THROUGH TH3 WALL: Here's Your Sign

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Here's Your Sign

HOW cute is this little guy!? Yeah I couldn't resist, he was right there close to the fence and I had to get off my bike and pet him.

So apparently there was a sign, I've since been told after just about sending myself to Jesus in the middle of my Amish country ride this past Sunday. A sign was supposed to be posted... didn't I see the sign for God's sake??

Not the nice big orange WARNING placard mind you, nor the one that said -- whilst enveloped in flashing lights -- something to the effect of "high voltage" or "keep away". No no, didn't I see the little white disintegrating warning label pasted on the fence?

Uhh, yeah the answer is no. I'm afraid I saw no such ...sign.

Now being that I grew up in the city, I, of course, had no idea farm fences were "hot-wired", e.g. coursing with electricity to keep the farm animals away from them. In fact, for the last three years I've ridden my bike past all manner of cattle and horses and such all the while thinking, wow, just that little bit of wire keeps them in there huh? They're so well-behaved... Guh. Well, for the rest of you oh-so naive, city reared but born again country boys and girls like me out there, here's your PSA in big capital letters: Why no, NO IT DOESN'T.

So, what can we learn from my shocking little story here, hmm? How about this: no matter how cute the baby beasts of burden may be, take my advice and don't stick your arm through the wires unless you categorically spanked your opponents at the game of Operation as a kid, because oh yes my friends, the actual zap when you touch the sides really does buzz like that.

12 Comments:

Jeff said...: I think the horses set you up.. They put the cute little guy up front to lure you in.; 10:19 PM
Fe-lady said...: We used to dare each other to touch hot fences...just for fun. Some were "hotter" than others.
Had to have something to do in rural Ohio....!; 10:27 PM
Wil said...: Ha, no doubt Jeff. Man it was kind of worth it though, he was totally adorable and like... frolicked over to me. Just debilitatingly cute!

Fe-Lady, holy cow this one was pretty hot. Looking at the pic there you'd think I'd have noticed the big freaking electrical looking RED wire there at the top huh?? Too funny, now I know!; 10:46 PM
Jennifer P said...: As a farm girl, I couldn't help but snort milk out my nose. Sorry, too funny.; 11:02 PM
Jason said...: As a kid growing up in Indiana we used to dare each other to pee on the fence :) Guys that only works for guys.; 6:19 AM
Triseverance said...: Live and learn Wil. Funny story, as a young boy I was told there was a dead cat just beyond an electric fence. As childhood morbid curoisity gripped me I grabbed the wire with both hands to lean and look over. Let me tell you I have been afraid or electric fences ever since. And children rolling on the ground laughing makes my hands tingle.; 8:31 AM
Alili said...: Sorry, I had to laugh:) I grabbed on to a fence like that at the tender age of 4 and have been leary ever since.; 10:25 AM
Fumo Santo said...: It's shocking that you would do such a thing. What would spark a decision like that? At least you're okay, so go relax and pop open a can of Jolt cola.

Okay, I'm done.; 4:27 PM
JohnnyTri said...: Living in Nebraska those were fun past time party favorites! Lol. Glad u didn't get jolted.

Waitn on my email, :)

Rockon'; 1:51 AM
triguyjt said...: ohh my god, i remember operation...but it could not have been as shocking as the fence...; 9:42 AM
triguyjt said...: This post has been removed by the author.; 9:42 AM
Wes said...: Yea, it was a trap, much like those images of debilitating cuteness :-); 11:51 AM

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Well, crashing is never fun, and having fallen on my face several times throughout the course of my life, I've learned that there's something to be said for living with a mouth full of dirt: spitting mud is inevitably better than spitting blood, especially when falling in the first place is the result of my own carelessness.

So, I guess that putting up with the grains of sand crunching between my teeth for an eon up the road is just the price I have to pay for the mercy of the trade off. Maybe that's the real meaning of, "grit your teeth" and bear it - clever, in a kind of kick in the head sort of way - but OK. So just get back on the bike.

