I have my poisons…

I’ve had multiple poisons over the years that I’ve leaned on to help me through stress and boredom, ensure I get to work every day and take care of business for love, hell even keep me training daily in haphazard martial arts like some directionless moron for the last two years.

Currently I lean on three (poisons as they would be considered in the societies I claim membership in, that is) – booze, cigarettes, and cannabis.

Well, cannabis for me is straight up medicine – the green goddess so to speak – so Imma scratch that off the list of poisons and add that sweet herb to my list of medicines (which is basically that, working out, and eating the occasional salad swimming in creamy dressing.)

That leaves me leaning on two poisons, and there’s really no other way to look at booze and ciggies as anything other than just that. Poisons with some side medicinal benefits no doubt, delectable poisons for easily bored, self-anointed revolutionaries of course, but poisons nonetheless.

Now, this ain’t some cry for help. Nos is it some false-humility-laden, sunshine-up-your-ass clarion call to go all drug free and shit. I like my medicines and poisons sans hypocrisy or bullshit self-justification.

It’s just interesting is all.

I’m also trying to understand why.

I think it’s the constant need for higher realisation no matter how dangerous or self-involved.

To be honest though, I also just fucking like it.

The trick is to ensure it’s fuel and not torpor.

And to always defend the matriarchy.

KALIAMMAN VAZHGAI

SUSAMMAN VAZGAI

RADHAMMAN VAZGHAI

DAYA KUTTI VAZHGAI

FAIZ BOOBOO VAZHGAI

MOLLY POO VAZHGAI

(rumi, vaddu…i see you my brothers)

Why daily martial arts matters to me…

Mostly in the form of shadow boxing to music or doing circuits of pushups, burpees, and squats…but still.

It keeps me grounded, humble even. Has me dancing with my demons rather than fearing them.

But it’s tough to train every day. Just go ahead and try it. A week. A month. When you get past a year let me know what it felt like, then go for one more.

Then imagine doing it for life.

It is now necessarily part of the noble grind, shorn of romance but yet filled with perennial learning and hope.

I’m in that place now. Poisons and all. I’ve been making them count, and training every day for the last two years. As you can tell I’m proud but also see a long journey ahead and want to ensure there are more adventures to mark the endless path in front of me.

Every goddamn day. I’ve fixed it at a modest half hour (cos I walk a crap load too, what with a puppy now being my everything, including a daily 90 minute constitutional).

I prep for my training with the green goddess, me great healing plant. She has helped me be as successful as I’ve been in keeping it going these last two years.

Sure there will be days when stomach bugs and sabbaticals from said goddess change the “training” to basically messing around with easy drills while watching TopTenzNet on YouTube. Some shitty workout days will have to be balanced out with better ones.

It’s ok. I’m not aiming for perfection.

Just peace of mind and clarity of soul.

Wow…is Tyson Fury my homeboy?

Tyson Fury is a heavyweight boxing star, a former world champion from proud, humble roots, who also happens to have said some atrociously sexist, homophobic things in the past that prove yet again why us men are truly the weakest of the genders.

Sorry, I’m one of those sports nuts who cannot separate the personhood of the athlete from their athletic achievements. Or whatever personhood I can garner from reading between the lines with cursory reads of articles on my phone.

So I kinda felt a little disgusted by Tyson Fury with my initial introductions to him from the media. But I also remember feeling a touch of pity. Toxic masculinity is usually interred with trauma and mental health struggles. All men know this to some degree or the other.

It was almost too easy to predict and eventually witness the inevitable fall once he reached his pinnacle. Considering the trauma he had taken in (and possibly inflicted on the world in a myriad ways), it played out like tragicomic theater.

For fame, wealth, status, and glory – unlike love and liberation – are but fleeting, no matter at what level they’re first experienced.

But they’re heady drugs nonetheless.

And fall he did from those highs.

Depression. Abuse. Deathliness.

Until he changed the script.

Embraced his vulnerabilities. Learnt to walk before he could get back to doing road work and train.

Paid heed to the knowledge of others but trusted his heart. Got his comeback title bid.

Fought like a dancer tossing away diamond-encrusted shackles.

And got up before the 10 count like he was waking up to an alarm clock – almost like he had trained himself to wake up, every morning, getting ahead of the dark clouds day after day in his comeback bid.

Tyson Fury came away with a draw that didn’t get him the belt but got him as deep a smile as I’ve ever seen on a man who’s really trying to dance with his demons.

And this time around, after the rush of the fight, he seems ready for the struggle to commence.

The righteous struggle.

The noble daily grind for love and liberation that all of us must find our peace in.

I think this sexist homophobe might just be a homeboy of mine.

(Well…as long as he don’t mind arguing while we spar.)