I Will Not Die

The more carefully you read this, the more I will owe you. You will understand by the end.

I want to talk to you about love. Why so?

Because I think I may have been misunderstood. How so misunderstood?

Misunderstood in that my pursuit of my aims is thought to be something that it is not. In other words, it’s not about a bike trip for the sake of a bike trip. It’s not about the money for the sake of the money. It’s not about freedom for the sake of freedom. It’s not about mobility for the sake of mobility.

So what is this about?

To answer that, I’m going to tell you a story. I’m not sure what you will think of it.

Generally speaking, it is nearly impossible, without great study, to understand a life.

Why would you want to understand a life with such speciality? Let alone mine? Because what you might find is a close reflection of something from your own. And what is it that you might see a glimpse of? You might see a strand of something beautiful in all things human.

So here’s the story I want to tell you. I haven’t given much depth to the specifics of my life, but instead, served a cursory summary of all things Dereck on the about page. I knew that the depth would come in time. The bike trip for instance will be that time. And just now, in the hopeful shadow of the early morning before the trip that “may be”, it may be time, but only because I may have been misunderstood.

I was birthed in a hell. Mired in a swamp, covered by moss and by mud. That was my origin. But contrary to what you might think, I’m actually okay with that. This is the Earth; I know her well. I accept her as she is. But more than that: I embrace her. Never believe that I do less.

In due time, sunk in a swamp, my toe touched something firm. A submerged log, a vine, maybe a stone. I was able to place my entire foot on it and push a little. My shoulders soon rose from the water and I found myself near the shore. Exhausted, I took a deep breath and crawled from the bestial beginnings onto dry land. I heaved, I cried, I clawed at the earth. I placed my tears on the bank. I stayed there, sprawled, face in the mud on the shore. I breathed. Was this a new beginning? It was a new beginning.

How could I be sure?

Because when I looked up, I saw a woman. She was standing there, and she smiled at me. I soon learned that she had placed that stone into the water near my moving leg. And the moment I stood up to greet her, I looked her in the eyes, and when I did, I found the human passion. I accepted life and learned to love.

She told me secrets. She whispered them into my ear while her soft hair swirled around my head. She touched my neck and she explained to me why I am the way I am and she explained to me that there was something that I could do with my life.

But at that moment, she laughed and ran off.

So I pursued her, wanting to find her and embrace her, wanting to make her tell me what that was.

But she was both skilled and elusive.

And her name was Philosophy.

So I continued my pursuit. The faster I ran the better she hid. The whole while, I the lover, chasing my beloved, I would gain pieces of wisdom that she would leave along the way to tease me and to entice me to continue the pursuit. I loved her.

And you see, what can be gained most from the embarrassing little story of my life is this:

One day she died.

I lost her.

To explain to someone what the loss of a beloved means to someone who has only had a crush, is the most futile exercise of man. So let me be more clear to you:

I loved her.

My entire life since the day I found her dead, has been to find that love again. That love, that kind of love, for me, can only be found in Philosophy. The bar has been set. Years I have spent since then have been in the shade because I remember the things she would whisper to me, I remember the things she told me.

And I loved her.

The worst part of all of this, is for me to try to explain to others why I can’t stop loving her. They tell me to find another love. They introduce me to other wonderful things of this world. But my stubborn heart will not budge. My heart beats for her, and always will. My heart is hers now.

Then, in the very recent past, while walking through a thick crowd…

I suddenly saw her…

Don’t you see?

Unmistakable. How could I be sure?

Because she looked at me. She smiled. And then she laughed.

And all this time I thought she was dead.

I leaped up to go find her.

But I was fastened.

My heart cried out. I do not want to lose her again. Do you hear me friends? I do not want to lose her again.

So if I ever seem to you to be trying too hard to undo these chains, you’ll know exactly why:

It’s because I saw her. It’s because I love her…

You might ask, “What is this madness that has overcome you, Dereck?”

Oh it is not madness my friends…

It is love.

“Why are you driven like you are? Be patient.”

But I saw her…

Don’t you see?

And I might never find her again…

And you have to understand just how much I love her.

It’s been five years since I last lost her. My parents died, I withdrew from school, and I haven’t seen her since. Because she died.

I thought.

This trip, has nothing to do with me. It is only about love.

And I chase like this, because I love her so much.

So forgive me friends. I am not mad at all. I am not greedy. I am not unconditionally zealous. I do not mean to force my way onto a bike, into the wilderness. I do not mean to push. I do not mean to try too hard. I do not mean to be impatient. I do not mean to seem like I have fear. It’s much more simple than that.

I am in love.

Don’t you see? Please…just see…

I am in love…

Dereck :: Sep.25.2008 :: Fiction, Happiness, Life, Motivation, Perspectives, Purpose :: 28 Comments »

One of the most frequent things people I’ve met as an adult have advised me to do is this: “Dude, calm down.”

A grave misunderstanding

What seems strange to me each time I am told some version of “Have some patience” is that most of the time, I’m at a loss because it seems, at least on the surface, that the people telling me to slow down, don’t fully comprehend just how relaxed I often am. They don’t see me when I’m reflecting on life, don’t see me when I cozy up with a cup of coffee in the evening, don’t see me sitting out under the azure dome of the night listening to the crickets and assimilating my presence with the presence of nature. They rarely see the philosopher in me.

