This is not the mountaintop, and I am not the first to pioneer this direction.
In any case, I was never interested in it, or anything to do with Zen, status, flatus, or any of the accompanying baggage.

I am not here, to dance circles round the Sun.

I am just here to Train.
My soul is only rewarded by Shugyo, the simple fact of training which brings us all together in the holy communion of sweat and honest effort.

I only seek a venue for this simple expression of soulful effort.
Perhaps the stars, thorns, sparks and thunders of life can find their way into discipline, through our simple efforts.

It seems so astonishingly miraculous to me, that this so old discipline, can give so much to people so far removed from its origin.

In any case, I will glad and proudly take my place on our little Island of Misfit Toys, no one knows us, no one wants us, but if they are paying attention, they may start asking questions.

Now, we are at this point, and for myself, I find the tight, risky, bare trembling of new beginnings right under my hunter's nose.. you stand, or you don't.

When I know it's right, I stand like the steel I know how to sling.
When I know it's wrong, I stand ready to cut without prejudice.

you can't change the world,
you can only change yourself.

Everyone who has lost someone, is living on a great expanse of empty.
We are all searching for equilibrium.

The fact is, that every plus needs a vacuum, and every vacuum needs some kind of positive energy to fill it.

Trust me,  I have lost the linchpin of my life, of my brother's life, even more so than my own.
Every emptiness begs something to fill it.

Fill it with what sustains you.
I got a personal trainer who is constantly astonished at my bloodthirsty hunger for the heavier weight. "Yeah, you might want to hand me a heavier weight. Yeah, you might want to hand me a heavier weight.. " I have friends in budo who show up at the house and want to train. We practice one of the most painful forms of jujutsu I have ever had anything to do with.
Training as sempai to a gifted kohei, I give the attack best I can, I know it's going to hurt, and I'm OK with it. In these days, this constructive pain is a gift, it is not a pain of loss, it is a constructive pain, and I will take it, gladly, and I will rebound like something mad and rabid, and walk into the pain again and again, because it is a glad, voluntary, constructive pain, and it takes me away from the wildly deconstructive pain of grief, loss, rage and insanity I am dealing with in my deepest levels of emotional control and management.

The other factor is, that I was raised in insanity, and therefore raised to walk into pain.
So in my life, I resolutely walk into pain
again and again.

So I am rewarded by Shugyo, dancing with pain, and dealing with technology.

My body makes me lame, it makes me slow and not able to express the things I know, the things I have been shown, and I fight it.

In combat with my own balky body, I have found ways to make it work.

I call in colleagues, and I ignore pain.
Pain is my friend, pain is the mindkiller, pain is the motherfucker.
Fuck pain. Pain in the am, pain on walking, pain on stretching, pain on sleeping. Typical heel spur/fasciitis. Victim's fault? oh goodie, that's a lot of help.

I am pain, I work through pain, pain is my friend.
This, when my US colleagues can't resolve it.

I am looking forward to the EU visit, see what the perspective is.

some rationality in a world full of morons.
I did the deep work already, don't ask me again.