Just consider some of the things that no one else had ever done before. Until he came along that is:
Lee performed 50 reps of one-arm chin-ups.
Lee could take in one arm a 75 lb barbell from a standing position with the barbell held flush against his chest and slowly stick his arms out locking them, holding the barbell there for 20 seconds.
Lee could thrust his fingers through unopened (steel) cans of Coca-Cola.
Lee could break wooden boards 6 inches (15 cm) thick.
He developed his own unique and effective fighting style, known as Jeet Kune Do, which is still taught today. It is meant to be the style of no style and exist outside of the limits of traditional martial arts. He used it against many an opponent. Here’s just one of his many amazing fight stories:
In 1962, Lee knocked out Uechi, a Japanese black belt, in 11 seconds in a 1962 Full-Contact match in Seattle. The time keeper had this to say: “The karate man arrived in his gi, complete with black belt, while Bruce showed up in his street clothes and simply took off his shoes. The fight lasted exactly 11 seconds–I know because I was the time keeper—and Bruce had hit the guy something like 15 times and kicked him once. I thought he’d killed him.” The fight ended by Bruce knocking Uechi the length of the gymnasium. (source:wikipedia)
Here’s his famous one inch punch, with some bonus athletic feats at the start.
To be this amazing of an athlete and competitor, it’s no wonder he was also a nutrition expert of sorts. He ate 4 to 5 meals spread out during the day, ate tons of fruit and vegetables (usually fresh, raw, or juiced), and avoided processed foods, starches, dairy, and anything else that would slow him down. He was all for the competitive edge, and this included his training too. He would run sprints, long distance, and varied pace routines everyday, rock the abs while watching TV, weight train, flex and stretch to the max, jump rope, and practice, practice, practice his art.
The Mind of the Dragon:
Bruce was known to have a library of over 2,500 books. His personal eclectic philosophy combined elements Taoism, Buddhism, Jiddu Krishnamurti-school, and many others. He claimed no belief in god but professed a spiritual and superbly well-demonstrated meditative and focused life. His ideas were one with his every movement, and his every movement apparently followed from his beliefs. A few quotes serve to give us a glimpse into the mind of the dragon, may he rest in peace:
“Be formless… shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend…”
“All kind of knowledge, eventually becomes self knowledge”
“As you think, so shall you become.”
“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”
“Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.”
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
That dragon sure knew how to thrive… Indeed, he was also an actor and family man, and was named one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century by Time Magazine!
Yes, I know corrosivity is not a word as far as you’ve heard. It is a novel combination of corrosive and acidity to me. Because I didn’t want to write ‘an ocean of acidity’ — it’s not right, not P.C., err, I mean it’s not P.H.! (Gee…) Simply equip and tip in a ton of tums to neutralize the acidic H-2-O blip; not the right video-clip. So, corrosivity it is…
And let’s get it clear: I’m here not to neutralize the seas by puffin’ calcium into the breeze. Creating a ton of anything is hard work for me, being a crab astrologically. So, what to do in a corrosive ocean? What’s the potion?
I see my buddy Pisces afloat and adrift, aloft and aloof in a fantasy of idea thrift. I know not to follow so as not to get lost. And I also can’t abandon my aqueous ship there, boss. The depths being so well-equipped to my elusive style of image-shift.
And a playful warping of the story verbosely is not the essence of this poetic trip. So I digress — unless… No. The real question is not how to rhyme this session, but how to stay solid in a corrosive ocean where you know-not-what-means-stolid.
When you live underwater, the world is heavy. Ideas are tempting but can drag you down fishy rabbit-holes quick. Mystery and deception, image and self-defense protection not a problem for the clawed-crawling-shelled-crusty creatures like me-myself and a few other watery-signed-types on the shelf. But with an ocean of emotive ideas at my finger-claw-tips, and the schools of benign-looking hook-hidden pips, the challenge remains to open-shell with the proper currents and down comrades at my hip.
Open too much and pure-essence is leaked.
Too little and neurotic claws begin to auto-collapse on the allied-peeps.
So, to flow or to swim is the question to let sink in. To roll in the under-tow or no?
And the best way for us, these crustaceans, not-to-crack, is to never let this very question stab us in the back.
“You can’t just go around bashing the Singularity like that!”
“Well, why not? Isn’t it due the same scrutiny as any other statistical or theoretical extrapolation?”
