When you’re the only one who can see something, sometimes it feels like you’re in on a special secret. The hard part is getting anyone to believe your secret is real. This week, people trying to show others what they see—including a woman with muscular dystrophy who believes she has the same condition as an Olympic athlete.
As a reader of our blog, you’re probably familiar with the term FTP, or functional threshold power. This number is most often approximated to maximal one hour power output and is one of the foundations of modern training and performance analysis for cycling. Very much like your 1 mile, 5k or 10k pace in running, or even your 1 repetition max in weightlifting, knowing your FTP allows you to prescribe training, track improvements, and assess training’s efficacy. It’s also one of the major factors in performance outcomes. So, how long does it take to see FTP improvements?
At Source Endurance, we use TrainingPeaks and their powerful data analysis software, WKO5, to track and analyze workouts. WKO5, the gold standard of performance analysis in cycling, allows us to look at details and physiological trends on a deep level. Each athlete is different, WKO allows us to see where strengths and weaknesses exist and how they can be improved by analyzing a variety of metrics far beyond simple power, such as cadence as it relates to power output, kJs burned, fatigue resistance, even work capacity above FTP.
Very importantly for the purposes of base training, and periodization on the whole, is the tracking of how long it takes for improvements in performance (such as FTP gains) to happen. Gradual progression and consistent training leads to gradual and consistent improvements for most athletes most of the time. In WKO5, we can see how much training it takes to improve FTP and what that training consisted of, in specific detail. It’s imperative to understand that considerations like nutrition and recovery are as important, if not more so, than the physical stress of training. Without proper recovery, no gains will be made. Nutrition plays a key role in this as well.
We’ve seen that for most riders, it takes somewhere around 300 hours of training to be ready for an exceptional individual performance. In addition, a CTL greater than 100TSS/day (maintained for a time dependent on the individual) is ideal for this peak performance. CTL (chronic training load), is an athlete-specific measure of long term training stress. Most athletes can accumulate a CTL of 100TSS/day with a training volume of 12-15 hours each week. For time constrained athletes, it may be necessary to target a lower CTL of around 75-85TSS/day, which can be accomplished with 7 to 10 hours each week. While it’s certainly possible to gain and maintain fitness at a lower weekly volume (in particular for newer athletes), it becomes challenging for trained athletes to effectively and properly recover when outside constraints require less training time.
CTL versus mFTP
There are several considerations to make in order to get a CTL in the 100TSS/day range at the right time. One of the most significant is ramp rate, or how quickly the CTL rises in a given period. A ramp rate of 3-7 points per week is typically ideal. Sustain much less and an athlete often doesn’t have the training stimulus to improve. Sustain a higher ramp rate for a long period, and the athlete risks excessive fatigue and overtraining syndrome. Working backwards from the athlete’s goals, CTL should be around 100 anywhere from 2-6 weeks prior to goal events. With a ramp rate average of 5 points per week and a starting CTL of 50-70 (common after a period of rest during the offseason), that leaves us with about 8 weeks of solid training to see any significant improvement in FTP. In many cases, I recommend adding 2-3 recovery weeks spaced throughout this time. So for most athletes coming off a period of reduced or less focused training, it takes around 10 weeks to begin to see FTP gains.
Originally published in 2016, revised June 23, 2020 by SE Coach Mitchell Sides.
Want to learn more about our coaching? We can help you reach your FTP goals.
As an Exercise Science student at the University of Texas, Mitchell Sides assisted coaching the university cycling and triathlon teams. Since graduating, he raced professionally for Elevate Pro Cycling and started his coaching career at Source Endurance. Mitchell has been using TrainingPeaks and WKO4 analytical software to help optimize workouts for each athlete. His athletes range from masters to college freshmen in cycling and triathlon. Learn more about Mitchell.
Junior Worlds team member Caleb Swartz has taken to the mountain bike this summer. He won the XC UCI race at Angel Fire, NM over the weekend. We got to talk to him about the win out West.
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This is a transcript of Episode 58from Amicus, Slate’s podcast about the Supreme Court. These transcripts are lightly edited and may contain errors. For the definitive record, consult the podcast.
Coffee is a dead end job, but it doesn’t have to be. The boom in speciality coffee has created a crisis in employment in many parts of the world, but it has also created an opportunity that we must grasp if we want both growth and lasting success for the industry.
