Friday, December 29, 2017


I think this is the first time that I've been the subject of a video interview! It was both nerve-wracking, as I had no idea how it would turn out, but simultaneously an enjoyable time to talk about a career and lifestyle that I'm passionate about. A big thanks to Scott and Diane Cotter for helping make me look good!


Wednesday, December 27, 2017
To many, mountain biking is about having fun and enjoying the great outdoors in a healthy way. There are many different sub-sets of mountain biking and many different reasons why people ride, but I think the very core of why we choose to ride is because we enjoy it and it makes our lives better.
If mountain biking is all about having fun, why are mountain biking forums and websites full of some of the most hateful people around?

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Over time, I’ve gradually nurtured what’s now an extreme aversion to people telling me that I should do things. In the past couple of months, it’s come to a head. Now, whenever I hear or read that word, especially when it’s in the phrase “you should X,” my body tenses up and I am now doubly inclined to do the exact opposite, consequences be damned. (With the one or two obvious exceptions, because everybody has to answer to somebody.) But I’m not sure exactly where this aversion has come from. Granted, I’ve always been a bit anti-authoritarian in a subdued cuss-out-the-teacher-behind-their-back sort of way, but why this relatively recent aversion to the word “should”?

I think it has to do with the phraseology. If someone just asked me to do something, I could say no. Or I could say yes. The ball’s in my court.

When the word “should” is brought into the picture, the implication is that I should have already done this, and that the reasoning why it’s important is so self-evident that the shoulder doesn’t feel the need to even craft an argument defending their assertion.

Finally, the biggest problem is that because of how the shoulding is structured, it’s as if the person has automatically deposited yet another item onto your mile-long to-do list. Since they assume that the conclusion is forgone, it’s common for the shoulder to come up to you later and say, “so, did you do X?”

And when you say “no,” inevitably they’re disappointed in you and let down.

This rule of shoulding applies to menial things that I don’t want to do:
  • You should write an article about X.
  • You should read this book. 
  • You should follow this regimen.
  • You should eat kale.
  • You should lift weights in the winter.

It also applies to important things that honestly, maybe I should in fact be doing. But someone telling me that I should doesn’t help the matter any:
  • You should give to the poor.
  • You should volunteer in your community.
  • You should go to Africa and help dig wells.

So the next time you’re tempted to say “should,” try rephrasing your assertion into a question. “What if you tried…” “Would you be interested in…” “Will you please…”

And then if I want to say “no,” I can let you down immediately.
Saturday, December 23, 2017
In our teens and into our 20s, we often feel invincible. I know I did as a high schooler on downhill skis. No cliff was seemingly too big to huck my meat off even though, in Northern Wisconsin, we were usually hucking to ice sheets instead of powder landings.
I remember one day specifically when we had a dusting of an inch of fresh snow in the woods. We scraped together enough snow to build a one-foot-wide run-in that measured maybe 10 feet long, leading into a 10-foot cliff drop. The catch? There wasn’t enough snow for a landing. Instead, we were hucking to a leaf pile.
We were 15, semi-talented, and 100% fearless.
The thing is, if you play in the mountains long enough, injuries will catch up to you eventually.

Friday, December 22, 2017
When the news broke that IMBA had testified against a proposed bill, HR 1349, that would remove the blanket ban on mountain bikes in Wilderness areas, the vocal reaction of mountain bikers on social media was swift and fierce. While IMBA didn’t immediately share that testimony on their own Facebook page, many riders heard about it via other sources, including Singletracks. The comments section on a simultaneously-timed announcement of the recent IMBA Epic trail designations turned into a train wreck of negativity.
“Not going to be very many, or any, ‘Epic’ rides left if IMBA continues to support the blocking of human powered bicycling on public lands,” said Aaron Edwards in the #1 upvoted comment, with 76 reactions.
“Imagine how hikers would feel if you supported blocking their access to the mountains? That’s what you are doing in our eyes IMBA. Either have a major change of heart, or simply cease to exist. We are not asking to ride bikes on all of the trails in the wilderness. Just some, maybe just a few. How is ‘none of them’ the stance you support?
“Wilderness mountain biking is wildly compatible with other user groups and accepted throughout much of Europe, Central America, New Zealand, and our cousins to the North, Canada. Time to not fear standing up for something that matters IMBA!”
In response to the outcry, Dave Wiens, the Executive Director of IMBA, released a lengthy statement detailing IMBA’s approach to Wilderness. While some riders appreciated the response and the approach, again, all of the top-rated comments on IMBA’s Facebook page in response to Wiens’s statement took a negative turn.
“‘IMBA’s mission is to create, enhance and protect great places to ride mountain bikes. The word ‘protect’ guided and motivated us and made it imperative that IMBA not be silent on this bill,'” Brad Shelton quoted from Wiens’s statement.
“See how it says ‘protect great places to ride’? You didn’t vote to protect great places to ride, because you can’t ride there.
“Between this and the eMTBs you have completely lost your way,” Shelton concluded, in a comment that received 84 upvotes.
But as I’ve attempted to digest IMBA’s initial testimony and their subsequent statements, some issues still weren’t clear to me. Why did they testify at all? What does IMBA have to gain from this testimony? So, I reached out to IMBA in an attempt to clear up the confusion.