“No. Just no.”
“Why is that?”
“Don’t you understand?! — the Singularity is a sacred tenant of Nerd-dom, beating out even force-fields and light-sabers in conceptual God-status!…”
“I am not aware of any such thing as conceptual God-status, nor does it lend anything at all to your case this equating it with your Zeus-level memetics or whatever you want to call it. Science doesn’t care if it’s cool or if your world view rests upon its shoulders; all that matters is the truth: Is it going to happen or isn’t it? And your quick-tempered reaction to my by-all-standards-justifiably-dubious approach to the issue is self-defeating to say the least… I mean, would you want people making parody god-concepts out of your precious Singularity, much like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn parody the God of the Old Testament? Give it a rest, please! It’s just another blogger pointing out some obvious fallacies inherent in the meme.”
“I… Ghah! I hate you!!”
“To further my point, consider how unlikely it is that we could properly imagine something so supposedly un-imagineable in the first place! I mean, where do you even start if the extrapolation leads to a wall of un-extrapolatability? ‘It’s like saying God is so mysteriously, incredibly powerful that you’re not even gonna believe it!’ To which me or any other sane, skeptical scientist would respond: ‘Ok, I’ll take your word for it. I don’t believe in it one bit then!’ Don’t waste your energy deifying such a mundane, backwater concept, that’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s not mundane or backwater! It’s brand-spanking new! It’s — it’s.. It’s the most glorious — bad-assest, mega-bajillion-power-plus-infinity concept there is! I mean, the Singularity almost guarantees us Earthly eternal bliss. And you don’t even have to believe in it to get the access-cards to the Mega-Rapture of the Nerds. It’s just gonna happen, what with all the modulation and widgetizing and hackitizing, not to mention the research and development money that’s being poured into the field of recursively self-improving A.I., which is really just the beginn…”
“Stop. Just stop right there. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve seen the wikipedia article on the Technological Singularity. I’ve listened to Ray Kurzweil speak at TED. I’ve read Vernor Vinge’s works. There’s nothing you can say. You’re not gonna convert me. I’m beyond it. I’m post-cyberpunk to your momma’s moldy Nöospheres. I’m post-singularitarian while you’re still in singularitarian infancy. I’m nerd nihilism 2.0. But you, you’re still raving about AOL 2.0!! Go home already!! Just go home!”
The nihilist turns his back and walks away, leaving Mr. S-fan boquiabierta — stunned and without a comeback.
“God I hate these playa-hater’s…” mumbles Mr. S-fan to no-one in particular. Looking off into the distance he ends saying, “Maybe I should make it a religion…. Yea, I’ll call it Singularitarianism… Yeah, I like the sound of that. It just rolllllls off your tongue…” He tromps self-righteous back to the hood, his hood, the neighborhood net-cafe, to make his plans for the future and ensure that nerd-nihilism spreads to not-another-soul…
First buddhism-related post in quite a while. This one a speech from one of my favorite wise people about progressing along the path of spiritual-development. What does it take to grow? Do we need guides along the way? Certainly it doesn’t hurt to be pushed once in a while. I love the story here and how it demonstrates the value of troublemakers in our lives.
The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not real.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;
To experience with abstraction is to know the world.
These two experiences are indistinguishable;
Their construction differs but their effect is the same.
Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.
Life is resistant to entropy. Survival of the species is genetic. And selfish self-preservation is the rule. Carried out over generations, species preserve themselves. And out of humans new forms of life are springing: tools and artificial intelligence that may choose to preserve themselves at some point and push outward into the universe, saturating the whole of it with consciousness.
And although it may end up as strange and alien life, the universe will live. This is extropy, the concept that life can get around entropy visa-vi genetic and cultural heritage, and that it will continue to expand from the cradle of Earthly human intelligence.
Yep. We’re pretty key, alright, us humans. Pretty damn key…
But let’s keep some of this alive too, eh?
It’s just not good to burn up your own cradle, no matter how much you believe you have grown.
“A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.” — MLK
KNIGHTS OF CYDONIA, by Muse
Come ride with me through the veins of history
I’ll show you a God who falls asleep on the job
How can we win when fools can be kings?
Don’t waste your time or time will waste you
No one’s going to take me alive
The time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive
No one’s going to take me alive
The time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive
No one’s going to take me alive
The time has come to make things right
You and I must fight for our rights
You and I must fight to survive
