Forecast for the Future

"Every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself. The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late. 

Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not that far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."

- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Monday, May 25, 2009

Closed and Relocated



As you may have guessed from the extended silence for the past three weeks, I've finally decided that it's time to close up the Hyperliving shop completely and complete the relocation back to SlangEditorial.net.


I've been writing again almost every day on Slang for the past four months, and I am really just too busy now to maintain two blogs, let alone keeping up with all the specified activity required by Hyperliving. Basically, I have achieved every one of the goals I set for myself with Hyperliving back in January 2008, and now it is time to move on.

This is not, of course, to suggest that I think I finally have all of my shit figured out, because I absolutely do not; however, the primary task set forth in Hyperliving was to learn ways to re-equip myself with a better understanding of what I need to do to figure myself and my future out, and on that front I am absolutely on my way. In some ways, I feel more confused and uncertain than ever before, but now this is largely due to the burdens of promise rather than the terrifying blackness of empty unknowing silence.

I leave Hyperliving with one closing note: given that May in NYC is all about bicycling, this month was intended to be one dedicated to biking and physical activity, and while I've written nothing on the subject here (including even an opener), I'm proud to report some highly successful results.

One goal I set a few months ago was that when it finally got warm again, I would cease buying monthly Metro cards and make a full commitment to cycle transportation. Sure enough I have followed through and biked for transport almost every day since the last week of April, taking the subway only for a handful of 7 am work meetings and the occasional night out, outside of Williamsburg, where the imbibing of alcohol would make biking home unsafe. Other than that though, it's been nothing but bike, bike, bike in May. On May 17 I did the full Montauk Century, 118 miles of riding including biking to the Penn Station start and home again, and I am now up to 989 miles of biking since my first real 2009 ride on March 14. I am feeling about as good as this as I could imagine feeling, I think.

Beyond biking though, this May I finally also fulfilled a longtime goal by joining a basketball league through Greenpoint's Word Bookstore and, after a bit of a rough start, we finally won our first game yesterday after some thorough defeats in our first two games. Truly, I could care less about winning or losing, but the winning is only nice in seeing how the team is slowly beginning to learn how to play together and becoming a nice little family of friends.

And lastly on the physical activity front is rockclimbing, which I did last Tuesday for the first time since summer 1997. I climbed for a few years as a kid with my dad, an avid climber, until he broke his back that Summer '96 day. He went back to climbing again the next year (only to break his back climbing a second time two years later), but I never climbed again until Tuesday. Just climbing for two hours was enough to make me feel pretty dead, but it was so amazing and so absolutely worth it, and I very much look forward to folding this activity into my life over the coming months.

So, Hyperliving, I bid you adieu. I am a curiosity-filled, energetic, and excitable human, but also a very messy one, and I am sure I will need a re-focusing project again in the days ahead to help me figure my life out; however, when I am ready to zone in again I will need to look elsewhere. Hyperliving, you've been good to so very good to me, but now it's time for something else. Thanks for all the memories, thanks for helping to bring me back to what matters in life, and thanks for reminding me why I'm alive.

Love always,
Ben

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Saturday, May 2, 2009

May Is Here



May is here and another month of activities must be established. I will be checking in with you soon about them, but I can tell you that I am feeling particularly inspired about the great possibilities of life right now (as also documented frequently here and here).

My biking plan is well underway and I have now done twenty-three rides totalling 595 miles twenty-five rides totalling 658 miles [Ed: did two rides at 63 miles today after posting this morning] since March 14, 2009, which I feel good about especially considering that I lost two weekends to rain (boo!) and Berlin (yay!). The Montauk Century is in just two weeks and this year I am ready and raring to do the full 100 miles. My training partner Mike and I have put in three 60+ rides but so far nothing longer than 71; however, I feel pretty good that on May 17 I'll have no trouble dialing it up for the full 100.

It's amazing how far I feel I've come in a year. It was almost exactly one year ago that I began biking at all for the first time in many years, and for the first time ever on the road, on a road bike. And in two weeks at Montauk will come the anniversary of my first "real" ride, the Montauk 65 miler. I feel so much stronger now, to an amazing degree, and it just makes me feel good about the great possibilities of will power and a strong mind--I feel these days like I can do anything if I really want to. Which, maybe, is how things should have always been, but truthfully, they haven't. So, you get what we have here today.

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