Thursday, December 21, 2017
The mountain bike industry is healthy–possibly the healthiest it has ever been! Or so say a dozen odd people across the industry that I’ve interviewed on the topic over the last couple of months. While the sport and the industry might be in a good place, that doesn’t mean we’re not facing challenges… and perhaps some of the biggest challenges our sport has ever faced.
While it’s human nature to want to separate these challenges into individual obstacles that need to be overcome, checking off one and then the other in sequence until we’ve created an invincible industry, the reality is much more complex. As I slowly sifted through a series of sometimes convoluted interview responses, several common threads emerged. But these various threads twisted together, one wrapping around the other, eventually tying into one giant knot of a challenge. Here, I hope to tease out the individual threads, the individual challenges that face the mountain bike industry in 2018, and how they’re related.

Saturday, December 09, 2017
Photo: Mike Harris

Sometimes you don't know the true value of what you have until it's gone. 

As such a core human experience, we've created innumerable cliches to explain it. But that doesn't make the experience any less real or any less true.

I've observed so many people pining away after something they don't have--living in a different place, working in a different job, being with different people--that they don't ever truly live in the moment by enjoying and appreciating what they already have. And sometimes, when they finally do make that jump, take initiative and make a change, they realize that what they had hoped for and wanted so badly isn't quite so incredible after all.

I've tried to take that to heart in my own life. 

This realization plays out in a number of ways, the chief one being an attempt to appreciate and fully embrace every moment for the joy that it can provide. 

Second, I try to be very careful when I hope and dream about a change, thinking that it will seemingly fix all the "problems" that I'm experiencing in life. We think the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence (there's one cliche), but when we actually cross the fence, it turns out there are way more weeds in the grass than we could see before. As a result, I do my best to temper my enthusiasm when dreaming about a change. Some changes do result in incredible things, whereas others... the weeds tend to crop up.

What motivates these thoughts today is the truism, "absence makes the heart grow fonder." (What did I tell you about cliches?) As I carefully weighed whether or not to under go ACL surgery, I knew from experience what I'd be giving up for a period of time--possibly a long period of time--in the hopes that life would then be better. Would the grass really be greener on the other side of the fence? Or would I just be trading one problem for another? Eventually, I had to take the leap. 

While I was as prepared as anyone could be for what I'd face on the other side, after four weeks of sedentary, indoors life aside from the occasional bit of physical therapy (hardly qualifying as "exercise"), my longing to get outside and adventure in the mountains has only been rekindled and stoked into a flame that never dies. 

While experiencing that passion and drive anew is agonizing in the moment as I can't act on it (I tried to walk the dog a couple days ago and managed a 0.4-mile round-trip jaunt), I know that when I return to my activity and venture back out into my mountains that the experience will be fresher and sweeter than ever before!
Wednesday, December 06, 2017
I have a question for you today: How do you define success in your own life? If you read nothing else in this column, I still invite you to scroll down to the comments section below and share your definition of success.
This is a question that I’ve been grappling with lately because, while perhaps there are societal norms of what makes a person “successful,” I think that we can each individually choose how we evaluate success in our own lives. We can create our own definition of success that is determined by ourselves, and ourselves alone.


Racer: Nino Schurter. Photo: Armin M. Küstenbrück / Scott Sports
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Dropping into the Welschtobel Valley in Switzerland in 2016.

