THE WOLF TRACK

I haven’t really been posting any thoughts lately. I’ve been writing a lot down on paper. Ideas, plans, rough outlines for future projects… They’ve all been scribbled down on a pad that has sat in my bag for the past few weeks, providing a space for my brain to dump it’s babble whenever it felt like it.

This isn’t a bad thing, in fact I think it’s been very good for me. I have somewhat of a plan for myself defined in my own words, for myself to understand. I also discussed a few issues I had with the world with the paper I was attacking with a pen. People say talking to yourself is crazy, I say its remedial. However, it has left me knowing I have a lot I want to share. Lessons I’ve learnt, observations I have made, problems I have found with society(haha). Ideas I wish to pass on to anyone that will read it. My only obstacle is where to start.

Sure I could go back through what I have written and reproduce it for the masses here, but I feel it wouldn’t be natural. I don’t believe I have it in me to craft a carefully orchestrated article acknowledging my philosophy for living. Not right now anyway, I don’t have the time. So whatever I write needs to come directly from my heart, as this is right now.

So really, this post is a post for the sake of posting. I’m simply publically declaring that from now on some of what I care to call my wisdom will be passed on through this page, as it flows through me, without my conscious direction. Something to hold me to actually doing this.

If you took the time to actually read this post, sorry for dissapointng you with a whole lot of nothing, but thank you for being a mind who knows I’ve made a promise, and giving me a reason to keep it.

-Zachary

It’s crazy what your mind can create when you start to document its dialogue.

So often we go on massive thought trains, starting at a single point and reaching another point completely unrelated though a series of points in between. Seriously, next time you find yourself lost in thought, stop, and try and work out how you got to where you are in your mind. It’s really quite difficult!

Keeping a journal helps this. When you right, your mind tends to skip over all the garbage and only relay ideas worth keeping. not only that but you have a physical record of where you started to where you are now, so it’s easy to backtrack when you get off topic.

 I also find that once I’ve written an idea, a problem, or just any thought down in my journal, it doesn’t pop back into my head again on it’s own accord, at least not for a few days. This creates a much clearer head to work with. Productivity is definitely up.

So I would definitely suggest if you have been thinking about keeping a journal, do it, and if you haven’t, maybe you should start to think about it.

I mean, why not? You don’t have to show anyone. That’s the beauty of it. 

Today I want to thank the thing that makes this all possible: technology, or on a more shallow level, the internet itself.

Isn’t it a wonderful thing? You can find out anything you need! Google(and other search engines, but we all love Google) makes that possible. Although there is sometimes questions that can’t be answered by a static message already written somewhere on the web.

That’s where things like Tumblr come in! Thanks to sites like questionable blogs and forums it is extremely easy to ask a question from an expert, or someone who can point you in the right direction. Have a problem? Ask your favourite blogger. Not feeling to good about yourself? Tell your followers! they’re sure to tell you how much they love you!

THANKS TECHNOLOGY!

I’ve called this post “Judice” because it’s about something similar to prejudice, but without the “pre” part.

Making a note to myself not to walk into a conversation with someone having predecided how the conversation is going to go, particularly with people I already know!

Often, when we have known someone before, we think we know who they are and how they think, what they can bring to a topic. Often, though, people change! People mature, they expand their ideas, they learn!

You never know what someone can teach you, or how well you can get along with them. Never, not at any time. So give everyone a chance!

-Zachary 

What’s with so many people taking supplements?

I don’t just mean for working out, although that’s a good place to start. Pre-workout crap is a big no-no to me! Nearly two years ago, I was living in a flat with a personal trainer, and I used to train with him most of the time. He and I both began to use pre-workouts like Jak3d and cursed. This didn’t last too long though. I didn’t like it! Yes, it allowed me to train for longer, but that’s not natural! If you’re going to try to better yourself, should you not try better the state your are usually in: sober, with out supplements, running on only you natural metabolic, and aerobic systems? Not to mention the way it makes you spaced out, well that’s what it did to me anyway, definitely felt like a drug, probably all the caffeine.