Recording interviews for the Coffee Jobs Podcast have brought to light a number of interesting, and interconnected themes: great employers value transferable skills. An applicant with knowledge and experience from outside of coffee can be more valuable than one who has had a more linear coffee career to date. Employers value the diversity of experience because it adds to their business, and often reveals hidden opportunities for improvement or growth.
The frustrating nature of this industry is that we are very interested in increasing someone’s skill and knowledge, but the skills we are teaching are not transferrable. Making coffee is often challenging, and the customer experience demands skilled people making coffee. However, this is really the only skill I see people being taught and it has very little use outside of the coffee industry. Making great coffee is a difficult skill to transfer, and this is a problem.
A lasting career in coffee is a difficult and unlikely thing. For every seven to ten barista positions, there is perhaps one position to move forward into as management. The funnel narrows very sharply, not only in the cafe but from the cafe to the roasting company, or from the roasting company to the green coffee company.
Most people hired into a position as a barista will leave the coffee industry. This is not a damning statement, this isn’t failure. This is just the nature of the opportunities and roles within the coffee industry in consuming countries. What I’ve learned from my guests on the podcast is that this isn’t a problem, this is an opportunity that should be embraced.
There are skills that can be taught to a barista that are transferrable. We often say there is more to being a barista than just making coffee, and this is true. However, we just don’t spend resources on developing these skills. Many coffee businesses lack the time, money or sometimes the ability to teach those skills. I believe that this is something we need to change.
What kind of skills? The most obvious ones that spring to mind are things like financial literacy, sales, customer service, empathy and understand resource allocation. Most cafe owners bear the burden of this work alone, especially aspects like P&L. Taking this single aspect, I believe sharing this information as well as the workload involved in monitoring and controlling it, would create a more engaged team as well as a more conscientious one. It would be important to be thoughtful about teaching, sharing and discussing the impact of actions in the cafe on operations. It would be necessary to keep everyone connected and engaged, even if ultimate responsibility for decisions would like with the owner. Anyone moving on from that business would have a valuable understanding of real world costings, wastage, staff cost and financial modelling. This is hugely valuable in their future careers, and independent of whatever career path they choose.
This is a single, basic example. I’m not here to argue that this is exactly what we ought to be training. I’m here to argue that we need to teach baristas about a lot more than coffee. If working for a year or two in speciality coffee becomes a genuine opportunity for personal development, rather than entry into a professional lottery.
Let’s face a difficult truth: In much of the world, there are very definite limits on what you can earn as a barista. Independent cafes aren’t making their owners wealthy, and most pay as much as they can to get the staff they need. Despite strong competition amongst cafes for staff, they simply aren’t able to just pay more to get what they want. I believe that a cafe that offered a living wage and a strong development program that broaden, rather than narrow, future opportunities would not struggle to find good people.
To do this, to change the way the industry views the potential of a barista. We need to look at building education programs that are about more than where coffee is from, how it is grown, and how to extract it. I am not saying these things don’t matter, they are fundamental to what we do. We just have to value other skills too.
We would need help to do this. It has taken speciality coffee a long time to develop the educational programs that we currently have, despite the subject matter being where our expertise lies. This kind of work is outside the industry’s scope and so we’ll need to engage with others industries and experts. None of this will happen unless there is demand. I want to start a discussion because I believe that this is where a potential future lies for our sustainability. It will require a change in mindset, but I believe certain businesses are already thinking this way and are reaping the benefits from it.
This is a problem that I want to work on, that I’m willing to put some resources into. I want to help create programs and practices to develop transferrable skills in coffee. However, this isn’t where my expertise lies and I need help. If you know anyone I should be speaking to then please get in touch. Drop me a line through the blog, or via twitter.
Today’s our anniversary, so here are some thoughts on why we’re still deeply in love, deeply engaged in our world, and looking forward with joy to growing old together:
1. You both need freedom to fail.
2. You’ll process faith journeys differently. Don’t worry about that. In fact, celebrate it and try learning from each other.
3. There will be dark days and seasons for each one. Give each other grace; and space.
4. A shared passion helps make the journey much more enjoyable. Ours is the outdoors.
5. Even in our shared passion, we have different desires and abilities. Both parties should move a little to make it enjoyable.
6. Pay your credit cards off every month if that’s at all possible.
7. I can’t tell you how valuable laughter is, because it’s priceless.
8. A willingness to follow God’s call into risky territory is priceless too.
9. Confining sexuality to the pursuit of orgasms kills playful touch. We both agree that’s a bad thing and so enjoy touch often!
