Contact with reality

Or, "On jiu jitsu"

Let’s try writing again. Thanks to the homies Paul and Jenna for getting my ass back into gear with this

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I’m so sick of abstraction. It’s the currency I’ve traded with for my entire life: words, ideas, thoughts, software. Turns out it’s easy to get lost when your only waypoints don’t actually exist.

I’ve lately had this jarring feeling that I’m one step removed from real life. I say my magic words and I press my magic internet buttons; a paycheck appears in my bank and a Shopify notification appears on my phone. It makes me nauseous to even write that because I know that I’m deeply blessed to live the life that I do. But is any of this really even happening? Am I just some meatsuit already plugged into a metaverse of my own doing? Somewhere deep in my monkey brain it all just feels so transitory when I hear the things that people care about, argue about, think about—words, ideas, thoughts, software—and I just can’t bring myself to care. Does the ghost observing from afar really exist?

Jiu Jitsu—contrary to what TikTok might lead you to believe—exists.

Anyone who knows me knows that jiu jitsu represents a hard left turn from anything I’ve ever done. My life’s core contradiction is that I’ve always been deeply competitive, but never athletic. And that shortcoming served me well! That benign competitiveness was forced to bubble up in other worlds like debate/sales/career. It’s the reason I am where I am. But recently I was grilled with one of those questions that are obnoxious in the moment and profound immediately afterwards: what’s something you’re really excellent at? It just felt wrong to say any of the first things that came to mind—words, ideas, thoughts, software—because all of my options were things that this person wouldn’t be able to experience, and therefore they were things that did not exist. So it was time to pick up a hard skill.

Jiu jitsu is effectively submission wrestling. You wear robes (or, in no-gi, don’t), and you grapple with the intent of getting your opponent to tap out. When you watch a UFC fight and someone breaks an arm or gets strangled unconscious, that’s usually jiu jitsu. The basic premise of a class is to show up, warm up, learn some specific new techniques from your coach, and then end off with some sparring (“rolling”).

And that’s where the magic happens. If my general malaise right now is this unshakeable disconnect from “real life”, then getting choked to sleep in front of all your gym buddies is a surefire way to wake the fuck up.

When I say contact with reality (lol look at me abstracting) I specifically mean confronting uncomfortable truths. For obvious reasons, it’s easy to abstract away inconvenient realities with convenient justifications. If only I worked harder, I could be that rich. If only I had those genetics, I’d be that ripped. If only I had more time, I could build that life. By using cope to force distance between present you and hypothetical you, you get an easy salve for the pain of being not enough. Then you wake up years later sick of what you became.

Jiu jitsu offers no such mercy. If you don’t train, you’ll show up a few weeks later to roll with a person who you used to beat, and reality will find you. If you continue to eat dirty, you’ll gas out in class, and reality will find you. If you half-ass train once a week and show up at a tournament, reality, as it has to me, will find you. The feedback loop between input and output is so immediate that there is no opportunity to be disconnected from reality.

There’s a trope in the jiu jitsu community that it’s a vehicle for life transformation. I’ve always bought into that, but I don’t think I could really articulate why until confronting the dusty corners of my own ambition. Whatever your pursuit, there are a few truths that are impossible to ignore when the consequence is spotted vision: hard work works, consistency over competence, and never just go through the motions.

But in jiu jitsu as in life, I’m still just a white belt. It feels like both journeys are just beginning.

Gold at Next Gen 2022. ~reality:contacted~

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