BAM! I accomplished something!

BradK is gonna be a DADDY!

December 2011... the world will never be the same...

Reason and Passion - Can they Coexist?

I stole this from a now-defunct blog that I don't know if I can even reference anymore... I found it in Google' s "Cache", read it, thought it applied to humanity *outside* of the original context here, and it made me think of today's political climate. A lot.

Read on, comment if you wish... made me think about things either way...

Reason, Passion, and the Soul

Nearly four hundred years before Christ walked this earth as fully man and fully God, Plato within his dialogue Phaedrus, created a rather interesting allegorical representation for a person’s soul. 

Plato described a charioteer being pulled by two winged horses.  The charioteer himself was seen to be the reason and intellect of the soul that must guide the stallions to enlightenment.  Now one of the steeds is pictured to be of noble breed and character and representative of rationality and moral impulse of a righteous nature, while the other of the two horses was the diametric opposite in bearing and virtue and thus represented the soul's irrational passions, appetites, or decidedly more base natures.   The two horses of such disparate natures were exceptionally hard to drive accordingly as they each wished to venture towards their own predilections, while the charioteer struggled mightily to drive them to his wanted destination of that elusive enlightenment.

It is a story of which I first learned back in high school the better part of three decades ago, but was recently reminded of a few weeks back in the homily at Mass one Sunday.  In the homily, our deacon spoke of the soul that is the Charioteer driving the winged twin horses of reason and passion. 

While perhaps not truly faithful to Plato’s original story, one can see the troubles that the charioteer soul might encounter when one steed tries to pull the chariot in one direction at the expense of the direction that the other steed wishes to travel, and thereby going to a place that the soul neither intended nor wished to venture.

If the horse of passion is allowed full rein to pull the chariot at the expense of the horse of reason, one might very well find one’s soul fulfilled, albeit for a very short lived time, as we do not live in a world where rationality and logic are absent for long, and thereby the consequences of having ignored them will quickly become apparent to the soul with excruciating and even grave consequences.

Indeed, fall in love with someone where the physical chemistry is magnificent initially, but the character or intellect are wanting and one will soon find that passion to falter and extinguish, leaving the soul injured and longing. 

At the same time, if one were to marry and commit oneself to a person for practical matters that made unassailable logical sense, as the person was of sterling character, quality, and the perfect complement to one in all things of a pragmatic nature, but yet there was no chemistry or passion and love for that individual, it would be a marriage that too would soon falter as the purpose and meaning of such a marriage would never be fully realized.

The consequences of such disproportionate reason and passion, in favor of either steed, can likely be found applicable to any number of one’s relationships, career, vital interests, or critical elements to that which makes us each lacking in our own humanity.  I suspect that in all things, ensuring that there is a balance of reason and passion would ultimately make for a much longer lasting and far more fulfilling life’s journey within the context of the soul driving that chariot.

Indeed, when passion and reason are yoked equally, one will find the chariot soul easy to steer towards that wanted destination and the journey will prove to be far smoother and enjoyable for the traveling.

P90X... 90!!!!!

Well all y'all... P90X day 90 was reached. Technically, today is "Day 91" (or the final day of week 13, cuz, ya know, 90 doesn't divide into 7 evenly and "P91X" doesn't really roll off the tongue as well).

I accomplished the goal I had set out to accomplish. I am no longer so skinny you can count my ribs every time I inhale. I am far from "buff" but you know what I am? Satisfied with the results, and ready to take on the next challenge! I'll be mixing P90X resistance workouts with some aggressive running. I'll be on the indoor elliptical during the chillier or rainier days of the spring, and up and down the Oak Leaf trail here in Bay View during the warmer days. I'll have a few 5K's and a 8K and 10K or two as part of the running regimen, all leading up to my 13 week training plan for the Madison Mini-Marathon (13Miles) in August!

I've learned to eat better, I've all but 99.9% cut fast food and soda out of my diet. (I had a Coke the other day and MAN those are sweet!!! Gol-ram!!!!) I drink a camels-hump worth of water every day, and you know what, I just FEEL BETTER about myself physically.

I'll be making-pretty the photos and spreadsheet charts in the next few days or so and post them up here.

Let me see if I got one or two shots for this entry though....

