I haven't hit the bushes in more than a year, and out of nowhere in the span of two weeks I hit 'em twice. This last one was particularly interesting. Fully intent on giving their hardest to tackle the hardest a New Zealand tame-level jungle can give, four guys toughed the cold Saturday morning and went back to the jungle trek they conquered in three hours the week before: Waitakere Ranges. This is their story and the lessons I learned from it, served side by side.
First up: Sometimes the one bridge connecting you to your jungle can be blocked, but there's always a side door. And it may sound like cheating, but most likely it's actually harder than the original path. As we found out. The side trek was all the way up and down from the start. I was mentally prepared for the worst, and I had done the last leg of the previous week on a sprint, so I was in a good shape inside and out. Two others weren't so lucky. Whereas the previous week we started with a good 10-15mins of flat land to warm up, this time we hit ups and downs straight out, and it took out some breaths early. But therein lies lesson number two: if at first it's overwhelming, don't worry, you'll get used to it before you know it.
After what must be the longest fifteen minutes we've experienced in a while, we came to our designated intersection, where we saw the blocked path to the original bridge. From there we climbed the steep path that we descended on our way back the previous week. It hurt my knees going down that slope the previous week, so I was under no illusion that I could ascend it without trouble. We took it slow, but because we came upon it so soon from the start it still hurt us quite a bit. Up the top we got to the "Experienced" sign that would mark our gateway to our challenge. Three seniors with complete equipment and a map were sitting by the side of the path, studying the map. That was my ominous sign. If you see people with better equipment than you moving more carefully than you, in anything, I think it's a good time to start thinking a bit. But hey, I thought, we came for the challenge, so challenge we shall. And disappointed we were not.
The path straightaway went down in very steep slopes, considerably bigger steps than we've encountered before, narrower paths that took thinking to navigate around, and the lay of the land changed drastically like an overgrown rollercoaster of earth and vegetation. We went I think about 15-20mins like that until we hit the end of the path. Because we anticipated a challenge, we charged ahead to what looked like parts of the bush that people have passed by before. You can tell we've watched too many war movies and cheap thrillers involving jungles and stuff. We looked for signs of paths. We found ribbons tied on trees and followed that. I became suspicious when one such ribbon had some sort of trap under it. It was a rodent-type trap, as far as I could recognize, so I thought the ribbons were definitely not there to mark human treks. But we pushed onward anyway, sideways and under, taking in as many signs as possible. Quite some time later we hit a snag. It was impassable to city people like us, anyway. We hit a wall of greens, trees and bushes, so thick that we couldn't tell whether the next step would be land or a freefall. We heard the sound of waterfall in the background, so we knew a false step around there somewhere could lead to a very unfunny situation. After about half an hour, we decided to retreat back to where we last lost the path.
Lesson number three, then: save your game often. The problem is, real life doesn't have save points. In that case, at least take careful note of your steps if you're about to go down unknown paths. After some trials and errors, which thankfully didn't take very long, we found our last checkpoint when we saw the three seniors up the hill. Lesson number four: It helps if there are other people around. No man is an island. There is no shame in asking directions from those who got better equipment and a map. They pointed out the true signs of the paths, metal squares on trees, and thus the missing narrow path that we were looking for, almost hidden between two trees. Lesson five: Before you attempt something crazy, first you might wanna look around carefully for a more sensible solution. Needless to say, that half an hour of wandering around off the proper path was the highlight of the trip for me.
From that point on, it was more crazy ascends and descends, and a few river crossings. Now, every single time we were gonna cross a river, the sky would clear up. And then once we were all stuck in the middle, trying to figure out our next steps and not get our shoes wet, the sky would open and pour like crazy. Every single time. We had something like four crossings, and it happened at every single crossing. Eventhough we didn't stop and pray for protection before we left, but I'm sure we had protection. Under that confidence, I'll just say that this mystery is just further proof that God have an awesome sense of humour.
An hour or so later we came to the end of our experienced path and came upon the normal paths again. Lesson six: Once you've tasted the awesome bit, the normal bits will feel boring. It's a good break, but a good break can only keep you alive so much. Once you've recovered, you'll miss the challenges again. What was hard before became flat this time around.
We then came back to our first intersection, the blocked path that led to our broken bridge. There's a small river there that we've never crossed before. We thought, it was still early, just about two hours since we started, so hey, why not go for a little detour and cross this one too. As with the previous rivers, the whole mystery rain stuff did its thing again. Only this time that wasn't the only surprise we were to get. About ten paces after the river, we came upon a clearing, that turned out to be right beside our carpark. We didn't even notice there was an opening in the bush there when we went pass on our way in. Our adventure ended in a very anti-climactic way.
