Hey all! Wrote up some thoughts on parkour the other day. Thought I would share them, get others points of view.
When you train parkour, you're constantly challenging your current conception of what is possible. You strain to think of the best possible combination of movements in a space, then you ask yourself, "Now what else haven't I thought of yet?" And often another burst of curves and swoops and lines and angles pops into your head seemingly from nowhere at all.
After experiencing this, day in and day out as we train, we start to experiment. We wonder, "Can I use this same method in my life? It seems to work so well in this one particular, specific focus that it might just work in other places as well." Instead of just going down the familiar path as it's laid before us, we look out for all the possibilities.
We can see ourselves riding upon the bed of a train, watching the hills fly by upon a soft irradient sunset. We can see ourselves dancing upon the table in a club. We can see ourselves going to live in a foreign country working for some unheard of volunteer program. We can see ourselves living as a hermit in the mountains. We can see ourselves living upon the rooftops of a ruined city. We can see ourselves raising a family in an environment we're happy to be in, and a community we're proud to be a part of. And we can see ourselves growing old and weak. We can see ourselves losing our friends one by one. We can see ourselves slowly slipping into disfunction and senility. And we can see ourselves passing away, and the world plowing on as if nothing happened at all.
But where we DON'T see ourselves is idling away our lives going to a job we hate, amusing ourselves with some banal shit, living in the same wasteful loop as we always have been, drinking the same koolaide as everybody else, sucking the same nipple as everybody else.
And not only does it teach us to see ourselves in so many different places, as so many different people, so many different lives, it also teaches us to see how our world can be different. It teaches us that if we make the effort and choose to work towards something, we can achieve it! It teaches us that we are all individuals, and we don't have to do the same exact thing. We each have our own style and flavor and that doesn't make it hard to get along, it makes our interactions exciting and fun! It teaches us that true satisfaction comes in surmounting your own small challenges. It teaches that nothing extraneous is needed in order to have a one-on-one direct experience with reality. "Just the sneakers on your feet..." It teaches that your actions have consequences, sometimes severe ones. It teaches that risk is a fact of life and it can't be totally avoided. It can however be understood, and thus controlled. It teaches that you'll never know for sure before you make a choice, even if your life depends on it, but there comes a moment when you have to just have faith and commit to that choice and make your dream become a reality.
So thank you so much for reading this far. I hope you enjoyed this window into my world. I hope you will share more of your own. And perhaps one day, we'll decide we've had enough of the chit chat, enough of the shit chat, and we're gonna go out there and we're gonna commit to our dreams!!
Until that day comes I bid you farewell. I'll see you next time.
~Levi "Jump McThinkstuff" Meeuwenberg
Source article Here.
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