That's me doing some elliptical running... See, here in Milwaukee, we get only about 5-10 days per year where running outside is preferable.. and April generally ain't part of that equation!!!

That's me apparently under arrest for running? :)

More pics and charts next time!!!

70 Days In... and COUNTING!!!

Greetings and Salutations to the Readers of the Musings.

I'm 70 days into P90X... well, 72 to be exact. Week 11 has begun, and boy are my arms tired!

Week 11 represents the "final" occasion on the regular program to do the "Chest and Back" DVD (note - there are more chest and back exercises on other DVD's, but this is the last one with that particular routine).

That's a freaking milestone!!

I know you're all dying to see my Adonis-esque photos, but I don't have any today to share... Well, that's not true, I have one of my arm that I took about 2 weeks ago... here it is:

That was taken around Day 60, about 10 days ago. Nono, it's not "relaxed" it's in a stretch pose that accentuates the tricep.. .but still.. not too bad for 60 days in!

So now at Day 70 (FINE... 72) I wanted to share something I am quite proud of, to be honest. It's my "Chest and Back Chart" from the P90X spreadsheet application. The exercises graphed in it are push ups / pull ups and weight exercises focusing on the back (lawnmowers, heavy pants, seated back flys) and what made me happy was the consistent improvement. In fact, after I purchased the dumbbells, I found out that by now, some of these exercises I will need to increase the weight in order to continue to challenge myself. The next step for the push up style exercises is to possibly slow the exercise down to a crawl to increase the workload... should be fun!

Either way, I've got just a couple weeks left, but I still thought this was a really cool thing to share. So I'm sharing. So there.

HERE'S THE CHART!

P43X - Day 1 of Week 7... HO-LY-CRAP!!!!!

Can you believe that 6 weeks of 2011 are already gone-baby-gone???

What do we have to show for it? Well for starters... quite possibly one of the most historic events I've been around to see - EGYPT!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!

This is no joke - the revolution toppled a 30-year dictatorship via SHOUTING. That is AMAZING!!!! This wasn't a military overthrow, this wasn't an inside political intrigue... this was the youth (by and large) of a nation deciding to no longer be oppressed and stand up and do something about it!

That's so awesome! Here's to the future of Egypt! Here's hoping things get better for the people. I remember several years ago I was in Cairo, only for a couple days, and I remember a few things that struck me. First... the general poverty literally next door to the luxury. There's a scene in the movie "The Constant Gardner" where Pharmaceutical Executives (I think) play in an exclusive golf course that's fenced in, and right beyond the fence is a huge sprawling tin-shack-slum. Cairo reminded me of that scene, where money and poverty was side-by-side in a way to make it just feel perverse.

Anyways, the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be forming a Political Party out there and the Egyptian Military seems to be working with the "opposition" (is that term correct now that they've dissolved parliament? What's left to oppose?) to allow the gov't to reform via free and fair elections. Unbelievable.

What else has happened? Well, in Wisconsin, there's essentially a war of the union versus the governor. I'm surprised at how little the national media has picked up on this... it's huge news here in the Cheese State. Ironically, Wisconsin made national headlines when the Packers won the Super Bowl, but it took an iReporter to get the story on CNN.com's front page for this bit of

news. Someone's priorities are messed up apparently!!! (Nothing new I guess...)

What else is there... what do YOU have to show for your first six weeks of 2011? What do *I* have to show for it???? Well, I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!!!!!!

Let's do this in a "Day 0, Day 43" Format... I'll let you guess which is which... (No peeking at old blog posts!!!)

BAM!

WOAH!!! Check that out!!!! A diagonal picture!!!! My private photographer is an ar-teest!!!

All I can say is...... check out that vein on my right forearm!!! is that awesome or WHAT???!

So, now you've seen roughly where I am at for the halfway point. Not too shabby I would say!!!

Week 7.... BRING IT!!!

Yayaya... P36X

Ok, I know.. you've been waiting on those P30X Pictures... but I'm too busy making time to work out that I don't make time to blog about it. I think I'm making the proper choice.

So there...

More pictures and snarky comments to come!!!!

Just not today... BWAH HA HAAAAAAAAA.....

ps - Yep, still going strong!!! Today is P36X!!!!