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Show . PAGE 23 THE ZEPHYROCTOBER 1993 1 human. Initially beset by challenging conditions, I had to scale back my expectations several times attempting to reconcile them with newly discovered limitations. All the while I experienced a nagging feeling that people were watching me. In more traditional sports I perform best when I can get beyond my fear. In carting the envelope is not one of technique and strength, but of emotion. To push the physical edge would be fool hardy, to embrace the psychic boundary crucial. Because I'm well within the zone of physical safety, carting is mainly an emotional experience. Facing the emotions of the experience without masking bgm behind Oakley Thermonuclear Protection, feeling the honest sensations the activity provokes without drugging myself in aerobic, endorphine euphorias, seeing myself as a man pushing a shopping cart around the desert naked to the opinionated comments of onlookers catalyses and immense vulnerability in me. In the window of awareness that vulnerability presents, I see dearly manifested the specter of my greater Fear. Unburdened for a moment from concerns of mere personal, physiol survival in the short term sporting moment I recognize a greater threat to my sense of peace and harmony. Identifying myself as more than a sporting "dude" I realize again my humble humanity. I an connected INESCAPABLY to ALL things induding the shopping cart Carting makes me remember that my concerns about the health of the Moab Valley, the surrounding desert and nurturing mountains and the pretty little green planet upon which we all perch is what really underlies most of my lesser fears. Facing my Sporting, Shopping Self I face the fear that Moab and the rest of the world is becoming more and more a moneyed hell, replete with vicious developers, violent crime and yea, street people. Will I someday be forced to choose between taking sporting vacations elsewhere and staying home to do community damage control? Carting renews my conviction to making whatever choices I can to create health, personal and public. t Zephyr; O.K. Kalen. Chaz could you briefly address that same question? : Chaz; I'll try. Uh... personally I've been questioning the intent of my sporting activities lately. Considering personal injuries I've sustained, injuries to friends and the death of several 'j acquaintances, not questioning the why's of such esoteric risks seems disdainful of the gifts of life an good health. Carting for me is a question. I do it because I have a question in my mind about values. I just had to fulfil this image that came up as a joke among friends because I knew that physical enactment would make me think about my question more clearly. Pushing a shopping cart around the desert is a pitiful and absurd image, but is it any more so than taking a boat or swimming through river rapids, riding a bicycle on steep terrain, sliding with boards attached to my feet down a steep snow covered hill? What are those risks about? Popularity is not inherently an indication of value. Because large groups of people participate in such activities, spending lots of money and often managing to hold very straight faces while doing so, is that enough meaning and purpose to risk life and limb? It seems to me that many of the popular sports offer profound opportunities to experience metaphorically basic human issues. Issues that for me include; mortality, sexuality, balance, perspective, aesthetic expression, self determination, and so on. TOURS & ROCK SHOP Dinosaur bone Fossils Minerals 600 N. Main St. 259-73- 12 MUST BE A COLD DAY IT IN HELL - I would like.. Zephyr; most mass appeal sports are offered commercially as an opportunity to And Chaz; yet from temporarily escape from the boundaries of being human. Creating the illusion of freedom mindless embrace to them, while the morbid aspects of humanity, simultaneously seeming from earth bound, body conscious, human disconnection a underscores "sporting" absolutely store. being. Let's face it campers, most all sporting "expeditions" begin at the local grocery on Petroleum, our of like rest stores the culture, currently dependant petroleum. arc, Grocery as we are slowly admitting, is the fuel of exploitation and excessive consumption. I suffer a strong sense erf destructive contradiction in considering "sporting" activities as necessarily "wilderness oriented". Mass appeal sports today are more closely allied with shopping and high renews paced, commercial based consumption, not wilderness, or nature or humanity. Carting I about I know what living truth. my personal pain in the contradiction between how live and between ignorant I respect that pain as a guide to sanity and health. If the choice today is be rather I'd bliss and painful human awareness, carting. sporting Zephyr; God bless both of you. J've never been so moved. Uh-.O- I Gems K, individual and family psychotherapy marriage counseling hypnotherapy psychological evaluations organizational consulting JAMES A. FERRO Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist (801) OOJ; 259-888- 4 P.O. Box 325, Moab, UT 84532 CUFFS HOMESTEADS FOR INFORMATION. WRITE OR DROP B-Y- THE SILVER GRILL RESTAURANT, 'J THOMPSON SPRINGS. UTAH CHECK 84S40 fop our brochure, available all over moab |