10. Keeping physically fit as much as possible helps give you the reserves needed for hard times.
11. When sickness and injury hits, and they will, it’s time to grow up and put your needs aside.
12. Practice generosity. Invest in your church and the vast needs of our world.
13. Practice hospitality. We’ve hosted people from around the world, and it’s been great for our marriage and great for our children.
14. Learn to cook. We save money by eating at home and cooking healthy meals. Both of us have learned to enjoy cooking, and this has made our life together richer.
15. Celebrate each other’s gifts. Mine have to do with words, vision, and teaching. Hers have to do with compassion, details, and hands-on practical duties. We were once annoyed by these differences. Now we view them assets, like playing different positions on a team.
16. Learn the love languages of your spouse. Hers is “affirming words”, mine are “time” and “touch”.
17. Don’t try to settle disputes when you’re tired. Instead, set a time when you know you’ll both be refreshed and commit to working on it and talking about it then.
18. Don’t be surprised when your spouse rejects your ideas initially. They’re new to him/her. Give them space to think, and get back to you with their response. Insistence on immediate responsiveness and/or closure is a recipe for misery.
19. Details matter. You’ll need to talk through matters of financial priorities, things about the house, health choices, calendar matters, and broken appliances. For some, these things seem mundane. But they are your life together, and how you address them either strengthens or weakens your marriage.
20. Big ideas matter too. You should periodically ask where you’re headed in your life together, and how you’re doing in the big things like pursuing your call, and building a life of intimacy together. For some, the details are comfortable, but these things are scary. Don’t run from these, or you’ll drift into boredom and mediocrity.
21. Adapt to unexpected turns. We presently have adult children living in our house, along with my mother-in-law. Receive these unexpected events as the rich gifts that they are.
22. Be quick to confront, quick to confess, and quick to forgive.
23. Quick to forgive, comes, I believe, from seeing yourself as one who’s been forgiven, both by God and your spouse.
24. Experiences matter more than stuff. So spend the night at the Ahwanee sometime, or a mountain hut. Eat out at Canliss sometime, or the Caboose Bar and Grill in Cle Elum.
25. Let the little things go. I think she has too many plastic containers. She thinks I need more dress shirts. Whatever. We’ve stopped talking about these things long ago; not worth it.
26. Enter the other’s world. I’ve gone to some musicals. She’s become a SF Giants fan. It’s been good for both of us.
27. Vulnerability matters. When either of us is afraid to be vulnerable with the other, it pushes us into unhealthy space.
28. Recognize seasons. She worked for years in order to help our kids with college costs. Now she stays at home and practices hospitality while supporting her mom and me in life-giving ways.
29. Together. We play together. Pray together. Sometimes even shower together
30. Solo. We both have identities apart from being a spouse. This is important and life-giving for our marriage.
31. Curiosity. It’s served us well regarding each other, vision for the future, and discovering opportunities.
32. Gratitude. I come home to see her staining the deck railings and smile, grateful for her health and her eagerness to contribute to the household economy. I’m grateful and tell her.
33. Circadian rhythms. 99% of the time I’m up before her. This is the gift of solitude for me, and the gift of sleep for her. Differences are fine.
34. Traveling alone. Sometimes we jokingly tell people that the secret of being happily married is that I travel. But there’s some truth in that. Apart, we gain needed space for individual pursuits, and gain appreciation for the other.
35. Traveling together. We share a world of experiences beyond the walls of our home, and while not everyone has this as either privilege or call, experiences outside the home are valuable when shared since they shape us so profoundly.
36. Source. We both believe, deeply, that the reality of Christ in our lives gives us the needed resources to pursue intimacy, forgive when we fail, and stay in the journey for 36 years!
We take a look at the KindHuman KÜDÜ, which is a bike currently in review. The model sports a more traditional geometry with oversized tubing for added stiffness.
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As an illustration of just how new this territory is, I’ll go back to the story of neurogenesis, the once-heretical theory that the brain grows new nerve cells throughout life. “Ten years ago people weren’t even convinced that it happened,” says neurologist Scott Small. It was at his Columbia University lab, in 2007, where they witnessed telltale signs of neurogenesis for the first time in live humans. “Five years ago people said, OK, it might happen, but is it really meaningful? Now there isn’t a week that goes by where there’s not another study that shows neurogenesis has some kind of effect on the brain.”
What really feeds those baby brain cells? Hitting the gym.
