I decided to try my hand (feet really) at running again for the first time in 15 years. I use to run all the time and after a back injury I decided to give it up, primarily because the stern doctor looked at me and told me flat out that my "running days are over." I ran cautiously and with small agreements, I'd run for 15 minutes and see how my back feels and I'll force myself to stop if I feel any kind of back discomfort. I have to make these kinds of arrangements or I just wont stop.

Anyway, I didn't stop. I only did about 2 miles in a time that would have gotten me kicked out of the army back in the day but still I finished. Cardio wise it wasn't much of a problem after a year and a half of cycling and I could have done more I think. My biggest difficulty was in the new motion and legs. Those weren't a big problem either, hell I ran 2 miles the first time out in 15 years without much of a problem, still though it's a different motion and I can tell it'll take some getting use to. Particularly difficult was holding my knees and midsection firm but not tense, something you can be a lot more lax about on a bike.

How does Horus come into this you might w0nder? Well in a rather interesting way it turns out and one that only one or two of you will understand.

I ran from Medlock Park to Mason Mill Park and as I was hitting the turn around point in Mason Mill I start having that conversation with myself that I have pretty much anytime I push ... (Read More)

While shopping at Publix I saw an elderly asian woman working as a cart collector. I don't know her or her story but the narrative that arose in my mind about it just depressed me. Is this really where the country has ended up? A woman, who by all rights shouldn't be consigned to back breaking work, is forced to strongarm lines of shopping carts just to get by?

Though I've seen all kinds of people out there strugging, the image of this woman wrapping a bright read scarf around her and still remaining dignified while doing this work really bothered me. It makes me happy I've always been a person who brings is cart back but for no real particular reason, if everyone did that this woman wouldn't even have a job.

I can't really figure out why this particular thing bothers me so much but it just does. Gives me a case of the arghs.

Originally published at Flagon With The Dragon.

The idea of how minds change has been in my thoughts quiet a bit lately and it's become a reoccuring theme in many different areas of my life, as things tend to do. I've mostly been contemplating how my thoughts have changed over the last 9 months, and how or if that's changed my fundamental way of thinking. Many of you know it's been a year of pretty big changes for me and through it I have been incredibly mindful that how I came out of this was a great unknown, but still in my hands to shape somewhat.

The number of changes have been dramatic and largely unexpected. I'm a much more positive person in general now than I was a year ago, I'm much more relaxed and anger has largely gone out of my life, at least compared to previously. I'm still coming to terms with exactly what is contributing to all these changes, in small ways it's a contious effort though. I meditate regularly, I have gotten good at turning my thoughts in a particular direction or another and I regularly stay away from particular sets that would give me a more brooding cast than in the past.

I don't really want to do a retrospective on what's causing the change as I want to take a moment to be a bit amazed at the very concept of a mind changing in the first place. Biochemistry is a wonderful thing but there are times (like now) where it's hard to sit there viewing the mind as a biochemical engine of thought and the implications of what it means that a bunch of chemicals could "decide" to change. Think about that for a second, a system, even ... (Read More)