The real reason I began to think about this, though, is the use of supplements for things our body needs naturally. Vitamins, minerals, and even hormones can now be put into your system in the form of a pill, but is that right? Don’t get me wrong, occasionally I suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency which causes the corners of my mouth to crack and look gross, and after trying for a couple of weeks to sort it out with my diet, I often turn to a vitamin B complex supplement pill to sort it out. However, once the cracks are healed and gone, I leave the pills alone and continue to receive what I need naturally. What I can’t get my head around is people who form a reliance on similar pills. There’s many kinds of deficiency that effect the human body quite negatively, and I can understand the need to boost whatever is lacking with the use of supplements, but when people who aren’t suffering from any on going lack of full nutritional make up take supplements every day, and more than one of them, I can’t help but shake my head!

Our bodies are designed to live on this planet. There were humans here before we had cars, electricity, even before we had buildings, and a long long long time before supplements were synthesized! All the nutrients we require are either produced within our body by a natural process, can be found in various foods, or we get it from the Sun or some other necessary component of the environment we live in. So why not, instead of dropping those pills into your stomach and peeing most of it back out, eat a proper diet, get out in the sun every day(yes, even if it’s raining, you’ll still get enough full spectrum light to produce the melatonin you need), exercise daily, and surround yourself with good, happy people that make you enjoy life?

Now, I have life pretty good. I eat well, have some great friends and an even more amazing girlfriend, a wonderful family, and I get out and exercise every day. So I am going to apologize to anyone this has offended, there are probably circumstances that my little rant hasn’t covered, that I have absolutely no understanding of, that would lead you to relying on a diet of pills. Everything I’ve said makes sense to me though. Go back a few hundred years and tell them you have a pill with everything you need to survive and they’d burn you on a count of witch craft ;)

Eat, sleep, sun, and sweat.
-Zachary

Okay, this has been a few days coming but I really wanted to think it all through and give some time for ideas to come to me from other people before I finalised my plan. Firstly, I’d like to write a summary of how this week has gone as I’ve slowly adjusted to the new habits I’m trying to form.

Until today I hadn’t managed to get up at 6 but I woke up at that time every day. I allowed myself to give the excuse that it was too cold. Silly,.but at least I began to get my body clock used to waking at that time. This morning I got up at 6, did my full range of motion exercises, and then went for a run. This is something I have been telling myself is do for a month now, and I finally did it. It feels good! I the MapMyRun app on my phone to track my runs, and as I was running my phone fell out of my pocket and the screen cracked on the road. Inconvenient! But at least I ran :)

On Monday I went to the gym, Tuesday I had a yoga class, Wednesday I went to a class at the gym, Thursday I had another yoga class and today I’ve already ran and I will go to the gym after work, so exercising every day is going well. I’ve also managed to keep up with sitting cross legged every day. No screens before bed has given me much better sleeps and I’m really glad I threw that one in there. I have also done yoga every night even after the gym. All in all every thing is starting to settle into my routine. I’m excited for next week and even more excited for the results at the end of the challenge :)

I already have the beginning of my 6 week challenge set out but I wish to add a few things to it. I also want to add to the structure of the challenge and lay down a plan to document my progress. I’ll write another post later today detailing these things. In particular I want to go over my “single blog” idea.

-Zachary

I have thought of some things I want to add to my 6 week challenge. I guess I just wanted to get it out there as soon as I could. Good thing I still have this week before it starts. I will not go over these just yet though because I want to think it through properly to try and avoid multiple updates to the challenge.

Anyway, I have something else I’d like help with. I currently have two blogs: http://wolfkack.tumblr.com and http://kackthoughts.tumblr.com.
I want to know if it’s possible/how to combine these. What I’d ultimately like to do is have the one blog, wolfkack, with multiple pages on it. One for things it contains now(pictures, videos, poems, etc. that I have taken, created), one for the stuff that is on kackthoughts(my thoughts and ideas and everything I have to say to the world), and probably a third page to put things that aren’t mine that I reblog from elsewhere. I could even have ANOTHER page dedicated to tracking progress on this 6 week challenge, that would be awesome.

Can anyone tell me if this is possible? And if so can anyone tell me how?

My first instinct tells me it would probably involve doing some HTML coding, and I could do that eventually after brushing up on it.

Just let me know if you can help me out! 

