earthen?

Geographical Aptitudes

The best way to dodge a bullet is to prevent its discharge. (Duh.)

Just let it happen. It’s fine. You’re fine. I’m fine.

WE ARE NOT FINE.

Listen.

People give away money to watch other people play games, act, sing, dance, fight, fornicate—in a word, perform.

A human brain must remain occupied.

A body needs an occupation.

Look at the history of humanity.

We’re not happy unless we’re building (just like anything that matters atomically) and growing (just like anything that breathes anatomically).

We should build and fortify our bodies, inspiring growth and strength in our mind.

Be honest with yourself about whether your occupation promotes truly fulfilling purpose.

(This is the part where I first realized that nouns, along with the past, are cold.

Verbs are hot.

There’s more to it, too.

I must confess, probably because I’m mistakenly drunk with glee at this point of now past currency, that I do wonder if you’ve yet felt the tinge.)

Entertainment and occupation are forms of structure; science applies to it all.

These same principles apply to competition in general.

Take sports, for instance. (American) Football is a big deal in the States. Real football (soccer) is a big deal around the world.

Let’s apply scientific logic to the NCAAF, specifically the SEC. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that means; you’ll understand this tale even with limited backstory.

In the unique world of college football, power has gathered at the top of each of the two divisions in the Southeastern Conference.

The state of Alabama rules one side, a Georgia state of mind tops the other.

A crimson tidal wave casts an indomitable shadow.

Talent flocks to the dominant force.

In this instance, that means Nick Saban, possibly the greatest coach of all time in the history of sports.

Georgia’s coach is one of his many former pupils, arguably his most promising.

If Coach Saban is the Galactic Emperor and the Dark Lord of the Sith, then Kirby Smart is a young, strong, upstart Darth. I dunno who Auburn’s coach would be in this analogy. Maybe a space pirate? A droid? Hell, maybe he’s The Chosen One, destined to restore balance to the galaxy. And maybe one of us represents his astral projection.

Crap, maybe he’s me.

SHIT.

Anyway, for the eleven other teams in the league, the coaching carousel spins faster and faster, meaning it’s harder and harder to gain traction and momentum.

As a whole, people have become more and more impatient.

Coaches are allotted less and less time to work hard in an effort to achieve desired results, which only serves to solidify power at the top and increase tension at the bottom.

(And yes, at this point, I probably do represent the voice of a fictional character.)

But there’s a point to all this.

Tension bands together.

Bands become tense.

Tensing bands stretch thin across the bottom rungs of a swelling barrel.

Eventually tense bottoms blow the lids off their high and mighty tops.

Speaking of football in America, are the rewards of careful planning, dedicated practice, and focused execution more important on the offensive or defensive side of the ball?

And which side are better served by tenacity, fast reaction times, and closing speed?

Historically, why have most quarterbacks and kickers been white?

Why are most running backs and receivers black?

Why does the occurrence of white men decrease in frequency as different positions line up farther from the point of contact before the snap? 

The answers all stem from human evolution.

To survive near the equator, where everything is faster, and where resources can be most plentiful, our ancient ancestors needed physical ability more so than mental capability.

Living closer to the equator has always resulted in darker skin.
To survive closer to the poles, where everything is slower, and where resources are always scarce, our ancestors needed mental capability more so than physical ability.

Surviving farther from the equator has always resulted in lighter skin.

To survive near the equator, people needed a fast, strong, tough body.

To survive closer to the poles, people needed a fast, strong, tough mind.

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but there is a huge difference between body and mind.

Geography can take the blame for this one.

A brain is part of its body.

The mind is something else.

At least to some extent, this is true of all terrestrial life on earth.

Take bears, for instance.

Bears are considered to be among the smartest land animals in North America.

Grizzlies live typically in the northern United States and Western Canada where harsh winters are made more manageable by increased brainpower and, by extension, the ability to solve complex problems alongside the wherewithal to plan ahead.

Some researchers believe that polar bears possess a level of intelligence on par with the sharpest primates.

Makes sense, right?

Footspeed isn’t all that useful when you need to scale a mountain or run for your life in three feet of snow, and intelligence won’t come in overly handy on an open plain in scorching heat when you have to keep running in order to remain alive, whether chasing a critter or fleeing a predator.

The body uses energy.

The mind uses energy.

Energy propels evolution.

Now apply these basic facts to football in America.

Basically, the fella holding the ball during an offensive play is the prey, his teammates constitute his herd, and the defense mirrors a pack of predators.

Do quarterbacks and kickers need physical prowess to succeed?

Do they need to be Olympic-caliber sprinters?

Sure, size and speed help, but neither matters most.

