🧿 The Wavering Light

Hello Adventurers, 

Why bury the lede? According to an anonymous source, this issue of the newsletter — as well as every marathon I did this week — was allegedly executed while on psychedelics. Me? I take these accusations playfully serious…but I wasn’t fully there…so like an American I’m gonna plead the filth amendment. Basically, all I can do is pseudo-speculate on these mad hatter matters…so fuck the law ‘cause herein you get to judge the arguments for the dicey joys of altered states.

Anyhoo, I’m nearing 70,000 kilometres trekked by foot since 2015, and I estimate that no less than 55,000 of those kilometres were trudged around Toronto. Barring serendipity in daily life (the magic of which can never be discounted), I’ve basically seen and done everything in this city. Yawn. Like, I’ve completely exploited it through exploration — and this place was never my cup of tea — so I always received it cold which expedited my loss of steam. Luckily for both, I’ve got a fix to bring the heat; when needed, when bored…but never abused in despondency or from a place of dependency.

Drugs and intoxicants are a weird thing since there are pervading norms about what’s valid and what’s invalid…yet everyone is on them in one way or another; sugar, caffeine, smartphones, alcohol, porn, outrage, nicotine, dick pills, heart pills, brain pills…and whatever else you want to add to the list. Legal or otherwise, they’re all narcotics to me; mind, body and/or spirit altering, and addictive to varying degrees, and always this ‘spectrum thing’ that can be good or bad (or anything in-between) depending on the dependency, intent, dosage, and frequency of usage. That said, drugs have killed my friends over the years, and alcohol reliably ruins my relationships…so I’ve got my reservations about everything…despite being a generally unreserved person. As with everything in life; choose your adventure / illusion wisely, and proceed warily.

Freestyle marathons — for me — are a creative medium for getting outside into the physical world to soak up observations. And they just happen to be athletic, which — for me — is a secondary thing. What is primary, is that the marathon is just a ‘unit of measure’ that justifies me wandering ‘round the world for no less than 42.195 kilometres in a day. Like, if I say I’m gonna go plod around outside — and fuck around — I’m met with befuddlement. But, if I say I’m doing a marathon then I’m greeted with encouragement and high fives. So yeah, marketing is everything (it is what it is…I don’t make the rules…I just bend ‘em and break ‘em).

I mention the aforementioned because when it comes to marathons, psychedelics aren’t PEDs. And while I’ve never cared about speed or pace, psychedelics are 100% anti-performance; I imagine they slow you down, turn legs into jelly, make jaywalking impossible, and make map following difficult…so one would likely / routinely get lost as one loses their mind in a torrent of different thoughts and feelings. And that is why someone may occasionally marathon on psychedelics; to bend the sights and sounds and smells (and sensations) of the world, and alter how one receives as well as processes them. And as someone who is addicted to creativity, I could see the allure of widening the possibilities of my palette (to temporarily paint my reality a lil differently) when the mood — or the Toronto boredom — strikes. Hypothetically, of course.

All that said…y’know…as they say, “Do as I do, not as I say” aka blah blah blah legal disclaimer; consult your doctor or drink a Doctor Pepper (when it comes to these things), accept all risks (legal or spiritual), don’t operate a vehicle when fucked up, and don’t be that fuck-up that fucks up your relationships with friends and family (by being an irresponsible and/or annoying user of anything). So let’s get into it…if we’re responsible and/or open to such,

- Ben Pobjoy

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 42

• Flights taken: 46

• Kilometres flown: 70,387

• Marathons completed: 141

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 6,706.8

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 69,798

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: Being on a marathon and seeing a really old lady trip over a curb and smash her face into the pavement (she was too old / too slow to brace for impact). It immediately terrified me ‘cause she was still for a bit then bloody…but me, a cyclist, and a nearby mechanic all ran over to help…and while the whole thing was scary, it was a heartwarming reminder that people will snap into action when others need help (and that’s the best part of us, and something we can never lose)🫡

• The Biggest Obstacle: Just occasionally bonking…I’m asking a lot from my body this year and it was a humid 35 degrees celsius the other day and my body was just like, “No way José” and lacked gusto…so my mind had to give in…and I returned to bed🫠

• The Lesson Learned: I’m currently in the process of booking travel for the third leg of my Marathon Earth Challenge — and I have no affiliation with this website — but it has been a very helpful resource for learning which airports offer direct flights to other airports🥳

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

In the early days of the pandemic, there were broadly two camps; one was concerned with not being shit-arsed while the other was concerned with how to stay shit-faced. Both were hoarders, and I was allegedly in the latter; possibly loading up on some psychedelic snacks to ride out the storm (which my body could do on earth in order to hypothetically fling my mind into outer space so as to happily orbit above the madness down below).