This was all I could think about at work today. After laying out my plans Yesterday I’ve decided to set out some goals to help me on my way. For the goals I have set a time limit for I will begin the time on Monday, although the act itself I will start this week, sort of as a test week. They say it takes 6 weeks to form a habit, and that is the length of time I have chosen. Coincidentally, this will mean that the last day of this “6 week challenge” will be Sunday the 1st of July, the day before my birthday.

I am going to state each goal and then further discuss what I feel the goal involves.

1. I will do some form of exercise every day for 6 weeks.

• Obviously there will be days where I need to rest, that is inevitable, but I will take those days only when it is necessary.
• This goal can be supplemented by the activities of the other goals(e.g. yoga) but only two days a week at the most.

2. I will do yoga every day for 6 weeks.

• I am not going to add specifics to this goal as I know as I do more yoga I will get better, be able to hold asanas longer and learn more asanas. I also know that time restraints will change so I’m just going to leave this goal open.

3. I will meditate every day for 6 weeks.

• I still do not succeed in entering the meditative state every time I try, so I am going to make this goal about TRYING to meditate every day. As with yoga, I will not put a specific time on how long I try for each day.

4. I will sit cross legged for at least 10 minutes every day, for 6 weeks.

• This kind of goes along with the previous two goals.
• I really want to be able to sit cross legged comfortably, and the best way to get there is by just doing it.

5. I will do split stretches at least 5 days a week, for 6 weeks.

• This includes side splits and both front splits.

6. Get up at 6:00am every day, for 6 weeks.

• This means actually getting out of bed at 6, not just waking up at this time and lying in bed because it’s too cold.
• This is also including the mornings after a late night, if I choose to do that to myself, that’s my own undoing.

7. Go for a run at least 5 times a week, for 6 weeks.

• Increasing the distance as I get fitter.

8. No “screens” less than an hour before I go to bed for 6 weeks.

• This is basically to help with sleeping and dreaming. I know how badly it effects me.

9. Read at least once a day, for 6 weeks.

• This means a book, not something on a screen.

10. Write something at least once a day, for 6 weeks.

• This is really two goals in one. 
• Firstly, I want to literally put pen to paper and write at least once a day.
• Secondly, I want to write down an idea somewhere(probably on this blog). No one ever goes a day without thinking about something they haven’t thought about before, or expanding on a pre-existing idea, I just want to start getting mine down.

I had thought of more that didn’t have a specific time period, but I think 10 is enough for now.

So there you go, there are my 10 steps to living a better life in 6 weeks. Wish me luck. Feel free to say/ask anything, and I’ll keep the blog updated on how I go!

-Zachary

This is a little strange since it was inspired by a post I inspired. Thanks, Bailee, for giving me the idea.

I have a plan. A plan for what I want to do with my life, what I want to achieve both for myself and for others, for the world. This plan, however, has never really been voiced properly to anyone. Partially because while in conversation I can’t think of the words to describe it properly quick enough to articulate it to the enquirer, and partially because I think it may sound a little silly to anyone else, so I’ve sort of just thought I’d just do it and at the end of my life, when it is all done, I can be like “See what I meant now?”. Of course that is silly and not at all the right idea, so instead I’ve decided to write it down here, where I can take the time to make sure it sounds right, with the hope that someone might see it and understand, or even be able to point me in the right direction. So here goes.

In my last post, I stated the initial direction I am going to take. I am going to do a Certificate of Personal Training. Physical training and exercise, as a martial artist, is obviously very important to me, and has brought my body from the weedy little nerdy kid I used to be to the somewhat self proud male human specimen I consider myself to be now. It is an area of life that has taken up a lot of my mental energy this year, and something I think I am good at. I consider myself to be a natural teacher, which I feel is a great attribute to take into this profession. Currently, and since the end of last year, I have trained with Dean Jolly at Studio Athletica in New Plymouth. He, and his wife Tania, are world renowned in the industry, and teach an alternative form of training that has an emphasis on free and correct movement of the body, involves mostly body weight exercises, and they are also one of the leaders in the country for kettle bell systems. Dean is the one who led me to discover the Certificate, and we have also discussed, and I am hopeful about, him possibly “taking me under his wing”, so to speak, once I have completed it and allowing me to work out of Studio Athletica and learn from him what I can.