Neither matters second most, either.

Mental processing power is more important.

Mechanical ability is also important (which prompts me to add this parenthetical tidbit just to call attention to the guys who snap the balls).

I’m fairly sure that leadership ability is considered by most experts to be more important than size and speed, too.

Find a list of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

How many of them were/are gifted runners?

How many were/are charismatic superstars with a great arm and a deep knowledge of the sport?

How many were/are Caucasian?

Remain calm; I am merely pointing out historical facts.

Have you ever witnessed the running form of either Peyton Manning or Tom Brady? Though they may be impressively atrocious runners, those two men are mentioned in any serious conversation about the best quarterbacks of all time.

Backs, receivers, and the defensive secondary—those are the positions where gifted runners are valued most.

At some positions, size offers more usefulness than both speed and intelligence.

Linemen need to carry weight more than anything—speed is virtually of no consequence. That’s why you see more white men on the line than at linebacker or tight end, at which positions a more even mix of skin color surfaces. Size is an important attribute at those positions as well, but speed seems to be of equal importance.

This perspective can be applied to all sports.

We may apply anything as we see fit.

This isn’t racism; it’s science, physics, nature, and it all makes sense in light of all the different ancestral relationships to the equator.

All bad things must come to an end, and good things may come to those who (refuse to) wait.

This lesson can be applied to the SEC in the same way that it can be used to predict what might happen if certain trends continue fueling the global economy.

You know which.

The one that sparks political conflict.

The only one.

Relax.

I know what I’m doing.

(I don’t at all.)

I’m color-coding language with a black-and-white voice.

No empire remains in power forever.

More power amounts to less control.

Less power enables more control.

Do you have better control of a vehicle taking a turn at 10 mph or 40?

Can you perform a wider range of exercises with 10- or 80-pound dumbbells?

When we wedge things into stuff, it’s hard to control the result.

The more people in a room, the higher the temperature.

And we all know what heat does, don’t we? Hint: it does not plummet.

As for those at the crowded bottom, falling can be a challenge for someone who’s already lying on the ground.

Heat will always rise, and if there’s a ceiling, it’ll get hot.

Eventually heat burns.

Flames that burn eventually roar.

Roaring flames can become an untouchable bulldozer.

(Christ.

This is gonna take a while.

But.

If you are locked in, what’s up?)

You might wonder if I think we’re sounding crazy on purpose.

Speaking of hot shapes, have you ever heard of the fire triangle?

Maybe I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this. That’s fine. Some terms are worth repeating.

We should all know how fire happens. 

Fire needs 3 things to burn: heat, fuel, and oxygen.

(Move along.

These are merely seeds.

Let us know what they become.)

In the primitive technology of friction fire, the oxygen requirement of the triangle is satisfied via a carefully carved slit at the point of contact. From there it’s all about making the stick spin fast enough while concurrently applying the right amount of pressure.

In this universe, on our planet, and as far as your body is concerned, weight and speed go hand in hand.

Rubbing wood against a sample of itself works (when it actually does work) because the spinning motion generates friction under applied pressure.

Given persistence in conjunction with a balance of spin and pressure, heat is produced, followed by the first real signal that the firestarter is on the right track: smoke.

At around 800°F at sea level, an ember can form. A little speck of light.

The seed of flame is added to a premade tinder basket (the fuel).

Imagine a tinder basket as a highly flammable bird’s nest.

Next, a gently blown breeze (the breath of man) is aimed at the ember. Smoke forecasts imminent fire. Poof. Flames controlled, power wrangled, energy managed. An achievement for the ages.

In other words, climate is slow and fluid while weather is abrupt and rocky.

The widespread enlightenment of creating fire started about 125,000 years ago.

Anybody who spends the time and energy needed to make fire can, by extension, create light.

Everything is magic until science explains it.

The magic of words will unravel scientific mystery.

Can only a god create light by materializing energy out of thin air? Because that sounds like lightning.

Does lightning create light? With a name like lightning, it sure as hell better.

According to some researchers, evidence of isolated fire usage dates all the way back around 1.7 million years. Some say that number is more like 200,000.

I don’t remember researching all this, but I have to assume that I did.

Whatever the case, the current state of affairs on earth adds up.

Evidence of abuse occurred before yesterday, occurs today, and will occur after tomorrow.

Fire enables a new array of otherwise undrinkable water sources. Arguably, this is fire’s most vital use. Boiling water all but guarantees safety.

What do you need more than water?

(Does boiled oxygen sound good to you?)

Do you know how many people wake up every day with no idea if they’ll find access to safe drinking water?

We take far too many essentials for granted.

