Cogito Ergo Sum / Bundini

“Don’t think about it as an if.  An ‘if’ is something you can handwave.  Stick your head in the sand about.  It’s way smarter to think of it as a ‘when’ and have a gameplan about what you're going to do.”

That was the statement that made him stand out to the Bodhisattva.

A somewhat sacred part of any process is finding a mentor.  Call it that, call it guru, call it a spiritual teacher, trainer–or in the program, a sponsor.  Someone who you can call upon.  Sag eschewed that part of things early in his journey, assuming, wrongly, that he did not need the assistance of anyone to guide him on a path.  Besides that, if he had any real crises, he could always lean on his support networks.  He could rely on Cliff to tell him he wasn’t a bad person, he could rely on Paxton to “get” his particular expression of addiction.  But it’s not fair to lay all of it on Cliff, sweet as the man is.  He’s far too tough to say it, but Sage can perceive things in him.

Tension.  Stress points.  Small things, the way his mouth will curl into a terse frown when he’s trying to break bad news to Sage.

Paxton he tries to not think of.

He’s happy for him.  He got out, he found the thing that would let him finally stop.  He doesn’t need his old running buddy bugging him at all hours of the night every time the urge to get into a scrap takes him over.  He wants to give him that space, in a certain way needs to, because it keeps the dream alive.  The dream that one day he could be ‘better’, in whatever form that takes.  The dream that he could be well enough to never need the ring, never need the fight again.  He needs to hold onto that, to keep his distance, to know that the ghosts of this life can fade away if given enough time.

The way he figures, he needs someone who doesn’t love him.

Someone who doesn’t get him.

And those words–”Not ‘if’, but ‘when’”--they stuck with him.

Echoed over a couple of meetings.

He was unassuming, no trace of hippie or wook to him.  Asian, mid-50’s, lean all over but getting jowly enough to feel avuncular.  Keeps his balding head cropped close, a tight horseshoe of black and grey.  Always wears rimless round glasses and tucks his long-sleeved polo shirt into his khakis.  His words were always clear, warm, direct–no sarcasm, no obfuscation.  He said he’d been clean for 20 years when Sage first met him at the local.  Explaining his particular situation was never going to happen in group, so Sage invited him out for a coffee to explain.

To his credit, this man, Jake, never once balked.  Never shamed Sage.  He just absorbed all the information silently, while nodding.  The Bodhisattva would feel so much lighter after casting all the subterfuge aside, for being honest.  “Yes, I smoke weed like most people hydrate.  No, it does not affect my career or relationships in a poor manner.  What does is my capacity to hurt and be hurt in kind.  I thrive on physical pain and I’m using my career in wrestling as a sort of harm reduction, like PRIME is my own personal safe needle exchange.”  It’s a hell of a trip to lay on anyone, much less a square like the older guy.

But Jake’s not as square as Sage thinks.  Jake’s in the program for a reason.  He was MOD when they were still Masters of Destruction, and the tattoos that go up and down his arms under his shirt are the proof of a life lived hard.  Skulls, 301, knives, spider webs, in varying degrees of competence from professional to jailhouse.  Jake used to tool on bikes and run methamphetamine until he decided to start getting high on his own supply.  He’s done more jail time than most, and he listens to Sage’s tales of bloodletting with no judgement in his eyes.  Because he’s been there, maybe in different places for different needs, but he recognizes the siren wail of self-destruction all too well.

Jake got out, too, in his way.  Just like Paxton.  He found something that made him stop, that made him take his recovery seriously enough that he’s got two whole decades on the odometer.

There’s part of Sage that envies him.  He tells him so.

And Jake just smiles that warm smile like an uncle who would never rat you out to your parents.  Doesn’t judge the envy.  Understands it.  Accepts it.

Accepts Sage.

—

“I asked you if you hate what you do.”

The question actually makes Sage think for a moment.  Absently, his hand reaches for his left ear, to the extra-dimensional space where he normally keeps a joint ready for such moments of rumination.  But we can see his muscles contract as he catches himself, placing his hand back on his knee.  Time differences and an ocean regardless, Japan is a place that is decidedly unkind to the funky smoke that makes the man provoke.  Sage can’t do a decade in a prison where he doesn’t speak the language, and coughing up 5 million yen would probably be an even taller order considering he gives away a fair amount of what he earns.  Looking at his battered, sticker-coated tablet, Pontiff searches for the right words.

