Bookstore Musings

In a bookstore in south city, about to head out to my first training session with my new “MMA coach”. We just sort of stumbled upon one another, but I instantly took a liking to him. We compliment each other in that he studies the science of the martial arts and training methodologies, possessing an impressive encyclopedic knowledge of what is on the ‘cutting edge’ of MMA. I am the practical application of this knowledge, the prototype, the experiment. I am curious to see where this relationship takes us. If we were characters in the movie Blade, I would be the vampire hunter and he would without a doubt be Wesler, the gruff and wizened old guy who makes all of the weaponry J

Later I’m off to another gym to spar and do some jiujitsu rolling. Then its back to my friend’s house in South City to put him through a training session in exchange for a couch to sleep on and good company. In My Ishmael Dan Quinn, speaking to us through the telepathic gorilla Ishmael, tells us that the Taker economy, our economy, is based on the following equation: Give productsèReceive products. The Leaver, or tribal economy, the economy our species has known for hundreds of thousands of years, is based on this equation: Give SupportèReceive support. Now that I stand slightly outside of the normal economic life I was used to living this form of economic transaction has moved to the foreground. I believe this way of interacting with the people in our lives builds the kind of real, truly human network, that we so desperately need. When we sacrificed societies based on genuine human interactions in favor of widespread human ‘ownership’, something fundamental to our well-being and happiness was lost…