But I do not wish to stop there. I don’t want to be another jock in a gym telling you to lift that dumbbell a thousand times. Ever wondered why it’s called a dumbbell? Because training like that is dumb. Obviously, all going to plan, learning from Dean will be amazing for me, but I also wish to grasp knowledge for myself from where ever I can. I am currently doing a yoga course and I’m loving it. I see huge benefits in it and I’d love to learn enough to bring it my training. I also see flaws in it though, and so I have began to read into Qigong and Tai chi. I want to add to my tools however I can.

My ideas don’t stop at training though. I wish to learn other things. Healing. I have always had a kind of “feeling” about healing. I’ve always been able to feel energy and injuries in other people and feel their mood, I guess feel their aura. I have healed people before, and it has worked, although I didn’t really know what I was doing, just using my intuition I guess. I have learnt to see people’s auras and this is an ever more occurring event for me now. I want to learn Reiki, to begin with anyway, or whatever comes my way, but I want to explore the spirituality that exists all over the world. I believe in it and it doesn’t bother me if you don’t.

I want to learn how to live well. I want to be the best I can be and learn things to help me on my way, and I want to teach people how to do the same! I’m a pretty happy person and I hate seeing friends, or even strangers, in the pits of depression not knowing how to climb out. I am going to help.

I’m already on my way to all this. When I read, it is non-fiction and it is usually to do with one of the fields I have commented on in this post. I also try to meditate every day, trying to be more in touch with that spiritual side. Food is important, and I try my best to learn about proper nutrition, and being vegetarian that is even more important.

I guess this is a very shallow view of where I want to head, but it has already become such a long post, so sorry. I am glad I have finally put this down somewhere, let it escape my mind, because it is something I am sure about and it needs to be said, even if it is hard to tell my parents why I’m heading this way(it’s a 180 degree spin from Engineering!). I also should add that money is not important, happiness and survival is, so don’t try and tell me I won’t be making big bucks, I don’t care.

I’m also travelling this path with Bailee at my side, and I know she’s excited about what she’s doing too.

Thanks for reading this long winded post(if you did), and please, if you have any ideas you can throw at me don’t hesitate to do so, I’m willing to catch anything that doesn’t burn :D

I’ve made some decisions about things I am going to change over the last few days. The biggest one being that my girlfriend, Bailee, has decided to move in with me! I can’t wait!

Of course this is going to make things a little different, not having that escape from each other, but she does spend most of her free time at my house already and we’ve never really got on each other’s nerves. It just feels like the right thing to do, and it’ll help me out financially too, seeing as I do have some things I need to put money towards at the moment, I suppose I should go over that.

I am currently waiting to hear whether I have been accepted to do the first paper of the Certificate of Personal Training at AUT in Auckland. I’m trying not to be excited yet, because you never know what could happen, but I really don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t get accepted. It’s the first of 4 papers, done on weekends. It starts on the 23rd of June and the last one finishes on the 9th of December. Getting the certificate would see me qualified to be a personal trainer and allow me to be registered with REPS for REPS qualifications. The papers cost between $600 and $700 dollars each though, and getting a student loan for them isn’t offered so I have some saving to do. No problem though.

There is a problem, however, with the bank telling me that since I am no longer studying, the $1000 interest free overdraft I took out while I was studying engineering now has 20% interest on it, so I need to pay that off as soon as I can to avoid accumulating too much interest. Still completely possible though.

Lastly, I owe my parents a bit of money too, but this is still not an impossibility to be dealt with. Just pointing out that a little financial ease right now would be appreciated.

Now forgetting the boring money crap(I really hate money, I wish it wasn’t needed) I have some over decisions to discuss. I’ve decided that I am going to discontinue learning Wing Chun here in New Plymouth.

Although it does interest me, it is not the martial art I would choose to focus on if I was given the choice. I’d love to still be doing Shaolin Nam Pai Chuan, or another Shaolin derivative but there is simply no one remotely close to New Plymouth who teaches it. When I was doing it in Wellington, while at training it was all I focused on, nothing else entered my mind. Now, at Wing Chun, all I think about is where I’d rather be. I have full respect for Wing Chun and would love to dive deeper into it later in life, but I don’t think it is right for me right now. I just really want to free up the time I’m spending there and save the money I’m spending on it also. I will continue to read what I can and teach myself what I can as I have been doing, and join a club closer to what I wish to learn when it is available. I don’t intend on staying in New Plymouth forever.