“I love what I do.”

“Then why do you treat it like it’s something that you have to carry, man?  Every time the conversation turns to how you earn a living, you tense up.  You get morose.  Dark eyes.  So either you don’t love what you do, or you’re mistaken about the dangers it possesses for you.”  On the screen, Jake fires up a cigarette, exhaling through his nose with not a blink on his features.  “Either way…”

“Either way I have to change how I’m acting about it.”

“Exactly right, warrior.”  Sage shakes his head at this, which makes the older man across the world chuckle.  “I would bet you a crisp dollar that I know what you’re thinking.”

“You’re on.”

“‘That’s so much easier said than done’, probably.”  Pontiff smirks at this, nodding, as Jake takes another drag and smiles in his warm fashion.  “You aren’t wrong.  The words come easy.  The work is what can take ages.  But I just want you to consider the possibility that you have assigned your profession this negative feeling inside of yourself.  You struggle with violence, but you struggle with senseless violence.”  He holds up his Marlboro Red.  “I used to smoke methamphetamine.  I also smoke cigarettes.  But I don’t fear every time I light one of these up, make sense?”  Sage chews his lip, thinking this over.

“I get it.  But how do I shift my brain on it?”

“Have you ever read Descartes?”

“I’m familiar.”

“He has this quote that I recall frequently.  He said ‘Conquer yourself rather than the world.’  I always took that to mean that I can’t control any of this.”  To punctuate, he smiles and waves his arms around his head.  “War, famine, even things that trigger my disease.  I can’t conquer them, because I’m powerless to them.  Weak, small.  But!  I am extremely powerful when it comes to this body, this mind, what I engage in with them and how they respond to things.  So sure, you can think that changing your mindset is insurmountable…but is it, really?”  The scoff that comes from Sage is legendary.

“That seems like a line, Jake.”

“It is, but like most memorable things, there’s quite a bit of truth to it.”  Pontiff gazes into the distance, kindly picking at his lip, searching for the question that’s bubbling inside of him before finally speaking up.

“So, what, just embrace solipsism?”

“Embrace your own power, Sage.  Embrace the power that is not unique to you at all, but the power that we all have as children of God, the power of will.  You don’t hesitate to fight for your own survival once the bell rings, if any of those videos you’ve shown me are an honest sample.  So why is this mighty gladiator a powerless child in this one specific instance?”  Jake punctuates this by adjusting his glasses and taking another drag of his cigarette.  Another feature of Jake is that he has zero problem letting you stew in your own silence: once he makes his point, he has no need to fill space.  This is one of those times.  He just…shuts up, but does not take his gaze away from The Bodhisattva for a moment.  Sage knows he would be more comfortable with a joint going, but for fear of the constabulary, he rummages through his bag until he finds a nondescript Ziploc bag and retrieves an illicit gummy.  Chewing it slowly, he starts to nod.

“I miss fighting, right?  Not the sanctioned stuff, but fighting whenever the mood strikes me.  But I’ve been giving up the fight that was right in front of me.  Because I can beat the sadness, if I actually try, but…like, I got comfortable in my misery.  Misery feels good, I think.”  Jake nods.

“Misery feels comfortable fast.”

“So I just have to remember.”  Jake smiles, settling himself in his chair more comfortably.  He clears his throat, then begins to speak in more presentational tone.

“‘God doesn't love us–we be.  That’s all he did, but that’s good, because we’re free.  But free isn't easy.  Free is real.  And real eats raw meat.  Walks in it’s own shoes, doesn’t waver.’”  His shoulders sag after this recitation, and Sage smiles his million dollar grin, nodding, his eyebrows raised.

“I like that.  ‘Free is real.’  That’s good, Jake.  Descartes?”  To this, the older man laughs so loud he clips the audio levels off out of the iPad.

“Bundini Brown.”