Despite having ACL surgery three weeks ago that has relegated me to the lazy boy sidelines, I didn't want to stop sharing photos on my Instagram account because, you know, I'm just a little bit addicted. Thankfully, over the past few years I've created a folder full of photos to share to Instagram, and while I share at least one shot (usually more) every day, my back log of unshared snaps continued to pile up, until I'd amassed somewhere around 300+/- images.

While perhaps those 300 images weren't the cream-of-the-crop (because I'd already shared those), as I've delved into my archives over the last three weeks, I've unearthed some pretty great photos that had not yet seen the light of day. I guess having this opportunity to share these photographs is one silver lining to having surgery (albeit a thin one).

Here are some of the best shots I've discovered in my archives over the past three weeks:



A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on








A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on


A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on


A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on




A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on


A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on


A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on


A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on


A post shared by Greg Heil (@mtbgreg) on


And of course, if you dig what you see here, be sure to follow me on Instagram for even more photos!
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Shops roll fat tired bikes onto their showroom floors to prepare for the onset of a long, snowy winter. Riders are shaking down their snow-specific rigs, checking to make sure they have all the gear they need to brave the cold, dark, wet trails of winter—and inevitably, adding more gear to their Christmas wishlists.
Some people have argued that fat biking isn’t even really mountain biking, or is almost another sport entirely. Of course, I disagree with that sentiment—I think fat biking is one of the most important revolutions in the sport of mountain biking, ever.

Saturday, November 25, 2017


Surgery recovery can really screw with your mind. On the one hand, progress is painfully slow. After two weeks spent mostly sitting in the lazy boy, aside from doing the meager exercises that qualify as “physical therapy” twice per day and hobbling to the fridge for a beer, I’m still faced with many more days of binging on video games.

On the other side of the equation, progress from one day to another seems startling. “Did you see that?!” I exclaimed to Summer. “I just lifted my heel off the bed! I couldn’t do that yesterday!” Motor function, strength, and range of motion consistently return, getting noticeably better ever single day, and yet 16 days in I still can’t do a full pedal stroke.

One thing I’ve learned from my second go-round with ACL rehab is that when you have expectations or a drive to get to a certain physical fitness level as soon as possible, it does provide you with some motivation to do your daily exercises and put yourself through pain in the hopes that one day soon, you’ll be able to return to the sport that you love.

But when you have this type of drive, this burning desire to be better, to heal quickly, it also makes the process feel even painfully slower.

While I can never quite kick the drive to get back on the bike and get out in the mountains, which is why I’m going through this mess in the first place, in this second stint I feel like I’ve set lower standards and more modest goals than I did two years ago. Chilling out, trying not to be as driven when the drive gets me nowhere, is proving to make for a better rehab experience all around. Some days still feel dark, but once I've realize that health and recovery can’t be rushed, it relieves the pressure to perform just a little bit more.

The one major catch in this “chill and heal” strategy? Chilling just creates more time to hatch big plans…
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
I think that we don’t always get to choose what we want in life. Instead, the desire is so deep-seated within us that we feel compelled, motivated, driven, and inspired to do and be a certain type of person. For Cam, that’s throwing 360s off of massive drops–so much so, that he retired from slopestyle mountain biking last year to focus solely on preparing for this one competition in the Utah desert.

 Read more here.

Friday, November 10, 2017
“What determines your success isn’t, ‘what do you want to enjoy?'” writes Mark Manson in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. “The relevant question is, ‘What pain do you want to sustain?’“
This line struck a chord with me more than any other in his book, as it’s been proven true over and over again in my own life. Manson goes on to expound on this principle, by showing that there is pain associated with everything that we choose to do in our lives, the process of everything we strive for and seek after. The pain is just different from one thing to the next, and what indicates whether or not we will accomplish our respective goals is whether or not we’re willing to live with and embrace that pain.
Photo: Marcel Slootheer
Wednesday, November 08, 2017
By living either in the past or in the future, we miss the present–the one thing that we know for sure we possess, if momentarily. What a tragedy it would be if we missed all of our present moments, only to arrive at the end thinking, “I thought there would be more.”
Autumn’s ephemeral appearance on the mountains reminds us of this. Just a dozen days ago the trees were green, and now the leaves have already turned golden and are falling. The color is grand, but the grandeur is brief. As is life.
Live the present.

