Never Forget?

53.

Seems that it always comes back to betrayal and trust, or the lack thereof. In our chosen profession, and it is a choice, the depth of trust that I have for the members of my team, and they in turn for me, will not only determine the degree of our success but our longevity as well. If I cannot completely trust that an assignment will be carried out NO MATTER WHAT, it weakens the very fabric of our operation. Should history show a past betrayal in a person's file, one might naturally question or consider the odds of it happening again. Was it a one-off, or a character flaw hiding deep in the cellular shadows of the soul? What conditions might bring the possibility of another betrayal back to the reality of the intensity of the moment? What is my level of trust that time has healed this wound so completely that it will leave only an emotional scar? 

We are riding indoors today, a workout known as ‘spin class’ to many, with the difference between our set and a typical class being that we take it to extraordinary levels of intensity, what we affectionately refer to as Zone Ten. This is a place most people, perhaps upwards of ninety percent, choose to avoid. It is otherworldly difficult to convince the average Joe or Jane to voluntarily enter this arena of pain and suffering. But, of course, therein lies the gold. We recognize the degree of difficulty involved with the effort required to produce organic maximal power in short bursts, the uncomfortability of extended periods at sub-threshold and the demanding focused awareness necessary to endure these extremes over time, with little recovery and as much sensory deprivation as can be diabolically pre-arranged. This means into headwinds, in the cold and to the sing-along darkness of whatever version of aural hell we can pump into scratchy loudspeakers. The secret to this torture, we have come to agree, is in the near-impossible task of deciding that this is fun. Once this is accepted, the game changes altogether. 

In most situations, this Zone Ten exercise excludes the option for mental wandering. The chances are good that one does not emotionally trip to a picnic on the beach as a coping mechanism. It simply takes so much awareness to simply endure using every cell, fiber and electrode one can bring to the current assignment, which is that of making it through, that it leaves no margin for error, let alone escapism. One stays present or one goes home. It is strange today that I feel oddly empowered to allow a drift. I have done this drill a hundred times and today, after all the practice and growth that adaptation to the protocol produces, I am thinking about betrayal and trust - a moment Jung might call pleasure and pain projection. 

It seems reasonable to me, here and now, in complete control of the pleasure of pain amid the grotesquely evil demands of the drill, that if I can endure, even thrive, under these conditions that I should be able to allow Davis the opportunity to prove himself as worthy in my eyes, something he has done many times before in the heat of a firefight that makes this drill comparable to listening to Mozart while finger painting. 

I will not betray that trust. I will trust that one betrayal is not a trend. I will forgive. 

But never forget.