DAY 15: KAIDIE HAS A NEW SUPERPOWER FOR 2010: LAUNCHING THE MIND over MATTER PLUGIN aka THE M&M PLUGIN (TM). Apologies, you can’t download it – BUT I will share it at my first real-life appearance on 20:00hrs 26 January in Villa Straeuli, Winterthur, Switzerland. So, COME!
Being that time of the year when we come up with new resolutions in desperate bids to triumph over evil habits, I have been terribly busy with my Winter assignment, that of coming up with a new superpower. Being already quite perfect as I am, what do I need? That was a tough one that had my mind all bogged down. However, today I invented one. Although it remains a state secret, I would like to reward you, my loyal Dear Readers of my Life 3.0 travel blog, by sharing with you the fruits of my labour here: I have willed myself a brand new plugin*, in time for the New Year: that of the Mind Over Matter (M&M) superpower.
* A brief note about superpowers of the 21st century, for the benefit of you, mere mortals: We post-911 superheroes no longer enter phone booths to put on crimson briefs over blue tights. Pink is better, but faster still are plugins (no learning curve!!). Simply switch them on, and I am ready to save the worlds.
Above: low-res photo of Kaidie's high-res brains (from my Blackberry).
My M&M plugin (NO, I am not abbreviating it to ‘MoM’ because I deplore all you righteous simpletons Freudian/Lacanian/Oprah/Jerry Springer/Psychobabble Crunchy Nutheads trying to read into all these and NO, I am not in denial so kindly piss off) is most formidable, as with all of my other superpowers. I installed my M&M plugin this afternoon during my run at Regents Fark.
Allow me to explain, my Dear Readers. My right ankle was in a sort of a strain the first 4km of my 15km run yesterday. I was nearly limping. This afternoon, again, the right ankle was moaning in a dull tone – and this time for more than 6km! So Kaidie was presented with 2 choices: 1) ignore the moans of my sissy ankle, or 2) listen to my sissy ankle, give up the run, walk (slowly) home (in shame).
It was a no-brainer. Although I do not own any Triumph bra or panties for they are too momsy (SHUT UP again you psychobabblecrunchynuts), I am a never-say-die (until 09.09.2012 that is) Triumphant Triumphalist. I am no chicken! For, I am a hamster, remember! NOW get that! In Life 3.0, there is a 3rd choice: my brilliantly fertile mind got working, and there and then, at Regents Fark, I invented the M&M plugin, which I uploaded and installed immediately. I do not mean to boast (with my 3rdlifer modesty and terrific solo-auto upbringing) but with the M&M superpower, the rest of my 15km run today was chicken feed. No ankle strain or anything mundane like that, or rather, if there was,any, it did not matter. The M&M plugin WORKS and is RUNNING WELL (pun intended)!
For those who lack imagination, I have decided to help you (this being the oh-so-jolly season of giving and sharing, afterall!) I have taken a photo of my brains (please see above). The superpower plugins are the bits sticking up on the left (more to come). As clearly illustrated here, my mind is quite fertile, as I am of a fertile age (although, nothankyouverymuch, we are against reproduction philosophically – Kaidie is extremely principled as [self-]righteous, if you didn’t already know) – but of course, if you recall the circumstance of my birth, which was the cesspool of poo, my primary source of nutrients.
Oh goody, I’m really into the festive mood now.
4 LAPS AROUND REGENTS FARK: MIND OVER MATTER (IF IT MATTERS AT ALL)
Feeling particularly energetic on the first day of my life, I run 4 laps around Regents Fark. Including the distance to and from my starting point, I run a total of approximately 24km today. This is good for today, and although it is a long way towards even attempting to pay back for the damage I have done and will do, as well as to pay back for my stubborn continual existence in spite of all this, it is a start, and a continual effort. As we know well, much of what Confucius says is rather dodgy, but the one thing he says about any change starting from oneself makes some sense.