A 3 month exercise regimen increased bloodflow to the part of your brain focused on memory and learning by 30%.
In his study, Small put a group of volunteers on a three-month exercise regimen and then took pictures of their brains. By manipulating a standard MRI machine’s processing— essentially zooming in and cocking the shutter open— he captured images of the newly formed capillaries required for nascent neurons to survive. What he saw was that the capillary volume in the memory area of the hippocampus increased by 30 percent, a truly remarkable change.
The Dumb Jock Is A Myth
Being in good shape increases your ability to learn. After exercise people pick up new vocabulary words 20% faster.
“One of the prominent features of exercise, which is sometimes not appreciated in studies, is an improvement in the rate of learning, and I think that’s a really cool take-home message,” Cotman says. “Because it suggests that if you’re in good shape, you may be able to learn and function more efficiently.”
Indeed, in a 2007 study of humans, German researchers found that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise, and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF.
Want to be more creative? Sweating for about a half hour on the treadmill notably increases cognitive flexibility.
A notable experiment in 2007 showed that cognitive flexibility improves after just one thirty-five-minute treadmill session at either 60 percent or 70 percent of maximum heart rate… Cognitive flexibility is an important executive function that reflects our ability to shift thinking and to produce a steady flow of creative thoughts and answers as opposed to a regurgitation of the usual responses.
Fine, you can see differences on an MRI and with nerdy tests. Does it make a difference in the real world?
Yes.
Office workers who exercised at lunch were more productive, less stressed and had more energy.
In 2004 researchers at Leeds Metropolitan University in England found that workers who used their company’s gym were more productive and felt better able to handle their workloads. Most of the 210 participants in the study took an aerobics class at lunchtime, for forty-five minutes to an hour, but others lifted weights or practiced yoga for thirty minutes to an hour. They filled out questionnaires at the end of every workday about how well they interacted with colleagues, managed their time, and met deadlines. Some 65 percent fared better in all three categories on days they exercised. Overall, they felt better about their work and less stressed when they exercised. And they felt less fatigued in the afternoon, despite expending energy at lunchtime.
That super-productive co-worker who runs every day might not exercise because they have energy — they might have energy because they exercise.
In a landmark study affectionately called SMILE (Standard Medical Intervention and Long-term Exercise), James Blumenthal and his colleagues pitted exercise against the SSRI sertraline (Zoloft) in a sixteen-week trial… Blumenthal concluded that exercise was as effective as medication.
One interesting study in 2005 measured the physical and mental effects of exercise in a group of Chilean high school students for nine months… The experimental group’s anxiety scores dropped 14 percent versus a statistically insignificant 3 percent for the control group (an improvement that could be explained by the placebo effect).
What if you’re not depressed or anxious? Stay sedentary and you’re 1.5x more likely to eventually become depressed.
Researchers tracked 8,023 people for twenty-six years, surveying them about a number of factors related to lifestyle habits and healthiness starting in 1965. They checked back in with the participants in 1974 and in 1983. Of all the people with no signs of depression at the beginning, those who became inactive over the next nine years were 1.5 times more likely to have depression by 1983 than their active counterparts.
Still not convinced? People who exercise are, across the board, mentally healthier: less depression, anger, stress, and distrust.
A massive Dutch study of 19,288 twins and their families published in 2006 showed that exercisers are less anxious, less depressed, less neurotic, and also more socially outgoing. A Finnish study of 3,403 people in 1999 showed that those who exercise at least two to three times a week experience significantly less depression, anger, stress, and “cynical distrust” than those who exercise less or not at all.
Okay, Okay — How Much Do I Need To Do?
What’s optimal? Exercise 6 days a week, 45 minutes to an hour per day.
The best, however, based on everything I’ve read and seen, would be to do some form of aerobic activity six days a week, for forty-five minutes to an hour… In total, I’m talking about committing six hours a week to your brain. That works out to 5 percent of your waking hours.
Stop rolling your eyes. It’s not all or nothing.
Regarding body health and brain health, experts and neuroscientists agree: “A little is good, and more is better.”
Here’s something proven to make you smarter, healthier, and happier. What could be a better investment of your time?
You might ask: If it’s obviously so great, why don’t we all do it?
