My peak as a runner came in my late forties. Before then I’d aimed at running a full marathon in three and a half hours, a pace of exactly one kilometer in five minutes, or one mile in eight. Sometimes I broke three and a half hours,
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“since it is the experience that gives traveling its value and not the traveling unto itself, you may want to focus on having adventures instead of just merely travel. For example, I have individually “traveled” to: The Wind River mountain range in Lander, Wyoming. Dinosaur National Monument in Vernal, Utah. Canyonlands National Park in Moab, Utah. The Grand Canyon outside Williams, Arizona. And The Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas, Nevada. And each individual visit was fun and enjoyable in its own regard. But what I really want to do is raft the Green and Colorado Rivers, which connect all those locations above. This will not only send me through the Flaming Gorge of Utah, but the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers in the canyons of Dinosaur Park, the heart of Canyonlands National Park, Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, and inevitably a long paddle across Lake Meade to the Hoover Dam. It will be a genuine, epic, Indiana Jones adventure that very few, if any people, have ever done. And instead of a mere picture of the Hoover Dam or the Grand Canyon comfortably taken from a paved road, when my little nieces ask me, “What did you do, Uncle Aaron” I won't say, “I went to Paris and sat at a cafe.” I will say, “Uncle Aaron kayaked the whole damn Green and Colorado rivers from Wyoming to the Hoover Dam!” This doesn't mean we all have to become Larry Ellison, sailing around the world or racing in regattas. But having adventures as opposed to mere site seeing will add an inordinate amount of purpose and meaning to your life, not to mention a lot of fun.”
― The Menu: Life Without the Opposite Sex
― The Menu: Life Without the Opposite Sex
“There is something unique about taking a linear multi-day journey on foot. The day walker starts and finishes at the same spot – after his walk’s end he will return to the familiar, to his routine, to a place where nothing has changed. If you take a longer journey – let’s call it a trek – your home comes with you on your back, every day’s end is different, and every morning you wake up somewhere else. The routine you follow is decided in a dialogue between you and the land you walk through. The trekker is constantly asking questions. How long will it take to get to the next shelter? Can I make it to that village? Will I run out of food? The answers to those questions decide where the trekker sleeps, the view he sees when he wakes in the morning, what challenges the coming day will bring.”
― The Last Hillwalker: A sideways look at forty years in Britain's Mountains
― The Last Hillwalker: A sideways look at forty years in Britain's Mountains
“Plan B/Second Citizenship Without going into a long and boring economic analysis, first world countries have a sundry amount of structural problems that may make living and working in them no longer tenable. And while it may be a tedious chore on par with creating a will or doing your taxes, it would pay for every man today to diversify into another country. This can be in the form of attaining a second citizenship, gaining permanent residency in another country, or simply having a piece of property overseas. But the larger point is to be able to survive and maintain your standard of living in the case your home country collapses or simply becomes too hostile. People will mock and scoff at this, thinking you're crazy. And hopefully they're right. Hopefully, you're just a crazy libertarian who reads too many economic reports and you're overly pessimistic. But keep in mind these are the same people who said “housing only goes up” and that “dotcoms are the future” and that “any degree is a good degree” and “inflation is transitory.” They are also the same people who said, “the Titanic can't sink!” and foolishly think their marriages will last until “death do them part.” Be wise. Invest the time in building a metaphorical life raft just in case the Titanic does sink. You don't have to mention it to people, and to avoid ridicule you shouldn't. But quietly investigate your genealogy, find out if you can get citizenship elsewhere, travel overseas, and make sure you have a sovereign life raft.”
― The Menu: Life Without the Opposite Sex
― The Menu: Life Without the Opposite Sex
“In the anointed we find a whole class of supposedly “thinking people” who do remarkably little thinking about substance and a great deal of verbal expression. In order that this relatively small group of people can believe themselves wiser and nobler than the common herd, we have adopted policies which impose heavy costs on millions of other human beings, not only in taxes but also in lost jobs, social disintegration, and a loss of personal safety. Seldom have so few cost so much to so many.”
― The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
― The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
“I do not believe in the social sciences or sociological studies. I think the fields are completely bunk and bogus, and are more of a welfare jobs program for unemployable hacks who have political agendas rather than any serious study into society with the goal of helping - let alone resolving - the sociological problems that plague it. If there was any veracity in the social sciences, we would have solved poverty, crime, divorce, racial/sexual gaps, unemployment, etc., long ago, and the fact these scourges continue to exist – and are in most cases, worsening – is proof enough these “fields” are of no value, perhaps even damaging to society.”
― The Book of Numbers: Analyzing the ROI on the Pursuit of Women
― The Book of Numbers: Analyzing the ROI on the Pursuit of Women
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