded and ready position when an opportunity strikes.

Or the young soldier or sailor in uniform going about in public ever so proud of serving their country.

Or the young college student buried in study in a coffee shop, far removed from the world everyone else is in, like a sponge absorbing a sea of knowledge for a hopefully wonderful professional career in a blue-sky future that’s still a safe distance away from the moment’s reality.

I take delight in all these observations and more, and am always on the look for new observation delights.  They give me a free opportunity to escape from the toils of my present and vicariously live through my observation subjects.

And it seems that, more likely than not, I find myself whispering in a very reflective state of joyous being, ever so happy for them this simple message: “I had my turn and now it’s your turn.”

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

A pair of stiff knees

So today, this first day of a new 2017 year, I resume blogging at Pierini Fitness but in undercover status.  Some time ago, I took my blog undercover for a reason that doesn’t need to be publicly-shared.  Pierini Fitness, as of right now, is not available for public viewing and it doesn’t even come up in a Google search.

I can give Pierini Fitness access to people for their private viewing and I’ve done so in two or three instances when I was asked.  I do this by entering a person’s e-mail address that they must enter when asked to login and view my blog.

What I’ve discovered while being undercover, and then some time before, is that I haven’t added anything new since my last blogflection posted on July 21, 2016 before departing for a short vacation.  Well I returned from that vacation but somehow, for reasons not totally understood by me, I’ve hit a brick wall and have lacked both the creativity and desire to write something new.

There’s a lot of dust accumulating on my blogsite and it’s time to do something about it.

I resume blogging today hoping that my creativity and desire will both resurrect from the dead.  I also hope that I’ll produce and deliver new and fun-to-read middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully aging and trying to live a good and honest life.  That’s what I really enjoy writing about and sharing with others.

But there’s something about being undercover that seems unfamiliar and uncomfortable to me.  It makes Pierini Fitness seem more like an old-school diary.  I’ve never maintained a diary so it doesn’t seem natural to me.  Writing and posting undercover seems like the sound of one hand clapping, or me talking to myself while driving or looking in the mirror. 

Maybe I’m sort of spooked doing this from something my dear grandmother told me long ago when I was a child one day, after she caught herself talking to herself.  She told me that it was OK to talk to yourself provided you didn’t answer.  I never asked her why but suspect that she might have thought that if you did so then you were crazy.  Maybe someone else told her that and it stuck.  Maybe it was her mother, my great grandmother.  I’ll never know.

But in any event and once again, it does feel odd adding today’s blogflection knowing that I’m essentially writing to myself, so I’ll just have to fake it until I make it.  I’ll eventually get to a point where composing new reflections will happen effortlessly like it has so often in my blogging past.

Until that day comes, I’ll just have to limp along at Pierini Fitness like the image of an old beaten-up weightlifter sporting a pair of stiff knees.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Sono in vacanza

There's a lot of darn good content here at Pierini Fitness if this chief executive blogger must say so himself.  Middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully aging and trying to live a good and honest life.

Not to mention good middle-aged man diet, fitness and health stuff too.

So enjoy any of the almost 900 blogflections in the archives until I resume adding new content here in early August.  There's something here for everyone, even if you've read some of all of them before.

Enjoy this brief summertime rerun season, starting now, because this middle-aged man says, "Sono in vacanza."

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Now go flaunt yours!

This chief executive blogger continues being busy with his work and preparing for an upcoming vacation.  So he's short on his world-renowned blogflections here at Pierini Fitness.  

I suppose you can say, "the cyberspace cat has got his blogflection tongue."

But while I may be short on both written and oral reflections about life in my middle-aged man fast lane, there's always time for me to engage in one of my favorite pastimes - flaunting my middle-aged man roar.  Click below and listen up.

It always feel good when I flaunt my middle-aged man roar.  

Now go flaunt yours!

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Real bloggers have day jobs

I remember years ago a good karate friend of mine, who was a high school teacher in his day job, had this unbridled passion for music.  He played several instruments but the fiddle, I believe, was his favorite.  He was part of a couple ensembles that performed here and there, sometimes for pocket change and other times free and for the pure joy of participating in his musical passion. 

Anyway, I remember he had this bumper sticker on his truck that read “Real musicians have day jobs!”  He’s recently retired and now I’m sure, since he’s a real musician, his musical pursuits will be his new day job.  I wish him well as he enters a new and exciting chapter in his middle-aged man life.

Well real bloggers are no different.   This chief executive blogger has a rather full plate of work to do this month with his day job.  Consequently, his delivery of the world-renowned middle-aged man reflections appearing here at Pierini Fitness may be slow and/or delayed this week, and possibly this month, because real bloggers have day jobs.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum