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Mr.Chaos
09-22-09, 10:12 pm
This mortality we have been chosen to live is a motherfucker. The road's start is just as bitter as the roads end and somewhere in between it is our own responsibility to find meaning in a seemingly pointless existence.

My dad was not a learned man of any particular sort. He had spent the majority of his adult life in the Marine Corps. Despite his lack of comprehension of the written word his wisdom was bar none. I once asked him when I had first followed his footsteps and joined the Marines what was the point of this life we live. To my understanding men like my father and I, were born, we fought, and then remarkebly we died. My father said only "It is not the bread on either end of the sandwhich that makes it delicious son, its what you put in between that counts."

I am not going to try to wow you with words, nor am I going to try to make some valid life point here. If what I write helps you along the way then "Kill" if it dosnt then find inspiration elsewhere.

I thought about that conversation that I had with my dad today as I stepped in the gym. Somehow it seemed like fate that I would reflect back to that time on a leg day. If I had known 8 years ago when I asked my father that question what I know now I think I would have been better prepared to hear my dad's response.

I am not an IFBB pro. I am not looking for women (as I am happily engaged). I lift because I have a canvas on which to paint. I used to think that life was simple. The older I get the more I see that simply isnt so. People as we know them, have complicated life by painting pictures of power and deciet on the canvas' they have been given.

Despite the complications of this world, I lift because it paints the picture of honesty and humbling failure. For every life I have taken in that sea of sand, for everytime I have sat alone in depression and PTSD, I have always been able to find myself in one of two places: A church and a gym. It seems that to many the two go hand in hand, and unfortunately more often then not people see only one or the other.

As I sat in between sets on the hack squat machine. I realized I wasn't entirely wrong as a kid. I was born, I have fought and continue to do so, and sooner than I will learn to accept I will die.

Then with the adrenaline that spits throughout my body as I slaved away at my next set it hit me like a bag of hot rocks. When I die, "they" will speak. They will say that I was devoted to god, to the Corps, to my fiance. "They" will say that I spent countless hours slaving in a gym, preparing myself for lifes battles. "They" will say that I never took that which did not belong to me and that I gave everything even if it would require my life. They will say that I conqured that which could not be conqured and that I loved that which could not be loved.

As they slid the final piece of bread over my sandwhich, what I put into the middle would be revealed. The flavor I had put into it would erupt and be clear.

We build our own sandwhiches, We tune our own cars, we paint our own canvas etc. etc. etc. This is our turn.

I will not move forward in fear as I did as a kid. I will work as hard as I can to make sure this chevy is up to par, so that I may be placed in the junk yard with a fair feeling of satisfaction and content.

Leg days are hard, chest and back arnt much easier neither is waking up in the morning or going to bed at night.

I guess the real message was simply to "BE THERE". Be there for all of it, the good and the bad, the painful and the comfortable, the scary and the enlightening. Be there with open eyes and open arms.

Move forward with intensity and tenacity so that when your sandwhich is complete. Your taste will be appreciated and welcome to the hungry mouths and minds of the world.


-Mr. Chaos (The Chevy)


"Lift something heavy."