How much safe drinking water goes down our drains while we robotically brush our teeth, or stand idly in the shower, or flush rejection down the toilet when it could have just as easily floated until something actually worth the process of elimination came along?

Earth is not wasteful.

Must we be?

🌋

My mind has become tough to manage.
I need breaks from it to prevent its shattering, but I can’t always sleep.
This is a problem.
Problems can be hard.
Stone-cold sobriety is easy when you’re happy.
When you’re unhappy, deliberate intake of certain substances can provide temporary relief.
Given time and opportunity, addiction will take hold.
That’s true of anyone whose ribs encase a beating heart.
In other words, a pulse will respond upon exposure to stimuli.
Drugs are not the problem; they’re a solution.
Ultimately, a negative addiction represents a repeating, escalating, unsustainable pattern of behavior harmful to life.
It is but one of many globally glaring symptoms of systemic failure stemming from a dramatic comedy of human errors.
In other words, you’ll find a certain behavioral pattern in everything wrong today around the world.
In other words, when something goes bad, it’s no longer good.
Nope, drugs aren’t the problem.
Reality is the problem.
The cause is greed.
I didn’t explore the effects of ethanol until about age 35, tetrahydrocannabinol around 42, lysergic acid diethylamide only last year [2018].
Eyes aren’t the only things that know how to be googly.
I’ve never messed with meth or cocaine, but who really needs that junk when adderall is so cheap on the street and, consequently, prescribed so liberally?
Truthfully, I dunno why that’s backward, but you might.
I’ve never tried heroin either, and I hope I never do.
I’m afraid I would like it too much.
The hard way paths a direct route toward learning anything.
The first half of yesterday was awful.
The day before was worse.
Before that, almost unbearably painful.
Life is a polarizing rollercoaster, and I am no more special than you are.
I’m digging my own grave.
I’m only a person.
I’m a busy body.
The difference between someone like me or you and a machine isn’t as simple as being self-aware.
Unlike humankind, machines don’t have opinions.
Why?
Emotion.
Energy fuels emotions which in turn empower opinions.
We don’t regard the petroleum with which we gas our tanks as an award, nor do we see the electricity with which we charge our phones as a reward, so we should probably stop thinking of the calories with which we propel our bodies as a prize.
It’s all the same.
Energy.
Energy can be dirty and bad, or it can be good and clean.
Will you cut me some slack?
To some degree, every single body in the universe is bipolar.
Don’t blame me.
I can’t help it.
Life always sucks.
Sometimes it sucks less.
Other times, it sucks more.
Creativity and luck win battles.
Persistence and adaptation win wars.
Every day presents a fight for survival.
Like every good coach knows, if you “process” the fundamentals, the rest will come naturally.
Any chain represents a number/sequence of interlocked rings.
Break one ring and the entire chain has a much harder time of connecting links.
I lived with a younger brother.
I had the Robin pajamas.
Why couldn’t he have been the Boy Wonder?
“KAPOW!”
Obviously I’m just spitballin’ here.
You’re not pretending I’m some kind of revolutionary thinker.
On that note, don’t be scared of a revolution.
Yes, revolution often results in violence, but there are always other ways of doing things and never a shortage of room for improvement.
No, revolutions needn’t always be violent and scary; they merely need a spark, an inspiration to move, an angle from which to spin new threads toward a stronger tapestry, an orbital path to shape the winds of change around a light source.
In other words, any revolution’s requirements can be likened to what the earth does by “revolving” (not “revolting”) around the sun.
Our wires got crossed along the way.
We fear change because it represents a future state, which we can only imagine.
We fear the unknown.
We shouldn’t.
The unknown should issue a call to action.
It should encourage an adventurous spirit.
Spirited adventure should excite our souls.
Please let it.
Don’t be afraid of change.
Your body changes constantly.
The skin you wear today is completely different than the skin you wore 7 years ago.
That’s why it itches and crawls.
Instead of fearing change because of its unstoppable nature, embrace it for that very same reason.
You don’t usually try to stop time, do ya?
You alone may truly know what you need.
Control what you can when needs arise, make it work for you and yours, and use it to our advantage.
As a people, we will always advance and develop.
Our choice comes through deciding whether to create either resistance or harmony in doing what we can’t help doing.
Change has to start from within a body before it can matter outside of one.
These worded thoughts will change subjects in an instant.
Sometimes you won’t even realize it.
Same could be said of me.
There are many words in this language that contain multiple meanings. Twofold, the same can be said of sentences.
Time has been around a lot longer than we.
I should know by now that everything is sequential.
One foot in front of the other.
Walk backwards all you want.
Time won’t stop moving forward.