Sluggish

I said this would be a daily blog, and I do not intend on purposefully breaking that promise. However, for some reason today has me in an off mood where anything but sleeping turns into wasted time. Whether it be the swim meet i partook in yesterday or the swim meet I coached today, I'm uncertain, but this post isn't going to be my standard, pensive post. Rather, I'm just going to list a couple of ideas for future posts and see what happens from there. If you have any input on these topics, or would like to suggest future topics, may all three of you please put your comments below and I will respond to them as soon as I see them. 

-Sports as the greatest means of US social mobility, especially considering the high profile they have in the country. Also, the risks of violence (especially concussions today) and how it affects a player's livelihood, with such terrible family situations that make the risk worth it to earn a better life.

-Rap as the modern equivalent of poetry, and how the inherent nature of the two art forms displays clear societal differences over time.

-The odd significance pictures have taken in the age of smartphones, and how that urge to share takes away from the experience of the present.

Hopefully I will have those written for you by the end of the week should my finals be merciful or I just need a break from studying, with the latter being the most likely. A friend of mine is traveling with me into DC for a 76ers v. Wizards game tomorrow, so that post will be based somewhat on an observance there. Happy Martin Luther King day!

Finality

'Twas the last meet of the season, and all across the deck, not a person was sliding, not even the ref.

I anchored the boys' 400y free relay, the last event of the boys meet. There was no special significance to the moment up until that fourth wall was reached. Our relay finished second, as I expected against a team as stacked as the affectionately referred to "Pot Falls"[1]. I turned immediately to lane five, where the clearly victorious team had prevailed, for a quick handshake, a semi-forced handshake, and the obligatory, "nice race!"; standard post-race procedure. I turned to lane three, who our 'A' team mercifully beat after allowing PF to take first and second in our first two relays. This was when I really started to reflect on the fact that I had just finished four years of these dual meets. The first in a line of finalities to come. This time I really smiled.

The pageantry of being a senior had hit earlier during the meet, when the festivities began during the usually inexplicable mid-meet break[2]. Parents started making their way to the opposite end of the pool, where the starting blocks lined up patiently for the next swimmer to use them as they were designed for, or at the very least a timer to rest himself for a moment. Our coach took the microphone and repeated the same annual listing of names, the presentation of a team-oriented bunch of flowers, and the short procession of swimmers across a few tiles that she had overseen seemingly countless years. I waited patiently with my mom (my father was, and is, just about dying of some sort of sickness) near the back, as we watched the entire senior class walk up, flowers in hand. Coach Bev eventually recited the next name to the crowd with a definitive "Jack Morrisroe" and my mother and I walked up, arm in arm to receive the maroon (red) and gold (yellow), pose for a few memory-catching photos, and line up with the other seniors. A final-ish jump off of the thankful blocks figuratively sent us into our post-swimming careers. A nice bit of closure before the closure could begin.

So swimming's done and not done. Last dual meet, sure, but there's still conferences and regionals to worry about, with the outside chance of states hopefully coming into play in the next few weeks. With the constant VHSL realignment through my years in high school, states was never a set thing, but I was able to qualify in some way, shape, or form the past three years. Missing out my senior year would not be the ideal way to go out, but it would be fitting, given my departure from the area's serious competition. But it is something to look forward to, and hope for.

*That ending was bad and I should feel bad, I realize, but hopefully your frustration with the ending draws you into reading my next blog post to see the growth of my writing! Please? Also, as you might know, I finished my trifecta of subsequent blog posts! And then immediately proceeded to skip the next day's writing. Can't say I didn't warn you. But this should still be a regular thing, because it's honestly better than anything else I would be doing this late at night. So stay tuned!

[1] While the rumor around Loudoun County is that Potomac Falls High School got its nickname from the excessive amount of marijuana ingestors, I believe shortening Potomac to Pot was already the natural nickname for the school, with the sophomoric humor of high school twisting it into the joke. Honestly, if any Loudoun high school should be known for smoking pot, it has to be an Ashburn school. There is too much money flowing in these parts to not have a thriving pot industry.