Malcolm Gladwell’s latest — David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants – came out this week. Like every other book by Gladwell, it is already a best-seller. And having read – and very much enjoyed — the book, I can see why. Gladwell once again presents a variety of interesting stories, this time centered on the question of whether underdogs are as disadvantaged as we believe (the opening story on David and Goliath – which makes this observation – is worth the price of admission). My sense – from the few reviews I have seen – is that critics have primarily focused on whether the argument they think Gladwell is making is valid. I am going to argue that this approach misses the fact that the stories Gladwell tells are simply well worth reading (i.e., these stories are interesting and make you think).
The range of stories Gladwell presents is quite impressive. From the opening biblical story to a discussion of the number of students in a school classroom, the impact of dyslexia, the curing of leukemia, the battle for Civil Rights, French revolutionaries during World War II, etc… One has to wonder: where does Gladwell find these stories?
The simple answer can be found in the end notes (which I encourage people to read). Gladwell primarily employs stories previously told in academic journals and academic books. For example, nearly a dozen different academic sources are employed to tell the story of David and Goliath.
Of course, someone could just go read the original academic sources. But I suspect there is a problem with that approach.
To illustrate, let me repeat something that Alfred Marshall, the father of microeconomics, wrote in a 1906 letter to A.L. Bowley.[1] Marshall’s letter serves as a famous comment on the role that abstract math plays in academic research:
Step One: Use mathematics as a shorthand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry.
Step Two: Keep to them until you have done.
Step Three: Translate into English
Step Four: Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life.
Step Five: Burn the mathematics.
Step Six: If you can’t succeed in (4), burn (3). This last I did often.
The point Marshall is making in this letter is simple: academic research should be connected to “real life.” But unfortunately, I don’t think Marshall’s advice is often followed. Abstract reasoning in academia – reasoning that is only accessible to other academics (and often, not many of those) – is prized. Actually connecting what is being said to real life is not considered very important. As a consequence, much of what is said by academics is not read by many people (the inside joke is that the average number of readers of an academic article is essentially one).
So the stories that academics tell just remain in journals that few people ever see. Consequently, it seems there is a clear market opportunity for people who have some ability to write. Specifically, Gladwell’s success telling these stories suggests other writers could follow his lead. Yes, it is possible that the writing skills of Gladwell are quite rare (he is quite good). But the ability to take the first step (i.e. read the stories) should not be that rare.
Of course, there are a few steps after the visit to your local university library. Gladwell clearly interviews the researchers. He also makes a clear effort to “illustrate what they are saying with examples that are important in real life.” And finally, he makes an effort to show how a collection of different stories really have a clear connection. So what Gladwell does goes beyond just being a “good writer.”
I believe there are more than 600 academic journals just in economics. That is a huge number of potential stories just in the economics field. All one has to do is start reading!
[1] This was noted in Harry Landreth and David Colander. History of Economic Thought, 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1994.
“Be careful how you walk” is what Paul wrote to the Ephesians, and a Labor Day weekend filled with walking of every sort makes the corollary truth clear too: Different terrain calls for different ways of walking. This is vitally … Continue reading →
What was most interesting about the public’s response to the George Zimmerman trial is how quickly almost everybody made up their minds about what happened, even without hearing the facts.
The narrative most people subscribe to is this: Racially charged white man with a gun harasses black teen and kills him. Man gets off and our justice system is broken.
That, of course, is not a factual narrative, but it’s a powerful narrative and one that offers the most drama while also speaking to the very real problem of racism in our society. And so organizations with various agendas have used this fictional narrative to further their cause.
Another fact about this case I found surprising was the overall acceptance of a black-and-white, hollywood style plot line. To most people, at least on television, there was a clear good guy and a clear bad guy. None of the facts supported this, either.
This, to me, speaks to our incredible ability to fill in “truth gaps” with what feels like facts, but simply aren’t. The truth is we know very little about what happened, while we feel like we do. The brain, whether we like it or not, categorizes facts into a narrative and once that narrative is subscribed to, which happens very quickly, rejects any facts that don’t support the story we’ve chosen to believe.
This is a terrible way to search for the truth and yet it’s what our brains do without us even knowing it’s happening.
Was Trayvon Martin a criminal, a hoodlum, and dangerous? Facts don’t support this at all. He was just a kid walking home from the store. Was Zimmerman a racist? Not a single witness could be found to support that, either.
This case is confusing and requires nuanced thought, an intellectual ability Americans are losing by the hour. Even a jury member has confessed Zimmerman acted like a fool and they wanted to convict him but they couldn’t find a law he’d broken (which I find to be the real tragedy.)