Anyhoo, back then I may have bit off more than I could chew…and supposedly my stockpile has lasted years. So much so, that I may rediscover it now and then — and chuckle — and maybe nibble a few times yearly (when marathoning in a controlled environment like Toronto…which I know like the back of my hand). Or maybe I don’t partake at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Microdosing has exploded in popularity within the last few years. I know nothing about it…but tech bros ruin everything — due to their insatiable boners for greed and capitalism…and because ‘more’ is never enough for them — and they’re now heralding psychedelics for productivity. But I’m a slacker…so that benefit doesn’t speak to Benny boy.

However, if someone told me that there was a plant-based chocolate bar infused with a very low dose of 160 milligrams of a psychedelic substance per square….where one could controllably ‘baby step’ into making the reading of any book incredibly absorbing, watching movies more immersive, having any genre of music sound more engrossing or elevate the observing of art to be even be more revelatory…boy, that’d surely speak to people smitten with creativity. Like, I suppose.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

As an addendum to the above, I wanted to share something else that I believe to be creatively nutritious. Admittedly, this is a bit of a weird inclusion — something I’ve never offered up in the newsletter before — but I’m generally a huge reader…and one of the benefits to being home for a hot sec is that I can voraciously dig into a book (the luxury of which I cannot do when I’m on the road executing the Marathon Earth Challenge…because I lack the space in my backpack to carry books / I hate reading books on electronic devices / I don’t listen to audiobooks when I’m abroad ‘cause I prefer to marathon with presence in place).

Anyhoo, if you’ve been anywhere within an earshot of a radio within the last forty years — and regardless of your musical preferences when it comes to genre(s) — you’ve likely heard something produced by Rick Rubin (even if you’re unfamiliar with his name)…that’s because he’s touched — and shaped — music by the Beastie Boys, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, Shakira, Jay-Z, Adele, Lady Gaga…the list goes on and on.

He’s a legend, he’s thoughtful, and he’s literally been in the mix for decades…so when he released a book earlier this year, I took note because he’s a master of his craft (and we can often learn a thing or two from these types of earthly wizards).

Well, I recently finished Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being within the span of a few days, and lord…it is one of the most joyful, motivating, and practical books I’ve ever read. Yes, it’s written by / from the perspective of a music producer but it takes great pains to speak to anyone operating in any creative medium. I immediately wanted to binge drink this book…but I paced myself to sip it like a whiskey so as to savour each sentence…because it is that delectable.

When I was younger, I erroneously believed that creatives were merely the textbook definition of what an artist is believed to be, but as I get older I’ve come to understand that creatives are basically anyone that is trying to solve a problem and/or imagine new realities or possibilities. As such, intent matters more than form when it comes to expression, and what makes ‘The Creative Act: A Way of Being' so compelling is that much of it speaks to how to get unstuck when you’re stuck trying to solve something…which is relatable if you’re a human being trying to solve life as well as existence.

The book is simple in its writing yet elegant in its wisdom, and I don’t want to spoil it for you (by disclosing its insights)…so I’m just holding space in this issue to recommend it.

Rick Rubin’s book gave me a lot to think about on my marathons this week — and he encourages people to shake things up / experiment with trial and error — so reading his book…and possibly taking edibles…and treating this issue of the newsletter a tad differently…it seemed like a creative act, one that honours a way of being that me and him know to be fulfilling and meaningful.

FIELD NOTES: TORONTO, CANADA*

*Here but elsewhere

When it comes to my newsletter, I don’t really know how to creatively resolve my current stopover in Toronto right now. Like, I extensively profiled the city earlier this spring, and have posted about it hundreds of times — from hundreds of marathons — over the years on the ‘Gram. So I really don’t know what’s left for me to say (or show). And that’s probably why Rick Rubin’s book gelled with my perennial stuck-ness here, and why I may have gobbled some psychedelics outta boredom and/or as a means to possibly induce the headspace / heartspace one needs to receive some new transmissions…which I prefer to receive on marathons.

When in doubt (or times like these), I’ve just always gone to galleries and museums to commune with the creative gods with the hope of being struck by something…insight? Indifference? Inspiration? Who knows?

