movement – Serenity Through Sweat

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Continuing to work my way through linguistic research I came across the following entry from General Course in Linguistics by Ferdinand Sassure.

“A linguistic entity is not ultimately defined until it is delimited, i.e. separated from whatever there may be on either side of it in a sequence of sounds. It is these delimited entities or units which contrast with one another in the mechanism of language”

At the same time I was reading this passage I was listening to the Huberman Lab podcast with movement and mobility master, Ido Portal. When Ido spoke about movement he intentionally didn’t define it or delimit it.

You can find the full conversation on the Huberman Lab podcast, but I’ll paraphrase his message. “A fluid is delimited by it’s container but that is not the entirety of it’s being. So it is with movement”

Ido also said it was his goal to not answer any of Professor Huberman questions because words are incomplete and delimiting entities.

I was struck the the diametric opposition of these two points. It is obviously a philosophical thought experiment. One that may not have an entirely productive outcome. But, I found it fun to engage in none the less.

On the one hand, a linguistic unit (not always as simple in academic terms but for our purposes today: a word) only has meaning by it’s delimitation from all other words. On the other hand, an idea, being delimited by a word will often fail to capture the entirety of it’s essence or being.

Words are our most effective tool to express ideas. But words are an imperfect tool. Both Sassure and Portal approach the same point, that words are primarily negatively defined entities, from different angles.

That means that words are defined more so by what they aren’t, than what they are. It is easier to define a difficult word by pointing out how it is unlike other words than what it actual is itself.

Think about a word like morose: “having a gloomy or sad disposition”. But feeling morose isn’t gloomy, or sad, or upset, or depressed. If it were, those words would do, and there would be no need for morose. The same could be said of ecstatic. Happy, joyful, glad, excited… All of these words are close but not exact. We define our some of our most important words negatively, by how they are unlike other “known” quantities.

I think that is why there is such beauty in art. Whether it is the written word, music, or some form of visual expression or story telling. We appreciate the exquisite exchange of ideas.

With an inherent knowledge that words are imperfect, and negatively defined, we are captivated when the right combination of words transcends those boundaries. When a passage speaks to us in a way that isn’t delimited by it’s container. When we feel that we truly understand it’s essence.

Maybe it was your favorite song. A poem that spoke to you. A passage by your favorite author. We all have some array of words which has deeply touched us and conferred meaning beyond the sun of their parts.

Riding through a zwift academy workout this morning “The Light” by Common came on. The rapper’s take on complex topics accompanied by captivating beats, is rivaled only by his longevity in the industry. The song is a dive into relationship communication and one line stuck with me as I struggled to breath through the above FTP effort.

“I never call you my b*tch or even my boo, there’s so much in a name, and so much more in you.”

Words are incredible tools. Occasionally we can string them together in a way that is transcendent. For the rest of the time there is beauty in the struggle to define essence with imperfect tools.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’ve been reading a lot about America’s favorite drink since my wife and I visited Louisville last week. And while on a lonely Thanksgiving overnight I found this gem by Wright Thompson.

The following is an excerpt from his book Pappyland (which I ordered immediately upon finishing the article). Multiple times throughout the short read I was struck not only by Thompson’s prose and command of language and imagery, but by the deep and meaningful themes he connected to bourbon.

The beauty of the holiday season in FL, you can look at Christmas lights in the park and still enjoy a snow cone

“A career that aligned with my deepest wants and protective urges, both in how it would let me roam and how it would let me avoid myself by diving into the lives of others. I’ve always been happiest when dreaming of escape. From my earliest memories, my greatest solace and focus came while moving, or planning to move, from small actions like pacing while answering flash cards to planning elaborate road trips I knew I’d never take. When I look back at my early life, everything I read and watched and love and hoped and even feared came from this desire to fly far away.”

The idea of avoiding oneself by diving in to the life of another is something I think journalists and maybe actors can relate to, but as Thompson points out everyone can get out of their own way by immersion into their craft. And if that craft is movement based (pilots, journalists who have to travel, or athletes) so much the better.

I wrote back in May about restricted movement. Whether it is injury for an athlete or quarantine or lockdowns, I think there is a part of all of us that wants to rebel against movement restrictions in any form. This is what led me to the world of endurance sports and specifically to IronMan FL 70.3 taking place in less than two weeks.

But more than just wanting to move when we are otherwise unable to, Thompson’s words capture an emotion that I think most triathletes and most pilots live with but struggle to balance and convey.

I look at my work schedule when it is posted each month and plan out adventures that may or may not happen in the layover cities I’m supposed to visit. The schedule often changes whether by my action, my company’s, or external factors like weather or maintenance, but I’m still always moving to a different city and some new adventure awaits.

Most of those adventures involve some sort of movement, a hike, a running path, a walk through a different city to a restaurant or bar I like. My next trip has a layover in Chattanooga where I’m hoping to get in a scenic fall 5k before stopping at a local diner with a desert case that would make the Cheesecake Factory blush.

Rode the first half of the IM FL 70.3 bike course virtually, and some zwift miles through the foothills of France

There is something protective about movement, or maybe there is something vulnerable in stillness. Either way, flying to another place, running or biking, even if it is stationary, moving always has a net calming effect for me.

There is a magical effect when I walk into an airplane that my problems seem to melt away. The airplane doesn’t solve any problems, and they are always waiting for me back on the ground, but flying has a way of lowering the volume on everything else in life.

Athletics have always held that same powerful effect for me. The wrestling mat or the jui jitsu mat has always been a special place almost spiritual. Like stepping into another dimension, where all your baggage gets checked at the door, I grew up Catholic and seldom felt that way walking into church. There is a special mental space only attainable by forgetting your fixation on first world minutiae, and trying to avoid being choked unconscious.

A similar state of mind occasionally becomes accessible to me after long miles on the road or in the saddle. No one is trying to choke me, but the mental struggle against my weaker thoughts, my faults and failings, match the physical struggle to just keep moving.

I’m excited to read the rest of Thompson’s work, and I’m grateful already for his illumination of an emotion that I can so keenly relate to and at the same time, have struggled to express.

I hope that you the reader can find the same solace and focus in whatever your craft may be, that many of us find in movement.

Thanksgiving day treadmill brick run that came after 2hrs on a spin bike

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Tag: movement

Delimitation

Bourbon dreams