Chapter Three: Leviticus

Chapter Three: Leviticus

I read a lot.  One my great pleasures in life is a good book.  In my value system a well-written book has all the value of a masterful painting.  Not just well written, I should say masterfully written.  Written in a manner I have heard called "wordmansmithing". Written like a poet, constructed like a master craftsman.  Prose that puts a reader right in the protagonist's or author's brain.  I am a highly, almost totally, visual learner and thinker. 

I love a wide variety of music, but have no talent to carry a tune, let alone remember more than the first few bars.  The world of sound I do appreciate very much.  It just doesn't transcend into much that my brain seems to use.  But the written word immediately becomes imagery in my brain, if the words are put together with talent and intelligence.

Often when I get into a new activity, it can quickly become a passion.  When that happens I get every book I can find written on that activity.  So it was with bicycling and ocean kayaking.  Non-fiction preferably.  But if the fiction is, again masterfully, written, that will do in a pinch.  As it has been with motorcycling. 

I just finished a couple of books about real life motorcycling experiences.  One was very well written, not so much excellently written as well done.  In that the author did put me in his riding boots quite comfortably.  The other was like a loud conversation overheard while he was talking on his cell phone.

Admittedly I have a total of slightly less than 50,000 miles on the only motorcycle I have owned up to this point in my writing.  Far, far less experience than the authors in either of these two books.  I care almost not all to take my bike apart and fix stuff.  It even goes into the shop to have the oil changed.  The only tools in my saddlebags are a tire pressure gauge, a high quality pocket knife and a pair of Dollar Store pliers.  In my value system manly man-ness is not tied to being mechanically capable.  It is not tied to enjoying getting grease on your hands and jeans. 

I did do all of my own repairs when I raced and toured on bicycles.  All of my kayaks and canoes I have reworked to some degree.  I mention this only because none of these objects were ever given a name.  Never became part of me.  I have never become one with any of them in the sense that these possessions came to life.  Maybe I am not mystical enough.  Not spiritual enough, or something.  A lot of the authors of non-fiction literature about their machines and their adventures on them seem to buy into this theme.  Their machines become like people.  They become actual friends.  They have names. What am I missing?

What happens to me is that my body becomes an object, I become mechanical.  My mind separates from the device beneath me.  My alligator brain takes over running my body.  Pushing your body to its limits requires a very high pain tolerance.  That's just a physical thing though.  It's one of the first things any high-functioning athlete learns; i.e. physical pain tolerance.  And it, is actual more of a mind skill than a body skill.

this mind over body skill, is difficult to explain. 

Until people have put themselves into a situation where it is required there is almost no way to fully describe it.  But without this ability in use during extreme endurance activities, you will never win; you will never succeed even in finishing.  "You must know the pain, but you cannot think about how much it hurts, or you will stop - you will quit."  And every time you quit, it gets easier to quit the next time and to quit earlier and earlier.

We are taught, "pain is the body's way of telling us something is wrong."  The body does not want to run 24.4 miles (a marathon), but it can.  The body definitely does not want to climb a mountain over 24,000 feet high (Mt. Everest), but it can.  The mind will make it its highest priority when pain becomes so intense it wants to force the body to quit.  It is only when the mind is at its highest level of focus that a goal can override all physical complaints. 

Racing on skis, on a bicycle, going at high speeds on a motorcycle cannot be a mind activity in my experience.  The concept of making decisions just cannot happen fast enough to handle various dangers.  These things have to become second nature, like walking.  It has been said, "If you stopped long enough to think about how to walk, you'll fall over."  The greatest danger at these high-speed activities is when the mind wanders.  So the only, the singular, function of the intelligence, or lower order mind, is to get the fuck out of the way. 

In my thinking it is the brain that tells the body what parts to move and do things.  What I comprehend as the mind's function is not necessarily a physical one. This is where mental disorders become a bit muddled.  As it is possible for the brain to feel pain in an amputated limb, is it not possible for the brain to not recognize pain if a person can discipline it enough? 