All I know, is that it is a way of being that my parents instilled in me from a very young age ‘cause they took us little boys to museums and galleries all the time (because my Mum is a painter — among many other creative things — and my Dad is a competent potter and sculptor…and photographer who first put a camera in my hand / bequeathed me with a love of photography). So we went ‘cause they went, and now I go because they pushed me down the path of being a creative clown. And much to my detriment (e.g. arrested development), they’re still in the audience of my circus eating cracker jacks while wholeheartedly cheering me on, LULZ!

So yeah, Toronto…I am here now, but I think the city will show up differently in the newsletter these next two weeks before I return to Europe; like a film shot in a city-as-background where the city itself isn’t a character in some larger narrative.

But this week, I may have taken hallucinogens in Toronto and used marathons around it as a means to hit the city’s institutional museums and galleries…so that’s what we’re gonna look at (which I looked at while possibly crosseyed):

Now, whether you’re into drugs or not, you gotta be out of your damn mind to go to the Art Gallery of Ontario these days…because the general admission ($22.50 USD) is more expensive than the general admission ($16.50 USD) at the far superior Louvre Museum in Paris (and represents another proof point about Torontonians having to pay more for less…but that’s neither here nor there). What matters, is that I hit the Wolfgang Tilmans exhibition at the AGO.

Art is whatever you deem it to be, and I’m no art critic so my thoughts on Tilmans — whose work I know well — is irrelevant. But if you’re unfamiliar with his work, it’s just modern photography that looks like a Google Image search where it’s quantity over quality, has no defining style (which isn’t a critique…his solo exhibitions look like group shows), he’s a ‘cool’ artist which affords him some questionably big opportunities, and the work is like this on-going survey of photographed youths, inane scenes or still lives, and some genitalia thrown in for a bit of pizzaz. I’ve never loved it, but I’ve always liked it. Specifically, going to his expos and just seeing how others interact with his ‘everything photography’ which is more random than it is refined.

Anyhoo, for you it could be gardens or maybe it is live music, but I’m just enamoured with gallery-like spaces that celebrate the best of what it means to be human; self-expression and things made with opaque meaning that are difficult to decode / open to interpretation — that once released into the world — can be assigned any meaning you want. Like, the creator can say it means “X” and you believe it means “Y” and everything is valid…because of the context of the presentation as seen through the lens of one’s lived experience.

So hit some edibles (if you want to be catapulted into another dimension), go look at art, and get meta by looking at people looking at art…you’ll be gobsmacked by the absurdity of it all / have your mind blown by how remarkably creative and constructive us humans can be (truly, it’s one of our best traits).

I’ve ran a gallery in the past, exhibited my work at different galleries on three continents over the years, and been to countless galleries and museums on every continent (save Antartica). And one thing you learn quick, is that there’s lots of gatekeepers in the art world…many of which have the same tastes…and follow the same trends…which is why rich people buy the same cornball art by Damien Hirst or KAWS…and why some IG account calling that stuff ‘low effort art kings’ made me LULZ so hard the other day while I was possibly on shrooms marathoning.

Thankfully, things like the Aga Khan Museum exist which ignore orthodoxy, chart their own course, and show work from the diaspora; of voices underrepresented in the collections of most big art institutions (which — let’s admit — are pretty Eurocentric and dude-y). What I specifically like about the Aga Khan Museum is that it ain’t afraid to get dim or moody or dramatic with the lighting. Making that — in conjunction with the geometric intricacies of some of the tiled Moorish patterns that are on display there — when one is hallucinating a tad…totally primo (I presume).

Anecdotally, Jerry Saltz is a really noble art critic that is genuinely committed to shining his influential spotlight on lots of artists outside of the gallery / museum system. Check him out to widen what’s on your radar. Furthermore, his book ‘How to Be an Artist’ — much like that new Rick Rubin book — is essential reading for fellow freaks looking to expand their minds and imaginations.

Oh — and objectively — it sucks to marathon out to the Aga Khan Museum. It’s in the middle of nowhere…so I don’t recommend it (even if you are on psychedelics).

Straight up, Ron Terada is probably my favourite working Canadian artist right now…and his FREE ‘We Did This to Ourselves’ exhibition at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery is not to be missed (Non-Torontonians, click here to get a look at it).

Basically, Terada took the dumbest / cringiest headlines from The Verge and painted them in the New York Times font — like, at a massive scale…all sandwiched together to be immersive — and if viewed on psychedelics it is gut busting-ly hilarious…but on the ‘come down’ is so damn depressing by virtue of being the most asinine representation of the really strange problems we’ve made for ourselves / the fake or dumb problems we waste time being outraged about.

