“Out Of Service” lit up in the operators window.

Bright red warning lights.

People shuffled out of the station.

“What’s going on?” a gray-haired man asked.

“Station’s closed,” a lady said. Makeup caked on. “There’s no trains going to the city.”

Oh crap, I thought.

Dozens upon dozens of commuters scurry out of the station. I could drive to the other office, but I hate that one. Bad energy.

I pull out my pass and enter the station.

Dozens more are standing around waiting for the word of God from the station operator.

The station map shows all trains have been diverted away and there’s only one train facing to leave. Held up was more like it.

An inaudble announcement repeated what I feared. Service to the city has stopped is what I think it said.

I leave the crowd awaiting the word of God and stroll over to the escalators. As I rise, I’m not sure what I’ll find. A train in waiting? Or an empty track.

My eyes reach over the cement railing and spot a train. Doors already open. I walk in as a puff of warm air patted my cold cheeks. I walk through the first car, searching. Why do they have cloth seats? They get dirty so fast. And they smell. I make my way to the second car and find newly upholstered seats. Like smelling new car smell. I sit down, place my bag between my feet.

The train operator announces that the stalled train has been removed and service will be restored to the city as quickly as possible.

Moments later my train dragged itself over the lonely tracks.

Follow your heart. Never let the naysayers tell you what to do.

Netflix.  It’s totally revolutionizing how people rent movies.  And it’s economical.  But this post isn’t about that.  It’s about The Road to Stripped.

Netflix offers a free two-week trial, and I thought I’d explore that.  Moving into my own place requires that I explore entertainment choices other than paying for cable.  And what was the first movie I watched?

Stripped

Jill Morley made a documentary about the lives of strippers, being one herself.  She’s not anymore but you can check her out at www.jillmorley.com.  Her new documentary Fighting It, follows the lives of five female fighters.  That should be interesting.

So you may be asking why I chose to watch Stripped. I’d like to say that I was doing some research for a new book or character.

No.

Plainly, I wanted to watch something naughty.

Then why didn’t I go to the millions of sites that hosts saltier types of media.  Been there, done that.  I also have a soft spot for strippers.  During my acting days in the city, I’d come to know and befriend a few strippers who took acting classes who wanted to break into mainstream entertainment.  And I became close to one in particular.

In talking to them, their perspective on men, strip clubs, work, children, and life is echoed in Stripped.  And unlike watching saltier types of videos, I didn’t find myself fast forwarding to the good parts.  The whole documentary was interesting.

But the thing that stuck out in my mind was how each stripper felt trapped.  The money they earned seemed to outweigh the toll it was taking on their soul.  Because it was the club owners who truly benefited from the clientele, the labor of these beautiful women, and the intense hard work, both emotionally and physically, they put in.

Aside from the tragic circumstances some of these women were in, what struck me was their view of men.  Everything a stereotypical male chauvinist pig represents is what their view of men is.  I saw how desolate they felt when talking about men.

And for some reason it reminded me of the book The Road.

No, the book didn’t contain any strippers.  Despite that essential element, wink wink, I loved the book.  The desolation described was incredible.  Incredible that I saw real images as I read.  Incredible that it’s one of the few books to affect me, to help me realize the abundance that I have, to remind me of the unending strength of the human soul, to show me what people could and would do when dignity is gone.

There was a scene in the book where a group of cannibals had chained about a dozen prisoners, and they were herding them back to their dwelling.  This coincided with a passage McCarthy wrote about cattle.  How we use cattle as beasts of burden, then slaughter them for food.  No one is ever shocked that we do this to cattle or any other animal.  But we’re totally shocked when we see people do this to other people.

Is there a difference?

Look at the owners of strip clubs.   Earning their meals on the labor of women.  Preying on men’s desire for sex.

Is there a difference?

Yeah, Jimmy.  Club owners aren’t eating these women.  Literally.

What about the soul?  Is that not as important?

I deeply explore the soul in my book.  I’ve thought about it a great deal.  I know I have one.  Art is an expression of the soul.  And because life mimics art, or art mimics life, I chose to make it important both in art and life.

In saying that, pieces of strippers’ souls are being taken away each night they dance.  Each lap dance they give, a part of their soul is lost.  Each dollar they earn, they give up a part of what makes them a human being.  This is what I felt when watching Stripped, or whenever I talked to my friend who worked in that industry, or when reading about the cannibals in The Road.