The final lesson, then, is this: What the eye has not seen, what the ear has not heard, what the mind has never thought of, that's what God has in store for us. We had no idea that the bridge would be closed. We never thought that there is another way to get in there, much less to get out. And most of all, we knew it was gonna be a challenge but we never thought we'd get lost in a tame-level trek. Arrogance can kill you, one of these days. Overall, it's been fun. Blessed are the people living in New Zealand that love the outdoors, for plenty are their fodder. We decided that we should do it again two weeks before Hills. I hope we'll get to do it for real, on another trek somewhere. Nature is one amazing creation, and I intend to enjoy it while I can.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Unarmored
Just as I got to work today I burned a finger joint on the steam wand. I've burned myself a lot in the past, but this was probably the first time I got it on a joint. It then proceeded to be a real annoyance throughout the night, because the position meant it wouldn't heal as easily.
I finally got home, and the cold gave me an excuse to soak under the hot shower for quite a bit. The burn on my finger had hardened a bit by then, like an armor. It then occurred to me that I've been pretty close to blowing off at (old) work from anger in the past two days. It's been busy, stuffs been happening, and I'm on my way out so it was all a bit of a drag, and it got to me a bit. It occurred to me that every time something pisses me off I almost immediately switched to combat mode. I always take the simplest path in combat: one-hit kill, as-short-as-possible combat. In any conflict, that's always the simplest and cleanest way to go. The problem is, we're not at war. We're civilized people living in a civilized land and an (arguably) civilized time. I understand that my kill-or-put-up-with-it way of doing things is bad for my health, so to speak. But why is it so easy for me to drop back down to that way of thinking?
Like the hardened skin on my finger, I think it's just because things get easy when you're armored. A skinny geek in a tank can still massacre half of Auckland easily. It's easy to be confident and to assert yourself when you hide behind an armor, a hardened skin, a defense mechanism. But relationships between people asks for something different. You can't touch each other with your armor on. The closer you get, the more armor you'll have to shed. And then at one extreme, my idea of Love, the whole thing has to go off. That's probably my biggest problem right there. Nakedness is a scary thing. Being defenseless is not comfortable. We were born naked and we cried. It's uncomfortable being naked in this harsh world. We were born naked and then we were clothed. And then we grow up and gradually we shed our clothes to show more flesh to the world, but the clothes and armor have moved inside, from shielding our skin to shielding our hearts.
Genesis wrote that once Adam and Eve realized they were naked they became ashamed and hid from God. But I've never read the original word, so I can't be sure if the story really meant that they were ashamed. What if they weren't so much ashamed as they were afraid? Afraid that they got found out, for one thing. We hide our thoughts from each other so we can move around easily. Me, I hide my heart away so it isn't easy for it to get hurt. Shedding my armor and defense mechanisms make me vulnerable. But if we were born to hide away from each other, wouldn't we have been born with hardened skin? Instead, we were born soft blobs of pink flesh straight into the mercy of strangers. We were born vulnerable. Why is that?
My best bet is that this is a straight reference to Love. You need to be naked to be receptive to Love. It's hard to show that you love someone if that someone refuses to be touched, inside more than outside. Some couples survive long distance relationships, but nobody survives a relationship where neither side opens up.
So what has my burnt finger taught me? Hurt hardens you. The more hardened you are, the safer you are against outside threats. But until you risk softening up, you are unlovable. And you cannot love until you have been loved first. The energy has to come from somewhere, you can't give what you don't have. It's easy for me to say, but I'm nowhere near there yet.
I used to be my own protection
but not now
I finally got home, and the cold gave me an excuse to soak under the hot shower for quite a bit. The burn on my finger had hardened a bit by then, like an armor. It then occurred to me that I've been pretty close to blowing off at (old) work from anger in the past two days. It's been busy, stuffs been happening, and I'm on my way out so it was all a bit of a drag, and it got to me a bit. It occurred to me that every time something pisses me off I almost immediately switched to combat mode. I always take the simplest path in combat: one-hit kill, as-short-as-possible combat. In any conflict, that's always the simplest and cleanest way to go. The problem is, we're not at war. We're civilized people living in a civilized land and an (arguably) civilized time. I understand that my kill-or-put-up-with-it way of doing things is bad for my health, so to speak. But why is it so easy for me to drop back down to that way of thinking?
Like the hardened skin on my finger, I think it's just because things get easy when you're armored. A skinny geek in a tank can still massacre half of Auckland easily. It's easy to be confident and to assert yourself when you hide behind an armor, a hardened skin, a defense mechanism. But relationships between people asks for something different. You can't touch each other with your armor on. The closer you get, the more armor you'll have to shed. And then at one extreme, my idea of Love, the whole thing has to go off. That's probably my biggest problem right there. Nakedness is a scary thing. Being defenseless is not comfortable. We were born naked and we cried. It's uncomfortable being naked in this harsh world. We were born naked and then we were clothed. And then we grow up and gradually we shed our clothes to show more flesh to the world, but the clothes and armor have moved inside, from shielding our skin to shielding our hearts.