I am not saying that I don't believe pain is not physically felt. I do believe the mind can create a systematic structure of priorities and can discipline itself to follow that systematic structure.  This can include a system of priorities of pain and pain levels.  However if the body brain organ is misfiring, sending all kinds of mismanaged sensory stimuli, what then is the result? 

Medical science has discovered a host of medications targeted at regulating and balancing the chemistry of the brain. This being an attempt to bring some harmony between the various hormones the body should produce naturally, and doesn't for some reason, and the brain. But medical science admits this is a crapshoot.  In this equation we might call "normal mental health", there exist nearly infinite variables. Gender, age, metabolism, history of injuries, genetics...environment...changes in environment...daily activities, to include stress levels...changes in daily activities resulting in redline stress levels.

So we know then that a disciplined athlete can train his/her mind to override pain thresholds. Yogis, and others of similar disciplines, can train their minds to overcome body and brain physical restraints. Multi-lingual people can think in various languages.  This indicates to me there is one element which can control these variables. This would be the mind.

And sometimes, I am beginning to believe, the mind has to train itself to ignore itself. 

The wandering mind...what a topic!  The wandering mind can be downright dangerous if it wanders at the wrong time.  A deeply creative mind spends a lot of time wandering.  At times, during the dangerous activities, about which I am writing, it is better if it is ignored.   These are times when a mantra is useful.  I learned a mantra some forty years ago and it has saved my life more than once. 

Because, I guess, I have been an artist, a professional artist and art teacher, for so long, my mind wanders a lot.  Getting it to shut down and give me some peace is something I seek positive ways to accomplish all the time.  I also learned a long time ago how to mentally push through physical pain.  Even motorcycle riding can become quite painful if you ride for long distances.  Needles in the neck.  Wood hands.  Novocaine butt.

For eight hears I coached High School downhill ski racing.  The flags a ski racer dodges on a racecourse are called "gates".  The Head ski coach, a much better skier than me, used to say "If you look at the gates you will take them in the face.  Look just to side, where you want to go.  Focus on where to must go.   Each gate will come faster than the last. The time between the last two gates can be half what it was between the first two.  If you try to think your way through a racecourse, you will yard-sale.   Don't think!  Just ski."

In bicycle racing, "If you think about crashing, you will crash." 

Ocean kayaking puts your head just a few feet above water level.  At water level two miles is the perceptual distance to the horizon.  So two miles out on six foot swells with a three-foot chop coming in your face, you cannot think about the pain.  Safety is beyond the mental ken.  Your situation would seem hopeless if you thought about it.  You cannot think about the micro adjustments you have to make to the paddle blade as it enters the water.  In no wind on flat water an ocean kayak moves at about the same pace as walking.  Big swells, high chop, into the wind cuts that by two thirds.  Giving in to big water, fatigue, hypothermia, anything like that and you're sunk. 

Books, masterful wordsmithing, can bring to life the experiences and build that imagery a person can use.  If the disordered mind is willing is should be possible to begin a process of creating that systematic structure of priorities - of pain, stress level accommodations, even perceptions of realities and the emotions they invoke.

In bringing this back to the life of a bipolar person, self-imposed discipline, at first, is one of the greatest challenges.  In the beginning it can feel as though you are on a motorcycle on the freeway and you have no training, no experience – all you feel is fear.  But, you can’t get off and you can’t stop.  The traffic won’t let you pull over.

For that one moment, when fear is overwhelming you, the only thing you can do is face it.  At that you moment, my advice is to accept, as fully as you can, that your life has just changed and only you can grab a hold of what is happening.  Why it happened, Mommy fault, Daddy’s fault, genetics – it does not matter.  Get through the next five minutes, then the next hour, then the rest of the day.

And then find somebody who can teach you how to ride that motorcycle.

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