I’m sitting here looking at the poster of Shaolin monks on my wall, and the 6’ Bo resting against the wall next to it, and I know this is a right decision.

Now, it’s probably obvious from earlier in this post that I have been forced to direct the majority of money I don’t spend on rent, food and utilities into savings. However, I have decided that I will start to channel what other money I have into something productive. What that will be each week is undecided, it could be books, it could be courses(for instance the beginners yoga course I’m currently doing), and it could most likely be buying the material to make the Shaolin Monk uniform I’ve been thinking about for so long, as well as what I need to be able to sew other clothes.

So really, this post as been a way of finalizing some decisions I’ve made and putting them out to the universe. Makes them easier to keep them that way I find. Now I’m going to go and do some yoga, practise splits, and then try to meditate. :D

In the last year or so, I’ve made a big effort to sort some problems out. These are problems I think are probably quite common to a lot of people, yet really rather essential to living. I am wondering why? I have for awhile too.

I’m talking about fundamental things: posture, nutrition, being able to sit on the ground comfortably, even simply being HAPPY.

Why are these things not taught to everyone from the beginning? Mathematics, science, and learning to read and write are all very important, but what use are they if you don’t have a healthy, happy, free moving body to put them to use? Why is good posture not made compulsory at schools? Why wasn’t I told as a child that I needed a particular blend of carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and minerals in my diet to survive and be healthy? Why wasn’t it emphasised to me that life will go on, that nothing should hold me down for long, and that life is so much better when you remember to smile?

My posture isn’t perfect, and neither is my nutrition(someone eats too much chocolate :D), but I do feel I am happy most of the time, and when something gets me down it doesn’t last for long. I still can’t sit completely comfortably, but I’m working on all these things! All it makes me think about though, is what if I had always known this, if I had never lost the ability to sit cross legged at ease, if I had never let my hamstrings tighten unknowingly?

It has been a long term goal of mine for awhile now to one day get this kind of thing taught in schools. before I’m 41 I will get one school to start teaching their pupils these things. That gives me 20 years, wish me luck :)

Really need to work on adding to this more often. I’ve had plenty of thoughts go past my inner eye since my last post. I have come to a realisation that a lot of them could be categorized by this one idea: how unnatural the majority of humans are. I’m going to start by pointing out that nature is the reason for our survival. Trees take in carbon dioxide from the air and through one of nature’s magic tricks it turns it into oxygen. I’m vegetarian, so the Earth provides all my food, but even for someone that eats meat, most of your food is plant based, and for the rest, the Earth provides your food’s food, or your food’s food’s food. I’d also like to add to this the idea that nature is beautiful, especially when it is left to flourish, or looked after by us correctly. So here’s my problem: why do humans try so hard to be unnatural? Make up, hair colouring, plastic surgery, these are the extremes I guess, but even artificial foods and drinks are a way of rebelling against the normal flow of energy that the Earth provides. We are a part of nature too, as are all the animals. As a planet we are really just one big organism with an infinite number of parts. So why do we fight it? Drugs are another idea I’ve brought to this argument. Yes, some drugs, like cannabis, are natural, or at least were until we developed the technology to enhance the growth and THC levels of what was once just another part of the organism. But that doesn’t make them any better. It, and all other drugs, are toxins, poisons, chemicals, that chane our state of mind. In order for them to do that, that state needs to exist in out mind somewhere to begin with, and those states are entirely reachable through a natural process of some sort, yet instead we decide to take a drug that flips the switch, dealing with a side effects as we go. Weed is NOT good for you! Sure it may be less harmful than other substances, but it is definitely not a positive addition to your body. I don’t take drugs, I’m straight edge, but before I made that decision, I too poisoned myself to go to another place. I smoked pot pretty much every day for two and a half years. I’ve been one of those people, but I never made myself feel better about it by trying to convince others “it’s good for you!” Finally, the civilizations we live in and the industries we have created are wreaking havock on the environment, on the Earth itself. Our cities, although adored by many, are ugly, hard, dirty and cluttered. They leave no room for the natural growth of trees and other plants, these are cut down to keep everything “tidy”. It’s really no stretch of the imagination to understand why getting away from it all and going for a tramp in the bush or up the mountain feels so good. WE GET BACK TO NATURE. The oil industry, to name one, is destroying this organism we are a part of. The oil is deep in the ground for a reason and it should stay there, we don’t need it, at all. There is plenty of alternatives and plenty of reasons not too, reasearch it. So tell me, why, out of all the things that are a part of nature, are we the only ones that are trying not to be?!

