Serendipitously Dig On

One could, I suppose, conduct some testing. One could, as an example, spend the next thirty years or so sequestered in a remote and isolated laboratory trying to control variables and draw conclusions. It has been done. US taxpayers have, albeit unwittingly, already paid for it. The closest established dictionary definition calls it (and I do like the onomatopoeia of its diphthong), serendipity. But I think we limit its larger application when citing simply some unexpected good fortune found in an odd place. Really, who hasn’t at one time or place, found a ten spot hidden in the sock drawer? 

I am talking about something bigger, way more physiological and perhaps even magical. Something between cognitive bias, positive thinking and magic. Triangulate that, and you are in the cosmic ballpark. In the cheap seats, perhaps, but still in the yard anticipating the show and appreciating your part in it. 

Maybe an example will clarify (if only I could be everywhere at once!)

This morning we are ripping courageously through another set of Super Eights, the hardest and most demanding of all indoor cycling protocols. The hardest and most demanding IF DONE CORRECTLY. The difference between doing and doing correctly being, of course, one’s effort and intention - not one’s power and demonstration of superior DNA. I am particularly focused on this seemingly discreet detail as we pack what seems to be ten pounds of fat into a five pound sack. I am once again struggling with the rhetorical motivational cues to encourage the class to see the challenge as more mindful than physical. Because if your effort is pure and your mind (and spirit) are committed to the goal of maximal awareness in the present moment of peak power production - you cannot fail. As we used to say, all you can do is all you can do. I do not care about victory, winning, achievement, awards, records or egos. All I want is your best effort. Anything after that is rice gelato. 

We finish the set. I am as pleased with the group effort as I think they are of themselves. We traveled through previously unexplored territory this morning and we learned some valuable lessons about it as well as about ourselves. We are stretching, doing what I call the post-session decompression - raising both arms as high overhead as possible to counter the ravages of gravity upon our poor fragile spines. The thought occurs to me that ‘reaching for the sky’ implies stretching to infinity, or at the very least, into deep space. Which in turn creates the vision of Kurt Vonnegut’s classic space travel skill chronosynclastic infundibulum, a rare ability to travel endlessly through space without the restrictions of time (as told by Winston Niles Rumfoord in The Sirens of Titan.) Chronosynclastic infundibulum is not a word I use every day. Matter of fact, it has probably been a dozen years since I last felt the time and place to be right for this good-natured plagiarism. 

It was warm and reaffirming, validating in a conspiratorial way, when the wonderful story I read about Bob Weir referenced it as well (with a spine tingling announcement of direct connection to Tralfamadore.)

More data required? Too small a sampling size? Continue testing? Re-read Sirens? 

Call to mind a word, phrase, condition, trait, name, song, book, person that has been laying dormant in your internal memory for some time. Consider all the ramifications, where it came from and how far you took it. Is there an associated emotional charge? Why has it been put on the back burner? Is it asking for attention, like a dot wanting to be connected to another? Why now? Is something of importance trying to get your attention? Is this code red? 

See what response you get. If that data bit randomly pops up again, sometime later today, you have your universal confirmation. 

Serendipitously dig on.