I will get where I'm going eventually, and at least it looks like I'm on the right path now. 15, 25, 56, 112...the miles don't go on forever. I just have to slow down a little bit and watch for what's up ahead. Low branches go for the throat, and hitting them at a fast pace is usually a race ender to say the least.

Relax, I'll tell myself, covering this kind of ground is always a pain in the ass.

I hate the feeling of other people's bubbles.

Race Day: To give up the day-to-day luxuries of the masses for the luxury of a day the masses will never have.

I will let it roll in and rain down, and I will ride through it.

Shake out the little rocks before they cause big problems in the long run.

Bring me hail and angry skies, ominous clouds for miles and miles.

Wrap the gale around my eyes and let all of the devils loose for a while.
Let them run and stomp my fires, let them come and lock my tires for in these falls I have learned something of pain.

I have learned to absorb it and to get up again.

Physical pain is finite.

Physical ability can be carved, mental toughness can be forged, but passion must be born. It takes flesh and blood and heart and guts. And that's why you have to bleed to be the best.

Get up.
It sucks.
Then it doesn't.
Go train.
It sucks.
Then it doesn't.
Always.
In that order.

Spring Cleaning Core Beliefs

Crossroads come along now and then... they're proof that I'm getting somewhere.

If I am to fall, let me fall, for I would not surrender. If I am to bleed, let me bleed, for I would not die unscathed.

Given this, at the very least I can say, as I lie there under the weight of having lost, that I believed this much in myself.

And at the most, I will be remembered a warrior.

Potential is amazing. Determination is liberating. So the way I see it, there's not much out there that need be terribly intimidating...

It takes far more effort to compose a rationale for not doing than it does to actually do.

By the time you've sorted all of the reasons to stay in bed, invented just the right excuse that facilitates the injection of your perfectly prescribed justification, you'd be halfway out the door. Ironically, the easiest way around is through.

Take it out of the 53. Don't make things harder than they need to be.

They say the hardest part of anything hard is starting, and looking back on my life, I'd have to agree. More importantly however, it seems the longer we put off starting, the harder whatever it is we'd like to accomplish seems to become, and I wonder if this were more apparent - if this were the default adage - we'd wait so long to begin chasing down what it is we'd "if only" have.

Clearly had I known this, I'd have undoubtedly just begun.

We are the potential of our strengths and limitations of our weaknesses, and the first step in navigating both is to start embracing them - in their entirety - as our own. I think only then can we ever hope to mold them into what we'd have them be, and ideally, maybe even realize they're already what we've been trying to embody all along.

The less I think and the more I accept, the farther I'll go and the happier I'll be. I will succeed organically, because this is what's in me.

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"First, say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do."
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The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
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"What we have is based upon moment-to-moment choices of what we do. In each of those moments, we choose.

We either take a risk and move toward what we want, or we play it safe and choose comfort. Most of the people, most of the time, choose comfort.

In the end, people either have excuses or experiences; reasons or results; buts or brilliance.

They either have what they wanted or they have a detailed list of all the rational reasons why not."
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"You will be what you will to be; let failure find its false content in that poor word 'environment,' but spirit scorns it, and is free,

It masters time, it conquers space, it cows that boastful trickster Chance, and bids the tyrant Circumstance uncrown and fill a servant's place.

The human Will, that force unseen, the offspring of a deathless Soul, can hew the way to any goal, though walls of granite intervene.

Be not impatient in delay, but wait as one who understands; when spirit rises and commands, the gods are ready to obey.

The river seeking for the sea confronts the dam and precipice, yet knows it cannot fail or miss; you will be what you will to be!"
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night."
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~ Hamlet

"When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you.

After being severely wounded two weeks before my 19th birthday, I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it, then I could do it too, and the best thing was not to worry about it."
~ Ernest Hemingway

"The minute you start talking about what you're going to do if you lose, you have lost."
~ George Shultz

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Here's Your Sign

12 Comments:

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