Incremental Progress and the Daily Practice

Stress testing some new kicks early on the longest jaunt to date

James Altucher often writes about what he calls "The Daily Practice."  I highly recommend his blog, and I've found that more often than not I can find something that he's writing about that helps refocus my efforts, gives me a little boost, or let's me know that I'm not the only one with some of the same type of thoughts going on in my head.  It turns out, that we all have similar (certainly not common) experiences, and focusing on the connections between us is what really proves to be most beneficial making daily progress toward living in the dream that is life as it happens around me.  Today, he had a post about Gene Wolfe and writing a page a day.  It's a great perspective, and bolsters my confidence in incremental progress.

Speaking of progress, last Tuesday, I embarked upon the longest "training" walk that I've done to date in the march towards the Transcontinental Pilgrimage.   It was a great day, and I covered about 31.2 miles in just a little over ten hours and fourteen minutes.  Seventeen miles of this walk re-traced the ground where I conducted my first long walk in the Pilgrimage effort.  I say it was a great day because I am finding that just slowly, agonizingly slowly, every day is getting better and better.  This is not because I'm training, or have learned any great insights, or found the perfect shoe, or am losing weight, or have the right hydration plan, or any of those other externalities.  Some if not most of those things have incrementally improved over the last several months, but what has changed the most is my perspective.

My shift of perspective is a manifestation of the one of the pillars that I talked about in the last post.  The shift of perspective is spiritual growth.  One of my principle hopes is that the N2N-TCP will result in a great deal of spiritual growth.  Along those lines, the other two pillars of Physical Change and Intellectual Challenge will play a critical role as well, but the Spiritual Aspect is what I'm really looking forward to right now.  

There was not good, bad, and ugly during this walk.  There was progress.  I also got to see this for the second time, and I was able to appreciate how it represented my  relative powerlessness in the grand scheme of things as well as my connection to my surroundings much better this time than my first embryonic attempt covering this ground.  I leave you with a scale model (on an unimaginably small scale) of our very own solar system.

The Sun

The Nine (yes, Pluto's still counted) Planets

This scale model of the solar system covers about five miles of trail on the course of the latest long walk, and it represents millions of miles of physical distance in a very small corner of the Milky Way Galaxy.  The scale of our environment is unimaginable, but I'm grateful to be alive and connected to it in my own very small way.  Till next time...

Water Under the Bridge, and Picking it up Again

US/Mexico Border Wall, Borderfield State Park, CA

There has been quite a bit of water under the bridge since the last time I posted to this blog of the Newport to Newport Transcontinental Pilgrimage adventure.  Some of that water was from the Pacific back several months ago when I walked from Coronado, CA to the farthest southwest edge of the US/Mexico border over the course of three days.  The round trip clocked in at a not very impressive 34 miles, but I was fully engaged at my current day job and that's the excuse that I'm offering for now.

I was reminded this morning that action precedes a growth of faith and/or progress.  In spite of all the evidence that suggests this is actually true, I still find this concept a bit counterintuitive.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I understand it intellectually, but I have a hard time living up to this standard in my day to day life.  Be that as it may, the reinforcement of this concept has gotten me off my proverbial bottom and brought me back to write a bit more about this embryonic adventure that Rory and I are undertaking.

Since action precedes and builds faith, and I'm attempting to live more in the present moment day after day, it follows that there are some lines of action that need to be pursued on our way across the country.  For now, those lines of action can be grouped into three major efforts....

1.  The Physical - training, experimenting with various bits of kit, toughening up, and whatnot

2.  The Intellectual - learning, planning, map recon, business planning, incorporating, advertising, picking a cause to champion, retiring debt, saving, fund raising, etc.

3.  The Spiritual - visions, dreaming, documenting, photographing, reading, and experiencing

To manifest the vision of walking across the country and realize the full spiritual nature of this adventure, it is clear that I must undertake additional action in each of these major efforts, incrementally, one small step, one day a time.  Today, this is my spiritual practice, and I look forward to the adventure as it unfolds.