—

So Kenny, I want you to think about this.  Consider it like a guided meditation.  You’re under a tree.  The weather is warm but not overly bright, and a soft breeze tickles the tree branches and makes them sway–so much so that a beautiful, perfectly ripe fruit falls to the ground in front of you.  And you hunger.  So you eat the fruit.  And it is delicious, right?  It’s cool and flavorful and it feels so perfectly accompanied to the day.  So you get to your feet and climb the tree.  You eat another fruit.  Just as good.  You eat another.  And the flavor is amazing.  But as you climb higher, eat more fruit, you are feeling sated on a deep level…the roots of the tree are rotting out from under you.  But you don’t notice it, because how could you?  Until you hear the snap.  And the tree meets earth with you underneath it.  Now you’re well-fed but buried and dying.  Tough, right?  That’s fighting for me.  Well, it was.  See, I’ve begun trying to…right the ship, as it were.  Turn a leaf.  Think of things more positively.  Because I actually do love this shit, and I don;t just mean for the spiritually corrosive reasons that are plain to see.  I love this because I love the exchange of energy, which is something I’ve been losing sight of.  I’ve been reacting and being fearful, not taking charge of my own destiny.  It’s very unlike me, I’ve been thinking far too uptight as a whole.  Sobriety doesn’t mean that I have to fundamentally change who Sage Pontiff is–it means I have to fundamentally change my relationship with triggers and aspects of my life.  You’ve been there too, right?  Haven’t you felt lost?  In the void?  Eventually…accepted, loved, given an ethos to believe in, guidance when you required it?  What did it feel like when you broke through?  When the understanding laid its cool palm upon your crown and the worries of your existence faded into the background like the hum of a rainstorm?  It felt great.  It always feels great.  That’s where I am.  Breakthrough.  I’ve been hammering away at the stones so long that my knuckles have been shredded to fucking bone, but I did it, and the dam finally burst, and I found myself baptized in a new understanding.  And it was not just by my doing this time, not just because I read something that stuck with me or meditated until the world fit the box I wanted to put it in.  I have the love of a good man.  I have the program, my sponsor.  I have you, Kenny, you and all the other people who have exchanged energy with me and led me to greater knowledge, greater heights, greater harmonic resonance.  “Free is real.  It eats raw meat.”   A wiser man told me that.  To me, it means freedom will always have a cost.  It will always consume.  It’s a steam engine that can’t have enough coal, it needs our happiness and sadness and success and failure…that’s the cost of free.  It judges not its fuel, right?  Free doesn't care if I win this match, lose it, if I beat you toothless or if you break my limbs–it just needs the meat to eat, needs the high and the lows, needs to walk forward constantly like a shark.  Unfaltering.  It’s a heavy trip and it’s a heavy cost to pay, living.  But free is all I’d ever want to be, man. So I’m not going to judge the cost, and I’ll not judge myself for paying it, y’know?  It’s…it’s the practice of onanism.  Destroying myself for something that comes naturally to me.  Why bemoan my healthy outlet, right?  I know what the bad side of who I am looks like.  I know the places it takes me and the insults it drags out from deep in my belly, I know the feelings it inspires when I look back upon it.  And with this, with what I do in the ring, what we do together as human beings…I feel none of that same worry,  Anxiety.  So if it’s not there in the rear view, it can’t be there in the horizon either.  It’s just a trick of the light. A mirage that no one needs to regard as real.   So where does that leave you, leave me?  Not terribly complicated.  I’m going to beat the hell out of you, you’re going to beat the hell out of me.  One of us is going to win.  I will emerge with a greater understanding of myself.  Will you?  Namaste.  —

Ring Ring

Ring Ring

Bedoop.

Cliff comes onto the screen, bleary-eyed, blinking the sleep away.  When he talks, it’s with the telltale grumbling slur of a man who’s been roused from a deep slumber.

“Sage?  Whassacalling for?  Y’okay?”

“Yeah, Pike, I’m good.  Sorry, sometimes it’s hard for me to wrap my head around time differences…just wanted to see your face, hear your voice.”  Cliff straightens up in bed, clearing his throat.  Blinking, he retrieves his BCG-grade glasses from the nightstand and dons them, his face looking serious and concerned–one gets the impression he’s steeling himself for bad news, or at minimum a tough conversation.  But his words are soft,carefully laid out, in a tone of wanting to help.

“You feelin’ some kinda way about fighting again?  Worried?”

“You know what, Pike?”  Sage smiles.  “For the first time in a while…not one bit.”