So this blog hasn’t been given the best start. I simply haven’t had any “I’ll put that on my blog” thoughts since I created it. I’ve decided rather than neglect this until I have some sort of epiphany to force a post by pulling up past discoveries, if I can. Now I’m looking at that last sentence wondering if it has correct punctuation.

Now I’m realising that a lot of what I do is find flaws in my knowledge or incorrect mannerisms/actions and try to correct them, whether by researching or exercising or one of the numerous other ways one can improve themselves. Just like that I now know what this post is going to be about: how necessary it is to always try to improve.

If you think you don’t need to improve you’re either lazy, crazy, or so good at lying to yourself you believe it. There is always room for improvement in some aspect of your living. One can always be stronger, there is always room in your head for more knowledge, and one can always travel deeper into the void that is the spiritual plane of the universe we live in. I’m sure we could all do a better job at being kind and compassionate to others as well, how much better would it feel to live on this planet if we all tried to improve, even if only in that area.

Currently I try to train everyday. This could mean going for a run, strength training or flexibility training or even just working on being able to sit cross-legged better. There is days where I feel I need to rest and I do nothing, of course, but that is just another part of the cycle that carries physical improvement. I also try to meditate everyday. When I say “try” I don’t mean there is days where I don’t meditate, I mean that I still struggle to do it properly, I rarely reach that space of nothingness, and when I do it isn’t long before I slip out of it. These are just two ways I currently try to be better at living, but there is another aspect to this: the improvement itself; the progress.

It is no more important to try to improve than it is to be happy with the progress itself. This can be most frustrating with the physical improvement: not losing weight fast enough, not building muscle fast enough, etc. This can be a big part of not succeeding because when you aren’t happy with the steps you’re taking forward, why not just sit where you are?

It is important to look at yourself and think about where you used to be. Physically, it can be easy to compare your current reflection to an old photo. With meditation, I find excitement in the fact that sometimes I actually fall into that nothingness. I love where I’m heading and I’m excited to be going there, no matter how slow it goes at times :)

Always try to improve! :)

Last weekend, a close friend (actually an ex girlfriend) of mine, who now lives in another country, brought up a problem she had while we catching up on Facebook. This problem was, I guess you could say, mind, body and spirit related as it would definitely take a toll on all three vehicles we live by. I don’t want to go into specifics about her problem because I don’t wish to publicise her private life, but I do want to make mention of the response I gave her. Without really knowing why, I began to give her advice that came from some unknown capsule in my mind. I don’t know where the knowledge, or wisdom, or imagination came from that made me think or know to say this but I said it, and it seemed right. I began by saying that not only spiritually, but even scientifically, we are all one thing, matter, and on an even lower level, energy. I explained the fact that this thing that we all are, that everything is, every stone, every tree, even every platypus, is constantly changing. The energy that makes up everything is constantly moving, transforming and redistributing itself. I then built on this theory by saying that by focusing only on oneself, on your imperfections or the things you could have done, the energy within you only gets cycled within you. It comes out of the system that is your mind, body and spirit, and goes straight back in at another entry point. How boring an infinity of travelling the same pathways over and over again must be! Having bored, unhappy energy within you would only make you feel bored and unhappy with yourself. I told her that since we are all one, would it not make sense to direct your energy everywhere but inside, because since we are all one, you benefitting anything else would also benefit yourself. Not only that but allowing energy to leave your system, would make room for new, warm, happy energy to enter you, energy that hadn’t been stuck inside of you for an endless period, and that that would, without a doubt, bring you a better feeling about yourself.