Instead, they see me in the trenches. They see the bloodied, battered me, the scarred and fighting version, they see what might appear to be a crazed villain. They see me and find astonishment when they hear my cry for war. They see what they think is blood lust, vengeance, violence, and terror. They see a madman.

But I wear two hats. And I wear them very comfortably. The things I find in the evenings, lead me to my actions by day.

And I’m okay with that.

And I think you should be okay with that.

And I think that if you predominantly wear one hat instead of two, that you should try on a second one.

I also believe that the sources of the hats we wear at any given moment have clear origins, have clear reasons, and I think if we examine those origins and understand those reasons, we can all get good at wearing different hats; we can all become both philosophers and warriors.

Know exactly where you came from

When people I know see my persistence, my seeming impatience and the rigorousness and eagerness with which I pursue my aims, they are often taken aback. But these are also the people that know my life more intimately than what simply reading my story could let them know. Besides just reading it, they got to see it. And when they try to comprehend my intentions in light of the sometimes shocking history they got to witness first-hand, they often seem to think, “Dude, calm down.” They imagine me birthed in a hell, one that I’ve since emerged from, mostly unscathed, and they think that I should look over my shoulder, see the ashes, and be glad that I no longer creep through the rubble of that forgotten city, that prior life.

But that opinion is actually an injustice. It’s a violation of my right to live and to grow. It condemns me to a life that will always be measured by a comparison that was no invention of my own. It makes me live my future as a measure of my past. It’s a reminder of “my roots.” It’s a subtle suggestion that there are limitations to what we can each achieve as human beings, limitations granted us, as birth marks.

And so this is the first hat: it’s a glance backwards, it’s the use of one’s past as a measure of one’s success in life. It’s a very valid recognition of the strides one has made by making a comparison to where one has come from. And like I said, it’s valid. It makes sense. It’s okay.

But it’s insufficient. It’s condemning. It forces upon the meager successes in life, a humility they do not always fully deserve. It makes of men, mice.

Know where you want to be going

After we take inventory of the distance we have come, I think it’s permissible to abandon it from time to time. This is when I cast it aside and pull up my sleeves. It’s when I stripe my face in red. I take a new inventory. We can make an objective assessment of our true talents, the talents whose origins lie not in the past but sit nicely in a timeless universe whose measurements can be made against life itself and not an individual’s life.

Objective talent cannot be measured by anything but objective measurements. It’s when I observe these objective measurements that I summon a growl. I switch hats. Unbounded from the joys that I should acknowledge from a measurement of history, I am free to gain ground at the speed of light. So I’m off to the plains.

And so this is the second hat: it’s a glance forward, it’s the use of one’s future as a measure of one’s success in life. It’s a very valid recognition of the strides one has made by making a comparison to where one intends to go. And like I said, it’s valid. It makes sense. It’s okay.

But it’s also insufficient. It trivializes the distance we have come so far, it forces a monumental set of instructions that have no bearing in our histories. However, it makes of men truly born as mice, men again.

The new, dual perspective is born

Both insufficiencies are solved when we augment them with each other. To know where we came from is half, to know where we’re going is the other. It’s a recognition that history has it’s place, and that recognition puts it in its proper place. It’s also an abandonment of history. It’s a refusal to acknowledge that human virtue can be bounded by a birth, and that acknowledgement is what unbinds our births.

So as I go along my way, I light that path with a lamp that measures life against all life, but, I never forget the quiet little woods from which I first emerged…

I go back there from time to time, when it’s quiet out, when I sit under our single azure dome. But as the dawn arrives over the horizon, I am reminded that each day is in fact a new dawn. And under that light of each new day, I forget my past and blaze on off under the blazing sun; I chase on off after my dreams…

It’s when I fully become both a philosopher and a warrior…

Dereck :: Aug.17.2008 :: Motivation :: 5 Comments »

I want to talk to you briefly about how to regain those blissful moments–sometimes fleeting moments–in our lives when we feel the awakened beast from within. The awakened what? Am I mad? (I think we’ve covered this): unconventional, atypical, off the beaten path, off the rocker, anti-routine taking madman–nuts, crazy, odd–whatever you choose to call it, I’ll be glad to endorse it. But those moments during which we all know we are our own artisans in the making of life-defining movements toward our goals. Those moments filled with heart-pounding, adrenaline flushed kickboxing brawls up the mountainside. Those moments when we expertly navigate our radio chatter filled cockpits at full-throttle through heart-stopping maneuvers up over the cliffs and down within feet of the valley floors. You know, those moments.

To regain those moments of monstrosity-defined acts of our own wills where we tackle our objectives with the full forces of deepest passions, we must, first and always, set our eyes on clear targets. We must take even just a brief moment or two and envision our entire life extended out before us empty and without what it is we want; and once that empty field comes to our mind’s eye as the first sign of a tragic life, we must blink it away. The beginnings of tears will be the fuel we inject directly into our blood before we take that deep and knowing breath that comes to the prepared and determined fighter which is then cast out through mouth and nostril beneath two furrowed brows and bloodshot eyes. This is war.

Then spread the feet and clench fists. Summon that manly beast from within. What stands now before you is no easy fight, but instead the longest, most brutal fight for next thousands of days to come. Are you up to that challenge now? Your enemy is your future, your life ahead, your fate, your destiny–to do as you please–but to do that you must fight and claw and move. Your sweat, your pain and your battered fists are the only badges you will receive–but we haven’t much time. We must move, must move, now move!

Dereck :: Jun.23.2008 :: Motivation :: 1 Comment »