Now here’s a question for you.  When you work in your day job, as I do, do you feel a part of you is torn away?  At the end of the day, what is your life about?  At the end of your life was working all those extra hours worth it?

Or are you the fortunate few who’ve discovered your passions, your life’s purpose, and truthfully love what you do?

Statistics are like bikinis.  What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. –Aaron Levenstein

This image has a double meaning.  Know what it is?

I told a coworker one of my ex-students had found a passion for freerunning. He turned to me, crinkled his brow, and said, “You can’t make a living doing that.”

I turned to him, crinkled my brow, and asked, “What if Tony Hawk came up to you and said he was going to make it big as a skateboarder. What would you say then?”

My coworker’s response was interesting but represents the sentiment of most people. Would you say something like this?  “I’d tell him that the chances of making any living in that is very small. Maybe 5 out of 1000 people would make it,” he said.

I don’t know where he got that statistic, but his point was simple. There’s so many people who’d want to make it in skateboarding that the chances are close to impossible.

The average human has one breast and one testicle.  –Des McHale

I told him that statistics mean nothing, that any reliance on those lies is a reliance on your ownlimitation.

He then countered with a really good counter. So good was his counter that I had to think hard in my counter to counter his counter. Are we counting how many times I used counter?

“Tony Hawk was lucky,” he said.

I think if he said that to Hawk, he’d slap him. Hell. I’d slap him.

To say anyone is lucky does two things. One, the skill and hard work people put into their success means nothing. Two, people are powerless to live their lives. Take what you get, cuz you ain’t gonna get any better.

To accomplish anything in life worth having, a person needs to take the first step. And many times it requires a sense of courage in the face of failure. There was a lot of talk in the nineties to the turn of the century about the fear of success. But that took away from the very real fear of failure.

Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything.  –Gregg Easterbrook

And when you rely on statistics, which can be manipulated to represent anything that anyone wants, you give your power away to live your life the way you want.

This is the basic choice of my hero’s journey in my book. Does he let someone else determine his life and the lives of his province? Or does he choose to fight for a life of freedom?

Ultimately, we all have to choose. Too often I see people choosing the “easy” way out, like relying on stats so they don’t have to go out and follow their passions. Follow your passions, for they may lead to great things.

Say you were standing with one foot in the oven and one foot in an ice bucket.  According to the percentage people, you should be perfectly comfortable.  –Bobby Bragan, 1963

There’s one in every organization. A devoted minion waiting to please their master. How do people gain these devotees is something I write about in my book.

This past Saturday I went to a friend’s black belt presentation.  Then attended an after party at an instructor’s house.

If you’ve read mybio, you know my opinion of that.

I hadn’t been back to the school for many years.  By choice mind you.  Most of the students have changed.  But nothing outside of that has.  They still teach the rigid style of martial arts, the same kind that Bruce Lee rebelled against.  But there was something more sinister going on that I’d forgotten over the years.

One of the common beliefs that the students and teachers hold is once someone gets a black belt that person is never wrong, or never questioned.  Now, they don’t necessarily teach this, but that notion is enforced.

One indication is this.

One of the things students do is bow to all of the instructors when they enter and exit the school.  It’s a form of respect.  It’s fairly normal in all martial arts schools.  But when people started bowing to black belts at the after party, I shook my head.  It’s unnecessary.  They were in someone’s home, outside of the formal school setting. And no one stopped it.  Brain washed?

Many of the students also take whatever the black belts say as gospel.  They don’t realize that black belts are just people with a freakin’ belt colored in black.  And this is where the danger comes from.

A good student is one who follows but also thinks for himself.  And as a result, they should ask the teacher questions.  Why is this important?

A student must follow in order to learn.  This is how wisdom and knowledge is passed down.  Fair enough.  The student should then think, “Does this apply to me?”  Not all the time.

Here’s an example:  If I were teaching a woman about self defense, she may not have the kind of strength and power that a man has.  So accuracy and reaction training is VERY important.  She has to be able to make every single strike count because her targets will be much more specific-eyes, nose, throat, solar plexus, groin.  Her reaction has to be instant, like avoiding a punch, because a single punch can end her day. And women have to take into account long hair if they have it.

That doesn’t mean I don’t focus on power or speed, which are directly related.  But I’d point out what she needs immediately in order to make her dangerous as soon as possible.  I’d teach her how men commonly attack women.  That way she knows what to look for, and what to attack if she is to be accosted.