A Little West Coast "Groundwork"

Thanks again to the marvels of modern conveyance that I touched on briefly in the last post, I once again found myself in the enviable position of transiting to beautiful SoCal to participate in some activities directly associated with the "rat race" last week.  Fortunately for me, even the modern day rodent 5K is not allowed to consume all of my waking moments, so I was able to put in a very solid five days of additional groundwork on the N2N-TCP preparation that I have begun to really enjoy.  I tested some new footwear (my Saucony Guide 7 shoes are proving quite satisfactory by the way) in the form of the balega blister resist socks shown below.  These have complete addressed my blister issues that plagued my prep efforts earlier.  Good stuff, and another example of the upside of living in a modern environment.

All of that is interesting, but the truly fulfilling part of my trip out to SoCal was the groundwork I was able to participate in.  Day 1 was about a 10 mile Jalk(TM) that took me the length of Harbor Island in San Diego.  Just for clarification a  Jalk(TM) is a combination jog and walk meant to cover relatively long distances in a relatively short period of time.  While the distances are not close to what will be required on average for the N2N-TCP, they are distances that I hope will build an endurance base that will prove adequate.  The  Jalk(TM) is my imperfect method of getting these in without injury over the long haul while still being able to (mostly) accommodate my participation in the "rat race" that funds my current standard of living. Compromises all around, but I'm seeking progress, not perfection, at this stage.

Day 2 took me on a 13.2 mile  Jalk(TM) that circumnavigated Mission Bay in San Diego.  Here's a panoramic snapshot that I took about halfway into that little jaunt.

Many thanks to Google Photos for automatically stitching together a couple of shots to make this panorama possible.  This was an interesting  Jalk(TM) because I found myself constantly mentally drawing myself back from competition with the people around me.  They weren't competing with me, but I was constantly having to remind myself that I was not in competition with them either.  I attribute this interesting outlook to being immersed in the "rat race" and recognizing this unnatural tendency toward competition in myself, contravening my stated objectives was a bit disheartening.  More balanced thinking required...check.

Day 3 was a walk up largely dry river bottom that ran just over 11 miles.  Here are some photos from the beginning and turn-around point during that day.

These yellow flowers were very similar to buttercups, and they reminded me of the nickname that my wife used for my youngest daughter (My Buttercup).  The were with me for the entire walk.  It made me feel close to them both for an extended period of time, but that is a story for a different day.

It was a good walk, and I was able to escape from the bondage of competition because I was basically on my own.  I did run across two bike riders and a man leading a horse, but both of those encounters caught me by surprise and were largely a comforting reminder that I was not completely by myself.

Day 5 was a 7-mile walk through Balboa Park that was just stunning.  I went into this one with a plan to circle the park, and I'm still not sure where I ended up going.  I kept thinking back to a statement that a friend made along the lines of staying someplace that you really found fascinating without the pressure of just passing through on the way to yet another destination.  It turned this period of groundwork into a bit of a ramble.  I was able to make it back to my car in the end, so it all worked out quite well.  I'll let the pictures from this one speak (however inadequately) for themselves.

Truly an amazing place.  I loved every minute of it.

Day 5 wrapped up the week with another Jalk(TM) covering just over 11 miles.  One thing I love about the San Diego area of SoCal is the abundant free parking in wonderful areas to explore.  Here's a shot that tried to capture that, but didn't quite do it.  

This weekly wrap-up took me back to the vistas of the Pacific around Point Loma.  It was a great Jalk(TM) where I was able to cover the distance at a faster pace than I have at any time previously during this short period of work-ups, but I still managed to feel pretty peppy at the end.  

It was a great week for training, a great week for refocusing mentally on a small part of what I hope to accomplish on the N3N-TCP, and yes, even a pretty productive participation in the rat race.  I'm finally getting the sense that I'm settling into something that is real and good, and the adventure has started already.  In spite of moments of questionable and unnecessary competition, I sense progress toward a more balanced, present, and slow way of living.  An escape from the linear.  An embrace of the now.  Be present...it's a good way to live.