Monday, November 06, 2017
The internet accomplishes many tasks incredibly well, and it has co-opted many of the roles that Interbike used to serve. Websites like Singletracks now play a massive role in sharing new products with consumers just moments after they’re announced. You don’t have to worry that you’ll miss something, because your social media sites and inbox will be blasted with all the latest and greatest tech.
Doing business and placing orders online has revolutionized bike shop ordering. In fact, most shop buyers I talked to said that every single one of the brands they work with requires orders for product for the upcoming calendar year to be placed before Interbike even takes place.
So what does that leave us with?
Relationships.

Photo courtesy Interbike

Sunday, October 29, 2017
During one of my many transits across the great state of Kansas, I pulled off the interstate to fill up my gas tank and patronize a fine dining establishment that we don’t have access to in my hometown: Wendy’s. But as I turned on my blinker toward the exit, I noticed that the name of the town was literally “Plainsville.”
“Is there a more boring, depressing name for a town?” I found myself wondering. As I looked up and down the busy strip next to the Interstate, the fast food chains and gas stations ended quickly, taken over by flat plains filled with grain, as far as the eye could see.
Plainsville, indeed.

Photo: Kent Kanouse, via Flickr Creative Commons

Thursday, October 26, 2017
At the top of Georgia Pass on the Colorado Trail. Rider: Greg Heil. Photo: Mike Harris

Yin

Bikepacking is a complicated endeavor. Not only do you need a mountain bike and all of the accessories required to not have a horrible time riding, but you also need to own basically all of the gear that’s required for spending the night in the woods.
People complain all the time about how expensive mountain bikes are, but high end backpacking gear is pretty damn expensive too.
Basically, you need the amount of equipment required for two expensive sports. But then determining how to mesh that gear together, to use the one to carry the other, is a feat unto itself. That process requires its own set of equipment.
Once you have the equipment, figuring out how to optimize it for your own purposes is a never-ending process. After three short bikepacking trips, I’m still working to refine and perfect my setup.

Yang

On the other hand, the process of bikepacking is extremely simple. You wake up, tear down camp, feed yourself, put your gear on your bike, and ride. Then you push and pedal your bike down your chosen trail as fast or as slow as you’d like.
When you’re hungry, you eat. When you’re thirsty, you drink. When you need to answer the call of nature, you take care of business. When you reach a refreshing-looking stream, you decide if you should refill your water reservoir or not.
And when you’ve decided that you’ve had enough for the day, you look for a suitable spot to set up your tent and unroll your sleeping bag.
You feed yourself, drink a little whiskey, and the next day, you do it all over again.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Maybe it’s just me, but when it’s time to put tires to dirt, I have zero interest in these debates. Sure, I can debate with the best of them–I’ve spent more than a decade gathering enough experience to support well-informed opinions on all sorts of meaningless mountain biking minutia. Perhaps my distaste for these discussions is linked to having similar discussions in writing, on the internet, all day long (not to mention the podcast), and I’m just ready for a break from the endless analysis. All I want to hear is the simple whirring of chains through the gears and the crunching of tires on gravelly dirt.

More here.
Friday, August 18, 2017

In a world filled with lists of the “Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Productivity and Get More Stuff Done,” self help books designed to fix the flaws that we perceive in ourselves, and people striving to climb the corporate ladder, make a name for themselves, or hell — get their writing in front of as many people as possible — contentment is countercultural. It’s rebellious. It’s antithetical to everything that the world tries to force on us every moment of every day.

I’ll be honest: I’ve bought into the hype. I’ve bought into the striving, the goal setting, the self improvement, the desire to get better and become better. But no matter how much better I seem to get, happiness seems to be an illusive companion, flitting off into the distance. No matter how fast I run, happiness runs faster.

I wonder if, in order to catch happiness, I need to stop running. Perhaps happiness isn’t the product of trying to become better, accomplish just one more thing, or fix just one more thing about ourselves. Perhaps happiness is being content in the current situation that you find yourself, no matter what that situation may be.

I think that whatever it is we’re trying to do, or whatever it is we are trying to avoid, at the core of why we do what we do in life, we’re all trying to find happiness. If you ask yourself, “why do I want to accomplish X thing?” The answer, if you dig deep enough, is that we think it will help us be happier.

One more bit of brutal honesty: I think I’m naturally a discontent person. I think we all are, but maybe I am more than others. Whereas some people can sit in a lawn chair on the beach, stare at the waves, and just soak it all in, I can only do that for… oh, maybe two hours at most. And after that point, I want to go do something. I want to accomplish something. I need to move my body.

