24 October 2023

Today I’m hoping to move a pile of rocks today. I’m going to try filming it while some music is playing because my brother had mentioned it would be good with Hearts on Fire. I happen to have the Rocky IV soundtrack on vinyl with that song and Eye of the Tiger on it. When David Goggins would make attempts at the world record for pull ups in a day there were times he would play a Rocky song on loop. I wonder what sort of impact that movie and it’s music made on physical fitness. As a kid one of my first fitness goals was running to the stop sign at the end of the street without stopping, back then I listened to Rocky music in my “walk man” on a burned CD. Kids today won’t know the pain of running with a CD and it skipping because of the movement. I don’t know how my body can do the things it does, outside of heavy manual labor, I take care with every twist or bend to prevent injury. When I’m focused it feels like I’m wearing a super suit making any thought a possibility. When the work is done, I stand back asking who did it, certainly couldn’t have been me. Perhaps that’s mental toughness, changing my feeling body into a machine. Yesterday I went over to the neighbors house to play with the kids, she was asking me about my time in the Army and if I was scared to death all the time. I told her my dad gave me a scapular, the idea being those who die wearing it go to heaven, that it was like a bulletproof vest. That’s part of the answer, other parts are that no one showed fear and if they did they’d be seen as unfit for duty, so fear wasn’t something going through my mind. I’m the greatest, how could I be the greatest if I die?