[2] It is actually more of a first-third kind of break, although there's no second-third break (if you do not count the 500 free). Even though the swimmers can not race every event and usually have some sort of break between events, a break is still necessary to slow down the meet. Your guess is as good as mine as to why.

Fatigue

The simple, day-to-day task of walking down stairs wasn't anymore. I was able to shake off that sore feeling while I was walking because, if I didn't, the dull pain would totally control my thoughts. Yet when I felt my foot pass the level ground and reach a mere half a foot further down, my quadricep panicked. My leg quivered in fear of any further tension of an already over stretched muscle, threatening to seize at any moment. This continued from the moment my foot lifted off of the ground until I hit the surface of the next step, and repeated this about twenty times whenever the stairs had to be traversed today.

This is the pain of working out; of not stretching ever because of some fictional pride issue; of not thinking through the consequences of actions. There was swim practice the past two mornings, but this being about the third month of the season that couldn't hurt me this badly. There was the run I so hurriedly completed yesterday, in an attempt to have completed something worthwhile that day. That's the most likely reason for this overarching, general fatigue, especially since I passed off stretching as an unnecessary habit. There was also the dryland workout right before practice, which is especially not helping my core and legs with all of the squats and lunges our coach so gleefully provided us.

Tangent - My outline sheet for this blog post (consisting of precisely 29 words) notes that I should try to tie this paragraph back to the reader, probably so that I'll get people to read what I publish or something along those lines. But it's almost 4 o'clock, which is late even for me, and this whole blog is more of a personal journal that I'm willing to allow others to view anyways (see: Motivation for sparse details), so I don't really care. Sorry outline.

I guess fatigue did work out in my favor today. It allowed me to fall immediately into a nap, one of my favorite things since the phrase "since sliced bread" was doomed to the literary doldrums of cliché. Fatigue also gave me the idea for tonight's blog post, which was good. But alas, fatigue is beginning to hit me yet again, so I bid you all good morning.

Caffeine

2.5 hours of sleep last night. Swimming, schooling, running, and coaching bunched together from 7 AM to 7 PM. And coffee did it for me!

All I had was Starbucks' smallest half-coffee-half-milk drink and I was able to endure the day [1]. While I did miss my customary 30 minute naps in SAT prep and Stats, the focused feeling I had was truly extraordinary. Not only watching, but UNDERSTANDING what's actually being taught with ease was such a foreign concept pre-caffeine. Who knew that learning was supposed to happen in school?

Yet going into a Starbucks in Ashburn is a strange experience. When thinking back to the renaissance coffee houses, focused more on being a place to study and interact with others, the modern-day Starbucks seems so incompatible with that former ideal. Coffee wasn't the reason people went to a coffee house, but rather for the valuable conversation and idea exchange. Sure, some people go into the monopolized chain to actually sit and talk, but so many people go in, get coffee, and get out just to provide the energy to keep up with the workday. The extent of capitalism's hold on its people is evident in this. We as a nation are so driven to make money, and if that takes a lack of social interaction and self-reliance to become the best specialist possible in a specific field, so be it. Who needs values when you can buy them?

Yes, I realize I'm a total hypocrite writing all of this as a fellow Starbucks consumer. But isn't the first step towards change acceptance?

P.S. This blog post is incomplete, sloppy, and short. For this I apologize.

[1] Sustenio diem, Endure the Day. I'm totally making this my new motto. Basically the opposite of carpe diem where I'm simply looking to get by as easy as possible without issue. Perfect.

Motivation

This is the struggle. The overload of schoolwork, the obligation of work-work, the commitment to swimming work(outs). The 6 AM mornings and 4AM nights. Combine all of this with a general feeling of total apathy and the package you receive is none other than 2013's edition of yours... honestly.

So I took a few months disregarding the stresses of life and laid back for a bit. Bare minimums and lots of sleep were definitely thrilling in the short term, and the change of pace was especially enjoyable. But now it's back to the days of deadlines, stressors, and stimulants necessary to press on (I'm looking at you, coffee!). It was all worth it to let myself cool down and observe what was going on around me and why these stresses became so cumbersome. The D+ in lit will work itself out eventually.