I’m beginning a journey to discover what it means to be content. Because I don’t think that being content necessarily means being able to just sit in that lawn chair on the beach for days on end, staring at the waves, and simply existing. Maybe it is, but I have a nagging feeling that true contentment comes from being absolutely satisfied and at peace with who you are as an individual. And some individuals can’t sit still — I’m one of those. So maybe to become content, I need to make peace with my need to be on the move.

At this point, I don’t have any answers, only questions. But I’m embarking on a journey to find the answers because… well, I guess I’m discontent with my lack of contentment. While this journey to find contentment is a very personal one, I invite you to join me on this quest. While contentment may be the ultimate countercultural rebellion, I think it just might have the power to transform the world, one person at a time.

This article was originally published here, on my new Medium page. I would love it if you would click on over and give me a follow on Medium!
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Mountain biking isn’t a means to an end. Its purpose is not to be a vehicle by which I make a living or achieve some other goal, it is the end goal in and of itself. Mountain biking isn’t a step in the journey, the journey is itself the destination. If the journey was to end, that would mean that the destination was not successfully reached. A conclusion would mean failure.

Read more here.


Wednesday, August 02, 2017
You can think of living in the moment in two different ways. One is to take each singular moment that you have in this life and pack it as chock-full of activities and events as possible.

...

This leads to the second way to embrace the moment: consciously UN-schedule activities and events. Take things off your agenda.

...

Adding more activities can distract you for a time. But learning to find a peace and quiet that is all your own renders the constant struggle of “more, faster, now” irrelevant.

Read the full column here.

Photo: Aaron Chamberlain

Tuesday, July 11, 2017
I reject this view that “real life” is the endless drudgery of staring at screens instead of trees, paying bills, making small talk, and worrying about what our neighbors think of us.

I reject that version of so-called real life, and instead replace it with riding bikes.

Read more here.


Sunday, July 09, 2017
Just because we happen to be good at something--we have a certain set of skills, we've applied ourselves and worked really hard--doesn't mean that we automatically enjoy that thing.

I think that we humans often enjoy feeling adept and useful, confident and knowledgeable, and we can sometimes misinterpret the satisfaction that we derive from that competency as the inherent satisfaction in that activity in question.

Somebody may be really good at bagging groceries at the store. In fact, they might be the best at bagging groceries at the grocery store. But that doesn't necessarily mean that bagging groceries is the end goal of that person's life.

Competency does not equal fulfillment.


Thursday, June 22, 2017
Sometimes fear is healthy, and it keeps our bodies in one piece. Choosing not to huck our meat off that 15-foot cliff (or 40-foot cliff like the photo above) is generally a pretty good idea. But then at the same time, fear “is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life,” to quote Donald Miller.

Read more here.

Rider: Thomas Genon. Photo: Dean Treml / Red Bull Content Pool

Thursday, June 15, 2017
While riding new singletrack is (almost) always the best, what I’ve learned from looking at these maps and pedaling some trails this spring for the second time ever is that yes, new singletrack is the best–but you could be doing yourself a massive disservice by disregarding a trail that you’ve ridden before but haven’t pedaled in years.

More here: "Over a Beer: The Paths We Haunt"

Friday, June 02, 2017
As I try to solve problems and determine what my next move should be to get myself out of this royal mess I’ve created, everything within me comes alive. I find my mind working in overdrive, reading topo maps, looking at satellite imagery (if I’m lucky enough to have a signal), reading the mountains, looking for cross-country routes, following deer trails which dead end at steep chasms.

More here.

Monday, May 29, 2017
Life takes effort. Sometimes it seems that every bit of forward movement in life is like pushing your bike up a steep mountainside. And just when you think it can’t get any more difficult, the trail turns so steep, so narrow, so treacherous, that you’re forced to throw your bike across your shoulders, adding an extra 30 pounds of awkward metal tubing and mud-covered rubber onto your shoulders.

In that moment, it can feel like the weight of the world has been made manifest and laid across your scrawny human back.

Whenever I reach this point in life, both literally and metaphorically, I have to ask myself how I move forward from here. Is the weight of the world really on my shoulders? How do I deal with what is at least a constant feeling of pressure?

Seneca has some wisdom to impart on this topic:
“. . .memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhappiness to the present.”
More here.