If I were to teach a man, I’d still teach him the importance of striking the eyes, nose, throat, solar plexus and groin.  But his strength may be enough to offset the attacker without using lethal strikes.  So I would point out his physical strengths, his awareness of reach, and the common ways men are attacked.

I’d also get rid of the notion of self defense to both men and women.

As you can see, there are major differences in teaching males and females.  And the differences extend to teaching children.  They are further distilled down to individuals, depending on who they are.

A lot of these martial arts schools will teach a one-size-fits-all routine that don’t take into account how a person learns, how a human body works, or even the self-worth of the student, the mental side.  Add the egos that are displayed in a lot of these schools, the bowing, the not able to question teachers, and the rigid routines, are the reasons why I left.

Bruce Lee rebelled against the gospel type of martial arts.  He was one of the first to emphasize mixing of martial arts.  There is truth in that, which is why MMA is so prevalent today.

The hero of the 7th Province has a choice.  He either rebels against his close friend and former mentor, or join him in taking over the world.  Each choice ends in war.  That’s a tough place to be.  Is there a correct choice?  For the hero I’m not sure.  As a writer, the choices that each character makes, ultimately mine, is a crap shoot.

I love that.

Even though I’ve plotted my whole novel, each day I wrote brought new discoveries and challenges that made me giddy.  I’m never sure how things were to happen.  I just know they had to happen.  As a result, writing my fantasy was a huge adventure.

Is rebelling bad?

I have a secret.  It’s one of my favorite things about myself.  I don’t get along well with authority figures.  That doesn’t bode well since my day job is encrusted in a corporate empire.  The funny thing is they have a lot of propaganda that emphasizes their business values.  I won’t get into the hypocrisy of it.

Is rebelling not a good thing?

A parent tells a child to kiss Uncle Louie.  Child scrunches her little face and shakes her head.  Parents eggs the child on, saying Uncle Louie loves the child.  Child pouts her lips, turns, runs toward her parent’s leg, and grasps with all her might.  Parent gets upset, unhinges the child, pushes her to Uncle Louie, and forces her to kiss him on the cheek.  (I credit this example to my best friend.)

Is this wrong?

Hell yeah.

The parent just took the child’s power away, forced her to kiss a strange man, despite her not wanting to.  If Uncle Louie were a child molester, the parent just punched a large hole in the child’s ability to resist the attack.  In the child’s mind love is associated with force.  And we wonder why some women stay with men who batter them.

What if the child was just being a brat?

Firm discipline should take place.  You decide what firm is.  That’s different in each culture, society, family and individual.  But in the example above, the child is not being a brat.

Teaching a lot of adolescent kids made me realize one thing.  Almost every single one exerts their own independence.  Every parent exerts their control in an attempt to guide them.  It’s the nature of the ocean, the ebb and flow.  Parents think their kids are being a pain in the ass.  Offsprings think their parents are being assholes.  What more could you ask for in a relationship?

Think of a pendulum searching for their own center.

Parents often ask me to infect a behavioral change.  But that’s an impossible task.  All I can do is mentor them without limitation.  Tom Cruise taught me that.

He was on Inside the Actor’s Studio.  A great show by the way.  He said that his mother never limited him in what he did.  She was watchful, but allowed him to explore the world.  Now he’s some actor making at least twenty million dollars per movie, chump change.

As you sit in your day job, and if it’s not the place you want to be, then what are you doing about it?

See part 1 to this article.

Last post I asked how does someone know if they’ve chosen their right passion(s), be it vocation, hobby, career, etc. For everyone it’s going to be different. Some will tear up at the thought, others are ecstatic and jump right in, and when they do time flies by without notice.

For me, all of the above were true. But there was one other indication. I’m not a disciplined person. Motivation is not my specialty. What I’ve learned to do is to allow things to happen. Once I found my love of the 7^th Province, I wrote an average of fifteen hours a week. It was a driving force. No matter how tired, how busy my normal life became, or what was going on in my life, it carried me. There were days I felt like a robot, driving to Borders, setting my laptop up, getting my coffee, taking a moment, and diving right in.

I was never this disciplined in school!

Ultimately, there should be a high level of happiness, content, peace, fulfillment, serenity. A certain silence or calmness can be felt mentally, physically and spiritually.  And there may even be a sense of urgency to jump right in.

Think about children at play. They think nothing of time, parents, cleanliness, safety, or anything that would get in the way of their fun. Master artists can only match the joy in children’s eyes, the pleasure in their laughter and their elation in their imagination. Have a childlike quality in life and explore.

