Someone looking like that

 

My gracefully aging journey is a work in process that constantly leaves visual footprints that my aging is real and not imaginary like the mirror images I see in subdued lighting suggesting something other than my truth.  Mrs. Pierini Fitness said it best earlier this year when telling me that while all my fitness training may give me a lean and mean athletic body appearance than someone my chronological age, it comes at a price of giving me a face looking like a 70-year old man.

Ouch, that sort of hurt.  Not really, but it made for a great laugh.  Life isn’t worth living if you can’t have a good laugh about yourself, courtesy of someone else.  My reply was that I’d gladly take a lean and mean body any day even if it comes with a 70-year old looking face; Freddy Kreuger, here I come!

Further visual evidence of my aging was bountiful this year because I took a lot of photographs of myself during a lengthy period that I named as my Coronavirus 2020 no cut look.  You see, I went about eight months without a haircut in a “science experiment” of sorts.  While my hair doesn’t grow as fast as it used to, after eight months, I had some amazing hairlocks length and wildness that gave me an appearance I hadn’t had in a long time.

And, along the way in my Coronavirus 2020 no cut journey, these photos showcased some of the most unflattering imagery possible of Pierini Fitness.   I surprised many clients and acquaintances who hadn’t seen me in a while, and repeatedly annoyed Mrs. Pierini Fitness who constantly badgered me to get a haircut.

But I held out until I retired; then, on my first day being retired, October 1^st, I finally visited my barber and got a haircut that would make an Army drill sergeant happy.  It felt good to be groomed; the science experiment has run its course.

There were, however, some surprising benefits to the grunge look I sported for over one-half a year.  First, the panhandlers who frequent the area where my office was located no longer hit me up asking for spare change.  Second, I had a homeless person come up to me once and look me in my eyes, telling me, “Hey man, you’re going to be OK.  Life will get better, trust me.”

Well, not really, but telling this to others made for a good laugh.

To sum up my Coronavirus 2020 no cut science experiment lasting a whopping eight months, it gave me a look that some would say, “Back in the day, you had to go to the circus to see someone looking like that.”

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

I can do that too

Pierini Fitness stays focused by primarily writing stuff having a theme of middle-age man reflections about living and dying, gracefully aging and trying to live a good and honest life.  But he also delivers, some “scholarly masterpieces” on fitness, health and wellness; again, having a middle-age man theme.

When I first began my blogging journey over a decade ago, the original idea was that Pierini Fitness would be a cyberspace arena I’d use to journal my fitness training workouts.  Along the way, and early in the game, I composed my timeless classic, Every man who looks in the mirror sees a 16-year old kid.  Realizing I was on to something, I immediately switched gears and started delivering reflections of the genre most often posted here.

Restless, from time to time, I would occasionally venture out and write economic and political stuff but quickly realized there is no shortage of middle-age man stiffs focusing on this content.  So, I backed off and focused on writing what I enjoy the most.

Yet along the way, there was this urge to express myself about economic and political arena thoughts that surfaced in my mind’s eye from time to time.  One day, about three years ago, I submitted an article to my hometown newspaper and shortly thereafter, received a telephone call from someone on the newspaper’s Editorial Board expressing an interest in publishing my submission.  Pierini Fitness, the economic and political commentator, was born.

Over the next few months, I submitted and had published four op-ed articles appearing in the Sunday edition of my hometown newspaper.  It was a great experience and I received a decent amount of both “fan” and “hate” e-mails from readers of my articles.  It was fun and I quickly discovered how I liked being a “bad guy” and ruffling the feathers of the lefties reading my hometown newspaper.

Here are links to the four articles I wrote:

Absent workers fired for ‘Day Without Immigrants’ protest learned a lesson in capitalism 

A capitalist approach is needed when replacing Obamacare

Aging California needs a fountain-of-youth solution

What’s the solution to California’s unaffordable housing crisis?

I was one a roll and the sky was my limit, but my brief career as a published op-ed article writer abruptly ended when my contact at the newspaper took an early retirement.  His replacement, I quickly discovered, failed to see my talents in my subsequent article submissions.  I tried and tried many times, but each submission was not accepted.  So, I decided to throw in the towel, quit while I was ahead and take an early retirement as an op-ed article writer about economic and political matters.

It was fun while it lasted!

This is an election year and although there’s a sizable cast of characters expressing themselves at various venues about their economic and political thoughts.  I can tell when reading their stuff how they’re enjoying what they’re doing.  I’m happy for them yet feel sorry for those who are confused in their thoughts.

Pierini Fitness does now and then get the itch to express himself on these matters, and he may from time to time this year because, after all, it’s an election year and I judge that my thoughts are desperately needed to balance out that which is expressed in the cyberspace political cloud of economic and political thoughts.

So, stay tuned because you might be reading some of my economic and political thought stuff in the months ahead because I can do that too.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Always welcome are the great works of St. Augustine

Pierini Fitness fired Facebook over five years ago and shared the news with his sports fans here:  I fired Facebook.

Now Facebook has been doing lots of firing and its latest victim is a peace-loving quote by St. Augustine of Hippo, a 5^th century Catholic theologian, philosopher who’s also titled Doctor of the Church.

Apparently, the powers to be at Facebook have proclaimed that a quote of St. Augustine is “hate speech” and doesn’t belong on the Facebook website.  This “hate speech” quote is as follows:

“Let us never assume that if we live good lives we will be without sin; our lives should be praised only when we continue to beg for pardon. But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others. They seek to criticize, not to correct. Unable to excuse themselves, they are ready to accuse others.”

What a great message; it’s hard to see the “hate” in it.  It’s the dear Saint’s own version of the biblical verse – Matthew 7:3 – “"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

Think about it for a moment and then ask yourself, as Pierini Fitness has asked himself, how often do we point the finger at someone else while failing to realize when doing so there are more fingers pointing back at us?

In the politically-polarized world in which we now live, dominated by a vast and boundless social media cyberspace, it’s easier than ever to shout out the most snarky malarkey possible, anonymously and safely in the comfort of our padlocked and secure homes and receive kudos from others who are doing the same.

What is the same?

That which St. Augustine writes about that Facebook has labeled hate speech: “But men are hopeless creatures, and the less they concentrate on their own sins, the more interested they become in the sins of others.”

Pierini Fitness has written about St. Augustine and his great works a time or two and finds the dear Saint’s teachings and writings align with his middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully-aging and trying to live a good and honest life.

Therefore, here at Pierini Fitness, always welcome are the great works of St.  Augustine.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum