"Fear is the Path to the Dark Side"

After spending approximately five hours last night watching Everest on the Discovery Channel, I awoke this morning with thoughts of the British climber David Sharp, who lay freezing to death as approximately forty hikers passed by him, ascending and descending. He now lies in the rock cave next to a dead Indian climber, a place which could represent the yin of the mountain, the shady place, the north slope of the hill, the death zone. But yin and yang exist together on the mountain, moving together, containing traces of the other, demanding balance, juggling life and death. You'll hear no judgement from me, no "they should have done more to save him". His was a good death.

Much more troublesome are the 3000 US military deaths in Iraq. Our leaders have fed us with fear and led us into dark places.

Moody and determined to find ways to bring my unruly thoughts into balance, this morning I googled the word "overthinker", and share here part of of a nice little post I found:

The shihans at the aikido summer camp last week emphasized the ultimately “soft” nature of budo. They don’t mean lazy-soft but agile-soft, water-soft, receptive-soft, light-hearted-soft, and of course compassionate-soft. And then they throw some guy twice their size and half their age across the room to demonstrate.

It’s one of ‘em paradox things, I reckon: the idea is to be stone or water as appropriate, but with training I think you wind up being both at the same time. Know the yang but live in the yin, I think the Taoist saying went.

And then there’s this spirit thing they spoke of. It’s one of those things I think I see and understand to some extent, but typically can’t reproduce, myself.

In my own training I’m experimenting more with that lately: soft and receptive, light-hearted. It’s maybe not always appropriate to turn training into play, but it seems to work well for me. If nothing else it’s a lot more fun. The overthinker’s curse attempts to strengthen itself with failure, and this strategy sort of un-defines failure. If it’s all play, it doesn’t matter whether something “works” or not. There is no success or failure, there is only relationship.

My desire for 2007 is to stop overthinking, thereby strengthening myself with failure. To live more in the process, unafraid of death and unafraid to live and love along the way. To find balance through a soft nature, not "lazy-soft but agile-soft, water-soft, receptive-soft, light-hearted soft, and of course, compassionate-soft." To find balance through play.