So what really happened? Well, what if we will never know? Are we okay with that? Likely we’re not okay with this because our brains long for resolution and when we can’t resolve an issue, we simply build a story and backfill fictional ideas to support it while rejecting facts that don’t.
What if we tell ourselves fictional narratives to support agendas we don’t even admit we’re subscribing to?
In their book Decisive, Chip and Dan Heath call this tendency a Confirmation Bias. That is, we come to snap judgments about what we believe is true, then we lean toward data that supports our snap judgments.
Not only this, but siding with the Trayvon Martin side of the story allows us to play the role of hero, to support the underdog, to distance ourselves from racism and so forth. So the ego clearly has something to gain in taking a particular side in what is most assuredly a situation in which we don’t have all the facts.
Chip and Dan Heath also warn us of “spotlight thinking” meaning we tend to think the facts we have are the only facts that exist. What gets lost in spotlight thinking is, in short, truth. But I’m only using the Martin/Zimmeran trial as an example of our ability to create fictional narratives and come to the conclusions that most benefits our preconceived or agenda-drien ideas.
Now I want to go a completely different direction, if that’s even possible while talking about such an emotionally charged issue. I want to talk about our tendency to back fill narratives with fiction as it relates to the Christian life. What if what we’re all doing in the Zimmerman trial is happening in other, even more important aspects of our lives?
Consider the ramifications of backfilling fictional narratives in the political arena. Consider the ramifications regarding theological issues.
Interview most people and they’re certain they understand an issue when by any measure they can’t, not because they’re dumb, but because they don’t have time to study an issue from so many camera angles, not to mention there are often few facts to support our agendas anyway.
For me, following the Zimmerman trial has been frustrating, not only because it’s entirely tragic, but because it speaks to a complete devaluation of truth in our culture. Honestly, it reminds me of the theological and political arguments that take place in evangelical culture all the time, with multiple sides scrounging through limited facts to support agendas that are largely built on fictional, backfilled narratives.
For this reason, I’ve become more and more comfortable with this phrase: I don’t know.
I no longer consider this phrase a cop out, either. In fact, I now consider the phrase I don’t know a form of extreme respect for the truth. What’s wrong with admitting we can’t know something we actually can’t know? And why in the world are so many people expressing absolutely certain ideas about what happened between Zimmerman and Martin when they can’t possibly know the truth anyway? Could it be we have other agendas we aren’t admitting to or are even aware of? And how does the dynamic of backfilling truth gaps with fiction affect the culture we live in?
The problem with the phrase I don’t know is it doesn’t sell. If pastors confess they don’t actually know whether the world was made in seven days or whether we should take all of the Bible literally, they are seen as weak. But the truth is we don’t know. We don’t know whether Genesis 1 and 2 should be taken literally because the Bible doesn’t tell us. We don’t know whether scripture is inerrant because scripture doesn’t tell us. So why not just admit it rather than make confident claims we can’t possibly back up with reasoned arguments. Why not live within the ambiguity God has left us in?
Who is more weak in your opinion, a person who makes things up and sells a false narrative with confidence, or somebody who humbly admits we don’t have all the facts and yet we must go on trusting God all the same? Be careful with that question. Are we choosing false security over the truth, the truth being we can’t possibly know everything? I think many Christians today believe many things they simply can’t prove because those beliefs bring them a sense of control, security and comfort. What if God hasn’t given us all the information, and what if justice and order in the world doesn’t depend on us knowing everything anyway? What if truth lives outside of us whether we understand it or not? What if we are given just enough information to trust God and know Him but not fully understand Him or, for that matter, life itself? What if we are given some information but not all?
Should we still seek truth? Yes. Should we use what we know to seek justice? Yes. Should we make things up when we don’t have all the facts to give people a sense of comfort and security? No. Does this mean we have to live without resolution sometimes? Yes, unfortunately it does. What should we do about that?
I don’t know.
I suppose we do what we can and trust God with the rest. But in respect for truth, I’d offer we shouldn’t backfill gaps with fictional narratives, no matter how comfortable it may make us feel.
What happened between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin? I don’t know.
Was justice done? It certainly doesn’t feel like it.
Will justice be done? Yes.
This much we know is true. Justice will be done. And not by us.
If being stabbed in the throat doesn’t change your life forever, what will?
The knife sunk in two millimeters from his carotid artery — which he describes as the difference between being “flown home in the cargo hold instead of in coach.”
