Why I quit (1)

It's no shame to reject something great if you would have to do it all by yourself.

Going to Europe for six weeks?

Drinking a nice bottle of wine?

Having a baby?

Competing in the Olympics?

These are great, fulfilling, wonderful things to do, but they ring hollow if you imagine doing them all by yourself, or worse, with someone you don't like.  That's one of the reasons I quit wrestling and why I'm not going to start again.

There is some intrinsic value in accomplishment for its own sake.  It gives me infinite pleasure to practice a skill that I have spent a long time acquiring; to show that skill in front of others; and to take pride in what I can do.  If I had started wrestling by myself then maybe I would appreciate these things more.  But I had the best coach and mentor money could buy (that's a joke – he did it absolutely free) and after having trained with him, all I see with others are diminishing returns.

Hard Work Is Cumulative

Where Victories Unparalleled Await

I haven't written any tirades lately.  I haven't written about why men and women should train together, or why you shouldn't study literature, or something about poetry and beauty or love.

Here's why: I'm tired.  I hopped onto a plateau in April, or a downward spiral, which is what a plateau feels like to someone with time-sensitive ambitions.  I lost in Bulgaria; I won one and then lost in Germany; I won in Israel but didn't wrestle up to par; and I started well in Austria and let my concentration go.  By the time Canada Cup came around in Guelph, I was burnt out and didn't care.  I nearly quit then, and the only reason I trained hard through the World Championships was because I told myself that I'd allow myself to entertain the thought of quitting afterward.

I've had sleep problems (not unusual for me).  I've had serious digestive problems that I have tried to solve variously with diet changes, coffee abstention and yoga (yoga came closest to succeeding), but it has gotten so bad since Azerbaijan that I have literally given up.  I've also given up trying to pay off my credit card or stay ahead of my bills - luckily my rent in my new place covers phone and utilities, so if I can make that then at least my internet won't get cut off.  Even so, it's very close every month.  My significant relationship, long distance to begin with, has suffered immensely.  I call my friends in Montreal whenever I'm in town with free time, which happens so rarely that even they are starting to feel like long-distance friends.

I hadn't noticed this creeping since April, but it was recently pointed out to me.  I am now getting farther from the kind of person I would like to be, not closer.  Or at least stagnating, which to an ambitious person like me feels like a decline.  Many people involved in wrestling will tell you that the greatest athletes and people who accomplish things become like this; but if I lose what is most important to me, what worth will an Olympic medal be?  I like to think that I can defer having the kind of life I want to have, just for six more months, nine more months, but enough is enough.  Three years ago I was supposed to be on my way to financial independence.

There are two things that momentarily stay my hand.  The first is that the Israelis have invested a great deal in me, and I don't want them to think I disrespect their investment or that I'm throwing it away without a second thought.  One could say that since I am their greatest hope for qualifying for Beijing 2008, that I at least owe it to them to continue training through the qualifications.  This argument has some merit.  It is important to respect people who go out of their way for you.

The other is the thought that it's only a few more months.  But I don't really buy this argument because it's always only a few more months to the next possible stopping place, the next milestone, and there is always another one.

It might sound like I'm on the verge of quitting, and I am.  I'm also finding it an incredibly difficult concept to get my head and heart around, especially when I go to practice and feel at ease in my muscled body, working a method and technique that I understand intuitively, always on the verge of some great discovery, of leaping up to the next plateau, where victories and joys unparalleled await...

This blog is getting personal

One of the happiest times I can remember was one evening when O and I were listening to KCRW and Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" came on.  We laid there with each other, not moving, for the entire piece.

I had another musical moment like that today, riding down Cote-des-Neiges, listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.  The steep grade of the hill had just started to catch me and push me into the wind, and as I rounded the bend and came in view of that wonderfully oriented Guy/Sherbrooke intersection, the choir started to sing " Freude schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium."

I am reminded of this poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca (this is only an excerpt):


I followed these signs
like an old tracker and followed the tracks deep into myself,
followed the blood-spotted path,
deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many parts of myself,
who taught me water is not everything,
and gave me new eyes to see through walls,
and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their mouths,
and I was laughing at me with them,
we laughed like children and made pacts to always be loyal,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?

Change

Tonight I hated wrestling.  Tonight I hated everything I loved and everything I have committed to.  I hated everything I've given my mind and soul to, and everything I've invested in.  I hated everything I've sacrificed and everything I've achieved.  I hated money and I hated not having any, and I hated wanting it.
I hated wrestling while I wrestled.  I hated it but I did it because I had to, because I had no choice, because it is the best way I know how to move.  I hated it because it is integral to my being.  I hated it because it is woven into every aspect of my life.  I hated it like you hate a city that you love but have to leave.  I hated it but I wrestled and wrestled well, and it made me feel old.

Ambition and Motivation

I spent the weekend in the elements.  Some rain and thunder on Friday, cloud and cold with delicious warm patches of sun on Saturday, a bright moon on Saturday night, not to mention fire and wind.  Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice... 

As you may have guessed, I lost in Azerbaijan.  I'm rethinking this whole thing I'm in, and it's wonderfully refreshing.  When I consider that I'm not bound to any of the things I'm doing, I can do whatever I want.  Maybe I'll go to Israel to train with the coach who instilled the love of the sport in me in the first place.  Maybe I'll quit and do something else.  Something big.  It has to be big with me otherwise why even bother.  Sometimes I wish I could just sit around and drink tea and noodle around on the guitar all the time and just cuddle with someone and watch the snow falling.  I can do that for a while but I have a curse and I think it's called ambition.  That's what I'd like it to be, and not some inferior cousin like impulsiveness, obsession, or misdirection.

See I used to think that all I wanted in life was to have a family and kids and stability and community.  Like that Raffi song, "all I really need is a song in my heart, food in my belly, and love in my family."  But I think I need more.  I need intellectual sharpness and vigor, and I need to be involved in some deep work, and I need to be always creating connections, whether that means making friends or finding people to create things with.  As soon as I stagnate I start to feel stuck.  Believe it or not, that's how I feel now.

Seconds

Two minutes is about all I have to write this post.

 

Two minutes go by so fast.  You are pushing and defending and trying to think and the seconds just go by.  The expanse of mat resolves into colors and you are like a deer in headlights.  This is all there is.

 

There is so much to write I don't know where to start, about Azerbaijan and how I'm basically cross dressed if I'm wearing a t-shirt.  About Baku and the strangeness and when it comes down to it it's just another place.  About the amazing variety of languages I have had the chance to struggle to speak.  About professionalism, making wise choices, and Japanese displays of emotion.  The wisdom of coaches and parents not your own. 

 

But I'm out of time.