chapter 17 - effort

9/5/2020: Every day writing! Why? To relieve myself of the guilt of not doing it, if I wouldn't. But also to keep track of life, daily, in this period, where I also feel the threat of depression, strengthened by the feeling of stiffness in my legs, and painful feet. What happened to the barefoot runner? After two months indoor quarantine, did I loose my strength in my feet?

Fear? My wife said, people have no fear, referring to the people partying outside. No, I said, they express the energy of their fear, that they do not recognize as fear. Adrenaline, the hormone of fear, obviously at a higher level in most of us then in ordinary times. And for the rest, being a bit tired all day, watching my back, that is reading it, suffering the noise. After going to the park with the kids, look at my wife's gi gong exercise, do my handstands, the full series, again. After commenting with one-finger zen at the guy who took the 10 pushups challenge in a creative way, although the use of his fingers was likely fake. one like, nobody asked what I meant, and I doubt that they know!

10/5/2020: Keywords for tomorrow are gift and action, In short creative experimentation with minimal effort. For today, the keywords were edge code and adventure, basically meaning editing the story of life in a rational way, with as an underlying message that rational thought is a highly underrated skill! No real dilemmas today, at least not at the surface. The main issue is to keep the energy to make the effort to engage in interaction with other people, meaningful or not, and fulfill the requirements of my daily discipline in exercise and writing.

11/5/2020: Another day,.. I suffer a bit from the cold, and the dilemma is, give in to it and wear warmer clothes, or withstand it, by self-presence and occasional suffering. Health makes me sick, and the fear for health even more. Still, I am human and wish to stay human, even if I have to give in to the fear. Anyway, another day.

I refrained from posting a drawing of my youngest daughter in which she portrayed the family, me as a thin black skeleton, but I could not resist posting a photo of the sun in the willemsstraat, with as a motto school life -- learn.

12/5/2020: A long day, started with a walk to Noord, following my wife who wanted to make a random walk, my phrase, Me following her. Feeling cold, I left after she told me she liked to be on her own, not talk, but just listen to music. I felt useless, I told her later, meaning I had no personal reason to be there, and I felt cold. So I walked back, took a photo of the new buildings, and put that later on facebook, happy to go back to my little corner and finish reading my book on combat violence. Later I went to meet her at the westerkerk, and she seemed happy to see me, explaining that the noise and chaos in Amsterdam this morning made her nervous. Leaving Amsterdam, for me, no way, but I understood what she meant, and was happy we could leave it at that.

Later I made a call, to ask how the outdoor training had been, and after that we talked for more than an hour and a half about the future of shorinji kempo in Amsterdam. Somehow, I feel still connected, even though I am more and more on a personal line, not really involved, but in an indirect way still there. Funny, how after such a long time he seems to become a good friend. naturally, I emphasized that he can count on my support!

Is this the end of the day? It seems so, time to sleep, and the children don't have to go to school tomorrow, so I can go back to bed after my exercise!

13/5/2020: When I get up at six this morning, it was cold, but there were almost no clouds and the sun was bright. About four hours later it was cloudy and there was some heavy rain. Today's dilemma was: is the wall my guru? I decided not, but was not satisfied with the result, only a few almost stable handstands. With the wall I would do much better. So, for tomorrow, I have to think about how to deal with that.

The keywords I did not mention yesterday: school walk, but these were already treated implicitly. But most importantly, when I left I didn't see a step, a sort of hidden stairs, and I fell down. Again, as with skiing, I experienced the little shock as a pleasure, and although I fell on the side of the hip, there was no injury, but definitely the excitement of falling down, gravity, spontaneous movement!