Fire Breathing Turbo Monk
False summits are brutal. I hated them when I would race on the mountain bike. They trick you into hope, demand energy, then hand you a disappointment pie wrapped in pickle juice that you didn't ask for. Stack enough of these and burnout stops feeling like fatigue and starts feeling like betrayal. Maybe I forgot the dream I used to have?
Perhaps forgetting the dream isn't failure. It's survival. We're in so much noise, duty, crisis, distraction, and other people's shit, that our own voice fades into the background, becoming whispers of an almost forgotten past. Consumption kills us. Buries us. Once the dream felt vivid, now it's distant… like a song you used to know the words to but now can’t quite hum. It’s that last lit candle in a room of others that have burned out but we are still lit.
Alex brought this energy forward. He had been reflecting on parts of his life that are on hold for one reason or another, and it stirred something in me. That kind of introspection hits differently. It’s beautifully bleak in a poetic way. The kind of thought that makes you laugh and ache at the same time.
We joked about the CanAm being more than a desert vehicle, maybe it's a mobile mindfulness unit with suspension travel. He reframed my debt as Karmic Credit. He wasn’t wrong. Maybe I’m spiritually rich, just fiscally bankrupt. Basically a monk with a turbo.
But under the humor, there’s a hole in my soul. I went back into $7K in debt for a new motor. I was frustrated, dealing with Kaden’s case, sitting in the shower, feeling like I had built a curse with my own hands. And yet, building has always brought me joy. It's the struggle. The paradox.
I told Alex: sometimes it’s like climbing a mountain with no summit.
And I continued, maybe I’ve spent so long climbing that I forgot to stop and ask if I wanted the summit to begin with… Or maybe I just hit too many false tops.
Still, in the end, it’s what we do best, isn’t it… Feel the burn and then go lift something anyway.
Today, I feel more centered. Still aware of the black hole. But the gravity is shifting.
The candle is still lit.
Show up. Try stuff. Don’t be a dick.’ Extra credit for laughing at the absurdity.