So yeah…get out there, go move, get art’d (high or not), and go move the goal posts within the imagination of your mind.

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in Toronto (all prices converted to USD):

• A pint of my fave plant-based ‘cookie dough’ ice cream — with tip — from the best ice cream parlour on the planet: $11.67

• A cinnamon bun and nanaimo bar — with tip — from the best plant-based bakery in the city: $10.64

• A peanut butter cup and a chocolate-dipped peanut butter stout cookie — with tip — from another decent plant-based bakery in the city: $6.08

*The above may be empirical evidence that stoners are prone to eat like shit

MARATHON MUSINGS

A hypothesis on how to be a (healthier) hunk and/or human

Marathons or not, I don’t like to tread into the culture war(t)s because I’ve never had a STI or a STD in my life (bless!). However, on the most recent ‘leg’ of my Marathon Earth Challenge, I was getting served some really questionable macho man viral-y video crap on Instagram (when I was abroad), and then caught a whiff of some ‘something smells off’ op-ed shit right when I was returning home; all being this alleged crisis of masculinity. Like wut?

Now, I’ve felt the ripples of this conversation intensify ever so slightly over the last few years — but man — it seems like the whole thing has grown to become salty waves more regularly washing up onto the shores — and sores — of our culture…and I’m honestly puzzled.

Like, MeToo put creeps as well as the patriarchy on blast, BLM sought justice and equality, and LGBTQIA+ peoples just want to exist…so I guess life sucks if you’re a rape-y, racist, homophobic dude? Alternatively, this just supports cause and effect being a thing vis-à-vis actions having consequences. Said another way, if you’re not an asshole, you won’t deal with (much) shit…and vice-versa if you are.

But there’s just this supposed void of role models for men right now…and I sorta call bullshit on it. Like, within a nanosecond — as it concerns the movement community and/or the endurance sports space (which is like one iota of my overall interests) — I can think of people like Courtney Dauwalter, Rich Roll, Pattie Gonia, Mirna Valerio, and David Goggins — whom all offer different lessons on how to be. So search and you will find…if one puts the effort into self-agency…which requires creativity and mind expansion and problem solving (which this issue of the newsletter is fundamentally about).

Basically, this is the era of the overdue social reckoning — and if you’re a decent human being that values accountability, growth, learning, and being a sharesies type — nothing’s changed for you ‘cause when it comes to the arc of the moral universe toward’ing to justice…you bend it like Beckham. But if you’re not that, I guess the arc is pegging you…and you’re butt hurt. Tough beans…but I’ll return to this in a sec (with some pointers for you).

Really, I’m just baffled by how this ‘masculinity question’ has become this cause célèbre for everyone from millionaire pundits like Scott Galloway to millionaire crybabies like Jordan B. Peterson. And both are dorks for different reasons. Me? I fuck with the anti-carceral Clementine Morrigan and what Gabor Maté is getting at in his most recent book. Like, I’ll smush ‘em together…but it’s all about us being less punitive / more empathetic, and accepting that the bubble has burst in the Ponzi scheme of late stage capitalism…and being aware that many young people are freaking the fuck out from fear of possibly living through the extinction level event that is climate change or climate boiling (or whatever the du jour term is). However you cut it, normal — for many — has been upended, and many are floating aimlessly in some toxic stew and feeling peeved. And yes, there’s loads of cuckoo bananas conspiracies out there ‘bout it all, but I just always return to this banger of a response.

Anyhoo, I was talking ‘bout much of this stuff the other day with a smart woman. Like, about toxic masculinity — which like woke / wokeness / whatever the fuck it is — is a catch-all term for whatever grievance one subjectively wants it to be — or represent — in some scarlett letter alphabet of argumentation (i.e. they’re all just counterproductive dumpsters for dunking on others), and the woman said something like, “The problem isn’t toxic masculinity…it’s just how damn fragile most men are.” And I just started laughing ‘cause she was 100% right; dudes got pantsed by the culture shift….and many fell down, and couldn’t man up! The irony!