If you’ve read my bio, I went through different passions in my life. I became aware of what worked for me and what didn’t.  There were things that I did just for fun, and there were things I had to do in order to find what I loved.  It’s been said many times.  Life is a marathon not a sprint.

Just be highly aware of your likes and dislikes, be aware of your fears and work through them. Humans are born with two real fears, height and predators. Any other fear is a hallucination.

Once we had come in, the rain started to layer the Chinatown streets with deep puddles. It was 2 o’clock in the morning. We’d just come from a dark club and our eyes hadn’t adjusted to the florescent lit diner. I threw up two fingers.

“Choose any table,” a waiter said in his fresh off the plane accent.

My close friend and I chose a table by the window. Layers of prior meals washed with soiled napkins and warm tea made the table sticky, dingy. The menus were well worn by repeated usage from drunk bar hoppers. The faint smell of the kitchen and the light clanging of ladles striking woks percolated.

An older waitress strolled to our table and grinned, turning her eyes to slanted slits. Cheeks healthy with the greasy foods the wait staff must eat every night. “Ready to ohdah?”

I nodded and ordered the Hong Kong style noodles, combination. Not the best to keep my girlish figure, but it was late and I was starving. My friend only eats kosher and just drank water.

Just then two men were seated directly behind me. One of them had gelled, brown hair that flared out like he jumped out of a plane. He plopped down and the back of his chair shoved mine forward. I thought I was going to tip over. So I leaned back against his chair. The waiter took their order and left. Crazy hair leaned back against the chair. I pushed back. This went on for five minutes.

Deciding I didn’t want to do this anymore, I turned around in my chair, tapped his shoulder and was about to ask him to move his chair up.

“Why you touching me?” Crazy Hair said. He was Colombian.

“Can you move your–”

Crazy Hair stands up, throws his hands to the side. “Why you touching me? You want to do something?”

“You’re hitting the back of my chair,” I said.

“You hitting, too. It’s not my fault.”

At this point I don’t remember the conversation much. My teacher always taught me to deescalate the situation. But once Crazy stood up, threw his arms to the side, deescalation went out the window. He took a position of power, standing up, and began to antagonize me. He was going to hit me.

My mind became silent. My body wanted to tense up, but it didn’t. I remained calm. I was highly aware of my right arm, ready to launch. My legs were well prepared to leap up. My abs sat on the edge of clenching. I was staring right in to his milky green, brown eyes, watching for a flicker. The flicker that telegraphs movement. My peripheral vision kept a close watch of his hands. Any sudden, sharp movement made, and my body would have exploded. I could feel it edging closer and closer to attacking. My spoken words were broken because I wasn’t listening to what he said.

“I’m just joking, man. I’m not from this country,” Crazy Hair said, waving his hands around my face.

I put my hands on my chin to block anything he may try. “You’re Colombian, right?”

“How do you know?”

“I used to have a close friend who was Colombian.”

“Ah.” He laughs. He looks over at my friend, who happens to be my teacher. “You look bothered.”

I’d totally forgot my friend was there. His 6’2″ frame was imposing. But it’s nothing compared to his stare. When I looked over, my teacher was ready to pounce. “I’m not bothered,” my friend said, and smiled. His eyes didn’t.

“I’m sorry. I’m not from this country,” Crazy repeats. “Sometimes I go crazy cuz of my blood. Come over, sit with us.”

I looked at his friend who seemed calm. Why was he so calm?

“Come sit with us.”

I said no.

“What? I’m apologize for this, but if you want to go to what we do before, let’s do it.”

Tsing Tao beers were served. Crazy’s friend egged him to sit down in Spanish. After a minute, Crazy pulled his chair to the side and sat down. I’ve been in amateur full contact fights, but this was pretty intense. In a tournament fight, I know I’m going to fight. Last night, however, would have been my first real fight. Win or lose, I was ready. My friend/teacher was ready. With their drunken stupor and poor judge of character, I’m sure we would have prevailed and spent the night behind bars for doing so.

When I taught at my old martial arts school, one thing we taught was intensity coupled with kiaing.  For those of you who don’t know, kiaing is a short or long scream or yell while striking.  But let me tell you.  Our school used to kiai at the top of our lungs (one of the reasons I left the school).

First off, no one fights like this.  You’d spend more energy yelling your head off if you did.  The worst part is when a student ends their technique with a five minute kiai, long after the strike has been delivered.  Their philosophy is that in a fight or a life and death situation people tend to forget to breath.  And that’s true.  That’s why when you listen to boxers fight, they breath out crisply with a hiss.  Kinda like a cobra striking.