Photo: Marcel Slootheer
Friday, May 19, 2017
Colorado really needs no introduction to anyone who might utter the phrase, “I am a mountain biker.” The mountains in Colorado are some of the biggest and most majestic you’ll find anywhere, and the singletrack is similarly some of the most lust-worthy and enjoyable. But what makes Colorado so unique isn’t the huge mountains and isn’t the fact that it has great trails–you can find those factors in dozens of places around the globe. Rather, it’s the absolutely massive amount of singletrack riding available in this state.

I personally didn’t grasp the scope of the mountain bike opportunities in Colorado until I moved here. Now almost four years into my Colorado citizenship, I only now know how little I actually know.

Coming from out of state and figuring out how to best utilize a week of vacation to ride the very best trails in Colorado is a fool’s errand. You’d have more fun just picking one of a dozen epic destinations and just hanging out and riding around that one town for an entire week… or month. Yet still, still I get asked for a list of the best Colorado bike trails all the time.

Trying to limit the vast expanse of Colorado trails to just five selections is unquestionably a fool’s errand. Yet I’ve done my best, both utilizing highly-rated recommendations from our database and also eliminating trail systems that may be highly-rated, but for poor reasons. While this list can be debated ad infinitum, here are 5 must-ride mountain bike trails in Colorado.

More here: "Five2Ride: 5 of the Best Mountain Bike Trails in Colorado"

Rider: Marcel Slootheer. Photo: Greg Heil
Friday, May 19, 2017
If I had my way, I’d personally love to see the Slayer specced with a climb switch on both the rear shock and the fork. While I cannot deny the plushness and near perfection of the suspension components chosen, after riding climb switch-enabled Fox suspension on Pivot’s Firebird, I also can’t say that I personally noticed massive losses in the descending performance

Aside from that one point of preference, the Slayer was hands-down one of the most aggressive, most confidence-inspiring, and downright fun mountain bikes for tackling the gnarliest of trails that I’ve ever ridden. From shuttle laps, to hoofing it up to the top of black diamond descents the hard way, to chairlift runs in the bike park, the Slayer can kill it all.

The cherry on top? This brutal trail destroyer weighed in at 29.1lbs (without pedals). That, my friends, is an accomplishment.

More here: Rocky Mountain Slayer 790 MSL Review

Photo: Zach White
Friday, May 19, 2017
"I found Sea to Summit’s award-winning UltraLight Mat to be easy to inflate, extremely comfortable, and truly UltraLight. If you’re currently hauling a bulky or heavy mat in your bikepacking kit (and what mat isn’t compared to the UltraLight?), the UltraLight could be a massive upgrade, taking your kit to the next level."

More here: Review: Take Your Bikepacking Kit to the Next Level with the Sea to Summit UltraLight Mat

Friday, May 19, 2017
"I went on to crash repeatedly during my stint in Europe, and thankfully I was diligent about using my pads for big, rowdy descents, with all of the endless shuttle routes and lift rides we explored. Despite all the lift rides and shuttles, there were still plenty of climbs to pedal and transition zones in between lift rides, which gave me plenty of occasion to test the pedal-ability of the pads."

More here: Review: G-Form Pro-X Knee Pads Crash Tested

Photo: Zach White
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
I think there’s something deep within the human soul that yearns for something outside of itself, a sense of grandeur, of magic, of mission and purpose, of fulfillment–whether that purpose is exploring the stars or defeating Voldemort.

I think that too often in our culture, sci-fi and fantasy are only embraced on the surface level, but when someone really connects with this theme of the great and the unknowable, the magical on a deep level, the criticism begins to reign down. Terms like “nerd,” “geek,” and a general derision are employed, because it seems that these sci-fi and fantasy nerds like myself cannot cope with real life. When in reality, when people avoid these themes and don’t ask ourselves what our souls are really longing for, what we really need to feel complete, we’re simply avoiding the existential void and putting off dealing with that terrible abyss for another time.

More here: "In Pursuit of the Magical"

Sunday, May 14, 2017
"Those who appear inactive are, believe me, engaged in far more important activity; they're dealing with matters divine and human at the same moment." -Seneca
This may be true for some people at some times, but not for all inactive-seeming people at all times.

Rather, I take Seneca's meaning to be that just because you appear to be active it doesn't mean that you are getting anything important done and in fact, oftentimes, sitting, thinking, reading, praying, meditating--these are the truly important activities that really matter, the things that make a difference in your personal life and in the world around you.

I'm all about action. But many times appearances are exceedingly deceiving.




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