Genesis wrote that once Adam and Eve realized they were naked they became ashamed and hid from God. But I've never read the original word, so I can't be sure if the story really meant that they were ashamed. What if they weren't so much ashamed as they were afraid? Afraid that they got found out, for one thing. We hide our thoughts from each other so we can move around easily. Me, I hide my heart away so it isn't easy for it to get hurt. Shedding my armor and defense mechanisms make me vulnerable. But if we were born to hide away from each other, wouldn't we have been born with hardened skin? Instead, we were born soft blobs of pink flesh straight into the mercy of strangers. We were born vulnerable. Why is that?
My best bet is that this is a straight reference to Love. You need to be naked to be receptive to Love. It's hard to show that you love someone if that someone refuses to be touched, inside more than outside. Some couples survive long distance relationships, but nobody survives a relationship where neither side opens up.
So what has my burnt finger taught me? Hurt hardens you. The more hardened you are, the safer you are against outside threats. But until you risk softening up, you are unlovable. And you cannot love until you have been loved first. The energy has to come from somewhere, you can't give what you don't have. It's easy for me to say, but I'm nowhere near there yet.
I used to be my own protection
but not now
Field Of Dreams
I used to dream of this stage to come. I used to visualize it over and over, how it happens and how I'll take it. Last week it came. Like a silent breeze it hit me. Before I knew it, I was through.
I'll just get this out of the way fast. Two Mondays ago, a day after my drums debut, I got an email. Well, the email I got on Friday, but I didn't find it until Monday. Tuesday I got myself an interview booked, and all this so far without ever getting a single call. Wednesday I got interviewed, a very tame and short one at that too. 20mins sharp. I came in 2pm, got out almost exactly 2.20. Crazy stuff, this was. The tame nature, my bad moves, and the briefness of it, all up I was pretty down when I went out of there. I wallowed in my sorrow by gorging into a huge Burger Fuel nearby. But I thought, yeah, another interview bungled, what else is new. So off I went, life goes on as usual. No news on Thursday so I thought that was it. Friday morning I got a call that I nearly missed, just a few minutes after I opened my eyes. "We were so impressed with your interview and I would like to offer you the job." How are you supposed to respond to that sort of stuff, two years in waiting and first thing in the morning? I struggled to keep my dignity and arranged to see them a few hours later to get my contract. It felt numb, it felt unreal. I pretty much didn't feel anything at all. No thunder, no great booming voice from heaven, no spire of light through the dark clouds, no nothing. Just a job offer on the phone and a contract to be signed, first thing in the morning. How's that for a surprise?
A week later, here I am. I have now tasted a glimpse of what it's like to work two jobs, which I still have to do for another week. In the three full days I was there, I managed to get as useful as logging phone calls for the last half a day. More difficult than I expected, to say the least. It took a while to sink in. Maybe it hasn't, even now, not fully. I didn't have much time to sit in awe and be impressed. I jumped straight in and absorbed everything like a sponge, and still I'm nowhere near being useful.
The day I got myself an interview arranged, I realized suddenly I gotta think through my shirts. I got very few shirts, and most of them were black. I also realized that this is a normal-hours job, so no more sleeping late and getting up late. At that point, a thought came into my head like a breeze, saying "Man, what a pain!" In reply to that, another thought came in. It was a modification of the Bethesda Pool story, and it goes more or less like this:
Jesus asks the crippled man sitting by the pool, "Do you want to be healed?"
Now, at that point in the story the guy didn't answer Jesus straight. Instead, he made excuses. "But Lord, there's nobody to help me into the pool when the water ripples!" Fair enough of an excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. In the same way I always say, "But God, nobody would give me a chance!" It was as if God answered me, "Yeah well, I just gave you one." And thus the story got shortened in my head into just two verses:
Jesus asks the crippled man, "Do you want to be healed?"
Then the man got up, picked up his bed, and walked away.
Don't make excuses, just grab it with both hands. You want a better life? Then work for it. The work is not just in searching for opportunity, but working those opportunities when they do come. Work 'em like your life depends on it. And so I did, and still do.
And so here I am, facing my Field Of Dreams. I used to listen to this song, Do As Infinity's Field Of Dreams, and watch the music video over and over again. Youtube has pulled them all off, but basically it's all just a bunch of black and white pictures of buskers on the streets of Japan, struggling musos reaching for their dreams, clawing and crawling every inch of the way. I resonated with that. We work and we work but we're not gaining ground, and still we call it our Field Of Dreams. That's the kind of desperate hope I had been operating in for a long long time. And now it's finally here.
It's crazy, what hope can do to you. The Book Of Proverbs says that good news is like good medicine for the soul. In my case, it wasn't just a medicine, it was a tonne of pure ecstatic Red Bull without side effects.