During belt tests, we would watch students scream as they performed their techniques.  We would then convene and discuss each students’ intensity as if we were judging the taste of wine.

Pure crap! (see my bio)

Then I go to the gym, and I see very little intensity.  I’ll give you an example.

This girl who was doing leg presses caught my eye.  Now, I know what you’re thinking.  She was hot.  Just because she wore tight black ankle pants that showed off her narrow waist, flowing down to her round hips, a bright pink top that accentuated her bust line, showing off her flat stomach, and she pouted her red plush lips and flung long brown hair, doesn’t mean I found her attractive.  What caught my eye was her lacsadaisical leg presses as she leisurely texted on her blackberry.

I don’t think she’s very focused.

Or a guy who does one set of  curls, talks to his friend for twenty minutes, does another set, wipes his forehead, and continues his conversation about the the hot girl doing the leg presses, is not focused on his workout.  Then he complains that whatever he does, he can’t seem to get the definition or size he wants.

I wonder why?

I love working out, but I don’t spend much time at the gym.  Do your workout.  Hit it hard.  Get your heart pumping.  Increase your metabolism.  Then leave.

Is this prevalent in other gyms?

For the past three years, I’ve lived a life of all in. I have my square day job. But my passion is my novel. Not surprising my story explores my provincial thought of the day.

Imagine a round wooden peg like the ones toddlers play with. They have to fit it in the round hole. Easy enough. So why is it that most people try and cram themselves, often beating themselves in the head, into a square hole? Not only is the round peg damaged, frustrated, but the square hole is frayed and still square.

Shouldn’t life be as simple as fitting the round peg in the round hole? If your passion is Whoppah! Gung Fu, and you knew Whoppah! style was kick ass. Shouldn’t you follow your dream of opening a Whoppah! dojo and teach other people how to Whoppah!?

Isn’t it right that we should put all our eggs in one basket?

The dudes that sit in their highchairs, my managers, want to move me to an office where the energy sucks. Other people have said the same. They know I don’t like the energy, and, by moving me there, I’ll have to drive there, polluting the air. They don’t care.

And I’m the round peg that they’re trying to fit in their square hole. What should the long round peg do?

I’ve read a lot of books regarding success and personal growth.  There are three main things they focus on.  The way you think, the way you feel, and the way you act.

One of the biggest publishing successes for personal growth was The Secret.  I have a copy of it.  It’s main focus is thought.  Think it, dream it, and voila, it appears.

One  main thing it skims over is action.  The book refers to Jack Canfield.  It’s actually my favorite part of the book.  One of the things he did was write a check out for $100,000 dollars and every morning he looked at it.  Then he got an idea, an inspiration to write a book.  He sold the book for .25 cents each.  He followed the golden nuggets of inspiration, advertised in the National Inquirer, and sold close to 400,000 copies.  Not only did he basically reach his envisioned goal, he celebrated.  Then he got another idea to write something called Chicken Soup for the Soul.  It was a bit successful.  If you call a major hit a bit.

What’s the moral of the story?  Know where you are.  Know where you want to be.  Act on it.  Do something about it.  Just do it.  Sound familiar?  A small shoe company uses that slogan.

Years ago, my best friend and I were debating about what was more important.  Positive thought or Action thought.  What do you think?

You can wish to win the lottery, but until you buy a ticket, it’s unlikely you’re going to win.

Personally, positive thought is overrated.  Progressive thought, on the other hand, is awesome.  You want something?  Go for it.  Take the first step toward it.  Too many people want the success without putting the work behind it.  Think what you need to do to get what it is you want.

My friend coined the term progressive thought.  Thought that moves you toward your goal.  You want to be a great sprinter?  Sprint.  Want to be a great snowboarder?  Snowboard.  Want to write the great American novel?  Write.

And a small word on positive thinking.  It’s not about thinking positively, but ignoring the crap that doesn’t help you.  If a friend came up to you and said, “I wanna be an actor.”  Most people would be like, “Good luck, dude.  It’s like totally hard, man, and it’s so not practical.”  DON’T LISTEN TO THAT CRAP!  Let it roll off your back, have a progressive thought like, “I’m going to take acting classes.”  You are now one step closer toward your dream.  Isn’t that what Tom Hanks did?  Read his story.  It’s amazing.

Just do it.