I began running in the final year of my previous life. Prior to that I had been swimming 1.5km daily. I took part in my first half marathon and came in at 2 hours and a bit. As my wish to run my 1st marathon could not be fulfilled in my previous life, I will have to do it this life, by Summer 2010. If it takes me 5 hours, so be it. 8 hours, 10 hours, until the volunteers have all packed up to leave, until the cleaners have cleaned up the last crushed paper cup and runner’s poo on the streets the next morning, that is fine. I will run / walk / crawl / jump / fly / swim. Physical pain I can battle – the only thing I have to fight now is boredom. Being so young, my attention span is awfully short. I struggle to stay focused in any single activity for a stretch of several minutes, much less several hours (or years, or lifetimes). I think of 5 other things as I do one thing; linear events exhaust and bore me, as I already imagine travelling to 6 other places in 7 other directions. (That was how I got tired of my previous life, as it was going on for a while). (How I look forward to Life 3.0, then, since I am not bound by the trivial constraints of time and space! I will be able to do what I want, when I want, however I want it! More on this later…) Monotony is a weakness, though endurance is my strength. (Afterall, I have managed to endure myself all those years and life cycles). The only things that keep me going when running or swimming long distances is my imagination and willpower. Hopefully, by Summer, I will be older (more than 6 months old) and will have cultivated enough patience to not feel bored too quickly.
DO YOU KNOW OF ANY UPCOMING RACES? DO LET KAIDIE KNOW! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU ARE RUNNING?
Running today at Regents Fark, 2 runners smile at me – huge smiles. I get suspicious and wonder if it is my unbecoming running gait that so amuses them – afterall I am a newborn and my movement remains awkward – but one of the cops carrying a large toy gun at Binfield House and another passerby both shout hello. On my way home, another says ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and sticks out his hand to make me slap it as I passed by. Although I have run in several cities in my previous life, this friendliness is rather refreshing (a couple of the few fellow runners I encountered in Tokyo, Fukuoka and Beppu in Papan did nod at me; people in Spore primarily stare disapprovingly at my folly of running under the hot sun as they sit fat in their air-conditioned cars in their air-conditioned carnation; in Oxford in Yengland some dogs looked like they were smiling, or perhaps those were their default teeth-&-tongue-revealing faces which do not necessarily translate as the human equivalent of smiling?).
WHY ON EARTH ARE OTHER RUNNERS AND PEOPLE AND ANIMALS SMILING AT KAIDIE? DO YOU THINK KAIDIE SHOULD SMILE BACK ? WHAT KIND OF SMILE SHOULD SHE ATTEMPT? SHOULD KAIDIE INITIATE SMILES? HOW MANY TIMES IN, SAY, A 10km RUN SHOULD KAIDIE ATTEMPT TO SMILE? LIKE AN AVERAGE OF 1 SMILE PER 100m? PER 1000m? WHAT ABOUT WHEN SHE IS RUNNING ON THE TREADMILL IN THE GYM?
Camus concludes that Sisyphus must be happy – good for him, and him, but let me tell you, my dear reader, that the 1st 3km of any long run is always the most dreaded. As I run I protest/resist/fight/struggle and say, NO, I do not want to do this, this bloody hurts / this is no fun / I’d rather spend £4.50 to swim at the Union pool / I’d rather spend 45p to pay another version of myself doing this / I’d rather sit on my buttocks and do nothing and get furious for sitting on my buttocks and for doing nothing and sitting on my buttocks and for doing nothing but getting angry while sitting on my buttocks / I’d rather get greasy and let the calories choke my bloodstream and expire before the 1000-day duration / I rather slurp my own poo (with syrup) several litres over until I am flooded and I drown in, than to put one feet in front of the other, why do I have to do this of all people of this and other worlds / realities, why do I have to do this now of all my lifetimes. I have about 34,000 excuses that I come up with, looped, each and every time. Then after 3 km, I give up protesting as it gets boringly predictable as a broken record or a dislocated kaidie for that matter. Can’t go on, must go on, since there is no other options. So I go on. In the numbing repetitive motion, something else happens physically/psychologically. I begin to enjoy the groove and rhythm (never mind my beastly gait). I am there, much aware of my surroundings, and at the same time I am travelling elsewhere, as lucid as I am slightly intoxicated, somewhere that no one else is, where no one can touch me, where I am very much alone, feeling strong/alert/erect as much as I am unclenched/dreamy/soft where I am not fighting anymore, and am calm, at peace. So I push on. And on. My mind thinks of no thing, and it is aware that it is thinking of no thing. I remember getting there sometimes with my 1.5km swims in my previous life. It’s rather nice – and what’s nicer is the knowledge that it’s all MINE! Kaidie as a 3rd Lifer is a fabulous person and all that but she is also selfish when it comes to pleasure. Sorry!
Today is particularly interesting. At the 24th km, I not only feel calm, but happy. It is nice to feel happy. Then, I feel a large pair of plastic wings stapled onto my shoulders.
Original composition by PHILIP TAN