Until you've been in a similar position I'm guessing it's almost impossible for you to feel the magnitude of these simple words: It's. Finally. Here.
So what happens now? I'm just gonna work my ass off day in day out and find out later. A newbie getting a job in a recession, if that's not a miracle I don't know what is. Suddenly everything else seem small. God knows best, and I'm hanging by an invisible thread. This whole thing can only be described as insane, but if that's really the case then I'd stay insane for a while and see where this leads.
Funnily enough, despite the title of this post, I found myself re-discovering Linkin Park. And so I'll close this post with an attempt to describe how my heart and soul feels right now from one of theirs.
With hands held high into the sky so blue
like the ocean opens up to swallow you
Amen
I'll just get this out of the way fast. Two Mondays ago, a day after my drums debut, I got an email. Well, the email I got on Friday, but I didn't find it until Monday. Tuesday I got myself an interview booked, and all this so far without ever getting a single call. Wednesday I got interviewed, a very tame and short one at that too. 20mins sharp. I came in 2pm, got out almost exactly 2.20. Crazy stuff, this was. The tame nature, my bad moves, and the briefness of it, all up I was pretty down when I went out of there. I wallowed in my sorrow by gorging into a huge Burger Fuel nearby. But I thought, yeah, another interview bungled, what else is new. So off I went, life goes on as usual. No news on Thursday so I thought that was it. Friday morning I got a call that I nearly missed, just a few minutes after I opened my eyes. "We were so impressed with your interview and I would like to offer you the job." How are you supposed to respond to that sort of stuff, two years in waiting and first thing in the morning? I struggled to keep my dignity and arranged to see them a few hours later to get my contract. It felt numb, it felt unreal. I pretty much didn't feel anything at all. No thunder, no great booming voice from heaven, no spire of light through the dark clouds, no nothing. Just a job offer on the phone and a contract to be signed, first thing in the morning. How's that for a surprise?
A week later, here I am. I have now tasted a glimpse of what it's like to work two jobs, which I still have to do for another week. In the three full days I was there, I managed to get as useful as logging phone calls for the last half a day. More difficult than I expected, to say the least. It took a while to sink in. Maybe it hasn't, even now, not fully. I didn't have much time to sit in awe and be impressed. I jumped straight in and absorbed everything like a sponge, and still I'm nowhere near being useful.
The day I got myself an interview arranged, I realized suddenly I gotta think through my shirts. I got very few shirts, and most of them were black. I also realized that this is a normal-hours job, so no more sleeping late and getting up late. At that point, a thought came into my head like a breeze, saying "Man, what a pain!" In reply to that, another thought came in. It was a modification of the Bethesda Pool story, and it goes more or less like this:
Jesus asks the crippled man sitting by the pool, "Do you want to be healed?"
Now, at that point in the story the guy didn't answer Jesus straight. Instead, he made excuses. "But Lord, there's nobody to help me into the pool when the water ripples!" Fair enough of an excuse, but an excuse nonetheless. In the same way I always say, "But God, nobody would give me a chance!" It was as if God answered me, "Yeah well, I just gave you one." And thus the story got shortened in my head into just two verses:
Jesus asks the crippled man, "Do you want to be healed?"
Then the man got up, picked up his bed, and walked away.
Don't make excuses, just grab it with both hands. You want a better life? Then work for it. The work is not just in searching for opportunity, but working those opportunities when they do come. Work 'em like your life depends on it. And so I did, and still do.
And so here I am, facing my Field Of Dreams. I used to listen to this song, Do As Infinity's Field Of Dreams, and watch the music video over and over again. Youtube has pulled them all off, but basically it's all just a bunch of black and white pictures of buskers on the streets of Japan, struggling musos reaching for their dreams, clawing and crawling every inch of the way. I resonated with that. We work and we work but we're not gaining ground, and still we call it our Field Of Dreams. That's the kind of desperate hope I had been operating in for a long long time. And now it's finally here.
It's crazy, what hope can do to you. The Book Of Proverbs says that good news is like good medicine for the soul. In my case, it wasn't just a medicine, it was a tonne of pure ecstatic Red Bull without side effects.
Until you've been in a similar position I'm guessing it's almost impossible for you to feel the magnitude of these simple words: It's. Finally. Here.
So what happens now? I'm just gonna work my ass off day in day out and find out later. A newbie getting a job in a recession, if that's not a miracle I don't know what is. Suddenly everything else seem small. God knows best, and I'm hanging by an invisible thread. This whole thing can only be described as insane, but if that's really the case then I'd stay insane for a while and see where this leads.
Funnily enough, despite the title of this post, I found myself re-discovering Linkin Park. And so I'll close this post with an attempt to describe how my heart and soul feels right now from one of theirs.
With hands held high into the sky so blue
like the ocean opens up to swallow you
Amen
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