Going back to the word (and throwing a couple more characters on the screen so your click wasn't a complete waste of time), my motivation to write, and do anything in general, began to wane around October. The mythical "senioritis" was floating around and, while most were trying their best to fight it off as they were told, I seized the title and lived up to it. Granted, I was initially trying in school, up until the real work was liberated from the universally understood transition period of August education. So motivation vanished; the winter SADness gradually took me and the 6:30 wake-up of weekday swim practice didn't help matters. Schoolwork went from "I need to get that done" to "I can deal with letting that slide". TV became a powerful facilitator of my couldn't care-less attitude. Fortunately the sun is coming out a bit brighter and I realized I can't let myself fall into total disrepair, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

But I'm back, whether you like me or not. I'm already an open book in reality, however unwillingly. I might as well let that shine virtually as well. So be ready for the second trilogy of my musings, should my motivation to blog last that long. But then again I have physics homework I should really get to...

[On a side note, I'd like to give a wholehearted thank you to the non-denominational spiritual presence that allowed the concept of spell-check to be widely accepted electronically. Those reading this should be thankful too, without it this submission would border on the unreadable, similarly to my handwriting.]

-ism

Ok, so it's not exactly a word, but it's a word part, so it works. I promise.

Anyways, my daily muse today was about three -isms: capitalism, materialism, and individualism.

Wondering how those three words connect? I understand. When this idea first popped into my head I literally had to turn off the car radio and tune out the screams of the three children I ran over to piece it all together. (The second part of that was a joke, a joke people.)

But here's my train of thought. (Choo Choo!)
1) "It sure is nice to own a car! I have so much more freedom to go, see, and do whatever I wish!"
2) "Wait, someone[1] had to buy this car. Why the heck do we have to buy something to gain this freedom?"
3) "I'm gonna call this freedom individualism, 'cause it sounds right."
4) "It's funny how the way we become individuals in our materialistic society is to buy mass-produced materials that many people have to buy in order for their production to be worthwhile." [2]
5) "Capitalism sure did its job."
6) "I'm sure she... they'll be fine" (A JOKE!)

So I, being the antiestablishmentarian that I am, made a decision to try and break that uniquely capitalistic habit as much as possible in my own life, albeit with a few exceptions. That's right, my hat collection will continue to evolve into a history of Washington baseball logos. I'll let you know when it goes on exhibit to Cooperstown.

I say to hell with owning a car, living in a big house, eating out every night (OK, that's probably not going to change either, but I'm a dreamer). Bring back the counterculture! Haight-Ashbury! The Bee-Gees!

And screw nostalgia!

1- My parents
2-This revelation was made prior to this car ride, and was generated courtesy of the late David Foster Wallace. If you want to know which of his essays I got it from, leave your question in the comments section.

Postmodernism

Now for the hard part: actually blogging.

I think my posts, going forward, are going to be in a stream-of-conscious style. For example: this article was actually going to try to talk about the shallowness of a postmodern society. But then I realized that 1) I didn't fully grasp the concept from the start and 2) postmodern is a pretty stupid term for a time-period.

Modern: of, or pertaining to, present and recent time. (Thank you dictionary.com)

That would make postmodern "of, our pertaining to, the future", correct? (Wait, this is MY blog! Of course I'm right!) So how do you describe a current time period as one in the future?

I digress.

Remember that cutesy allusion to Taylor Swift's "22" yesterday? Postmodernism.

When you hum the Luna phone number hook? Postmodernism.

When Jay-Z uses a lyric from one of the shallowest lyricists of all time, REM? You guessed it!

Hey, I've been born and raised in this materialistic society. I even break out a song lyric corresponding to the small-talk of the day from time to time. Doesn't mean I dislike it any less.

A favorite quote of mine, courtesy of the transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, is, "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

So how do we achieve this in such an impressive culture? Well, simply, we don't. It's akin to Christianity's view of sin. You're going to be biased towards a product, environment, and/or idea at some point, but the goal is to have that affect your actions and views as little as possible.

(End example)

Well, take what you will out of this post, I promise I'll try to be more on point tomorrow.

Also, if anyone wants to look over my posts with me (before I send them out to the never-ending sea of criticism called the internet), please let me know.

Enjoy,
Jack