Writer and cartoonist Tim Kreider had been stabbed in the throat.
What is life like after it comes so close to ending?
Except for the ten or fifteen minutes during which it looked like I was about to die, which I would prefer not to relive, getting stabbed wasn’t even among the worst experiences of my life. In fact it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. After my unsuccessful murder I wasn’t unhappy for an entire year. Winston Churchill’s aphorism about the exhilaration of being shot at without result is verifiably true.
You’re so grateful to be alive, nothing can get you down.
Being stabbed in the throat turns the volume down on everything negative. “That’s supposed to bother me? I’ve been stabbed in the throat!”
I can’t claim to have been continuously euphoric the whole time; it’s just that, during that grace period, nothing much could bother me or get me down. The horrible thing that I’d always dreaded was going to happen to me had finally happened. I figured I was off the hook for a while… I wish I could recommend the experience of not being killed to everyone. It’s a truism that this is why people enjoy thrill-seeking pastimes, ranging from harmless adrenaline fixes like horror movies and roller coasters to what are essentially suicide attempts with safety nets, like bungee jumping and skydiving. The trick is that to get the full effect you have to be genuinely uncertain that you’re going to survive. The best approximation would be to hire an incompetent, Clouseauesque hit man to assassinate you. It’s one of the maddening perversities of human psychology that we only notice we’re alive when we’re reminded we’re going to die, the same way some of us appreciate our girlfriends only after they’ve become exes.
But, like all feelings, it ends.
You just can’t keep that giddy, thankful attitude forever.
Eventually life gets frustrating again. The volume gets turned back up.
You can’t feel crazily grateful to be alive your whole life any more than you can stay passionately in love forever— or grieve forever, for that matter. Time makes us all betray ourselves and get back to the busywork of living. Before a year had gone by, the same everyday anxieties and frustrations began creeping back. I was disgusted to catch myself yelling in traffic, pounding on my computer, lying awake at night worrying about what was to become of me. I can’t recapture that feeling of euphoric gratitude any more than I can really remember the mortal terror I felt when I was pretty sure I had about four minutes to live.
On the day Tim refers to as his “stabbiversary”, he makes a point to remember how lucky he is and what’s really important.
But that doesn’t make him immune to the maddening annoyances of day-to-day life, the way he was when the wound was still fresh.
Once a year on my stabbiversary, I remind myself that this is still my bonus life, a round on the house. But now that I’m back in the slog of everyday life, I have to struggle to keep things in what I still insist is their true perspective. I know intellectually that all the urgently pressing items on our mental lists— our careers, car repairs, the daily headlines, the goddamned taxes— are just so much noise, that what matters is spending time with the people you love. It’s just hard to bear in mind when the hard drive crashes or the shower drain clogs first thing in the day. Apparently I can only ever attain that God’s-eye view in the grip of the talons.
Even a moment that nearly ends your life does not permanently alter it.
You’d like to think that nearly getting killed would be a permanently life-altering experience, but in truth it was less painful, and occasioned less serious reflection, than certain breakups I’ve gone through. I’ve demonstrated an impressive resilience in the face of valuable life lessons, and the main thing I seem to have learned from this one is that I am capable of learning nothing from almost any experience, no matter how profound.
It’s easy now to dismiss that year as nothing more than the same sort of shaky, hysterical high you’d feel after getting clipped by a taxi. But you could also try to think of it as a glimpse of reality, being jolted out of a lifelong stupor.
So what happens when you’re almost murdered?
It doesn’t completely change your life forever. Nothing does.
No one minute, no matter how strong, can outweigh the combined effect of the other million minutes.
But it can give you perspective.
It’s what you do with that perspective after the minute is over that counts.
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10. Keeping physically fit as much as possible helps give you the reserves needed for hard times.
30. Solo. We both have identities apart from being a spouse. This is important and life-giving for our marriage.
34. Traveling alone. Sometimes we jokingly tell people that the secret of being happily married is that I travel. But there’s some truth in that. Apart, we gain needed space for individual pursuits, and gain appreciation for the other.
10. Keeping physically fit as much as possible helps give you the reserves needed for hard times.
30. Solo. We both have identities apart from being a spouse. This is important and life-giving for our marriage.
34. Traveling alone. Sometimes we jokingly tell people that the secret of being happily married is that I travel. But there’s some truth in that. Apart, we gain needed space for individual pursuits, and gain appreciation for the other.
Malcolm Gladwell’s latest — David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