Personally, I got no horse in the race ‘cause I’m a non plot-able anomaly on any culture chart (and really, we all are in our infinite complexities); like, I’m technically a soy boy ‘cause I’ve been vegan for decades, I’m too anarcho and absurdist to be deemed a libtard, and I’m far too frozen to be a snowflake (I’m technically an undefeated amateur boxer with 700+ marathons in the bank…so this soy boy likes to throw down hard like a man…who *spoiler alert* simultaneously loves the sensitivities and reflectiveness of the wussy arts). Furthermore, I regularly wear a Canadian tuxedo and I hate team tribalism…so nobody puts Baby B in a classifiable corner! Basically, no person is a monolith and everyone is multitudes…and I wish we could be more accepting of the latter (i.e that we’re all big, fucked-up weirdos).

The wonderful thing about the Marathon Earth Challenge is that I’m alone most of the time doing it, and can therefore do a lot of deep thinking. And this week, I took some time to think about our earthly problems — on my marathons — while I had blasted myself into outer space (not because I think I have the answers…but because I was baked…and that’s what baked people do other than play video games). I can’t say I pondered the ‘masculinity question’ outright — I think it is a tad made up TBH — but I did think about what my project is teaching me about growth and what it takes to be a better human.

Now, I recognize as well as celebrate all of our differences — as I do the validity of everyone’s lived experiences — but I’ll never stop grasping to find our commonalities…because that is our shared humanity…so I’m always gonna think in macro terms. Conversely, I’m not into bashing people into oblivion, denying people a livelihood or punishing ‘enemies’ into submission (‘cause we all share this pale blue dot together, and ‘cause we can all learn something from America punishing Iraq into hell…and creating the conditions for ISIS). So be kind and rewind…because the blowback ain’t beneficial. Like, I’m serious; war — be it military or cultural — it’s the same when vengeful (and is radicalizing). And me? I’m a peacenik.

Look, all lists are bullshit…but here are five things I’m learning from my project this year…and I humbly offer it from a place of love for my fellow humanoids:

Junkers Are for the Junkyard

I think we can all agree that life is a rocky, windy, scary, unpredictable road full of twists and turns. Furthermore, I think we’d continue to agree that if I rolled up to your crib to give you a lift along said road in a piece of shit car — fuelled by Cheez Whiz, with the engine light on, with half-functioning brakes, and fucked up alignment, and riding on flat or bald tires — you’d be like, “Hell nah, I’m not getting in…you’re of no help to me.” And you’d be right. This lesson took me too long / a long time to learn — like it pre-dated this project — but this project crystallized it; if we’re not putting basic maintenance into our mind and body and soul then we’re a crap car; we won’t arrive to our goals let alone be able to give others lifts to get to — or after — theirs. It’s a no brainer statement — to the point of being dumb as hell — but I’m sharing this first because we are the foundation of what we can do — and be — to others. You don’t gotta be a Lamborghini — like it is totally fine just to be a functional Lada — but you just can’t — for the life of you — be a loser (i.e. moping around, blaming others, not putting in the work). Thankfully there are loads of mechanics out there willing to help (mentors, trainers, coaches, shrinks, nutritionists, etc.). And yes, I know taking the car to the garage isn’t cheap…but that’s just how it goes if you want to get going, and get rolling.

The Answers Are in the Arts

Life is beautiful but it can be brutal; there is pain and grief and death and heartbreak. And when such afflicts and affects us, it is totally human to cave-in on one’s self and feel loneliness and despair. Thankfully, much of this has been felt before — by others before us — and ruminated over within the arts which provides us with reliable routes out of our rawness…by just knowing that something similar has been experienced and processed and expressed and overcome by someone else. There are public libraries, and museums as well as galleries (many of which offer free visitation on certain days between certain hours), and then there’s the internet where so much art and music and film is at our fingertips. And art — more often than not — is an offering made with good intentions…so let it illuminate you, and light your way through darkness. More importantly, beware of imposters — we know them and need not name them — but they’re the hacks who are those prophets of rage whom profit from our rage (for their personal benefit, not our genuine wellbeing). Unfortunately, you can’t just go to the well of the arts to get well. You gotta visit and get a taste of others’ experiences there too; to hydrate empathy and develop greater, deeper understandings of the world at large. If this thirst goes dry, it dies. So drink up…even if it’s occasionally hard to swallow.

Deposit More Than You Withdraw

Everything is more interconnected and interdependent than we like to admit. So if we take more than we give…then we famine more than we feast. Yes to contribution and construction. No to desertion and destruction.

Do Hard Things and Show Us Proof

I wish life was softer but it is hard. And the abstract concept of ‘safe spaces’ is a nice construct…but I know the world to be a pretty cruel place. And as humans we cannot succumb to being animals (as in dog-eat-dog). Rather, we must continually do hard things (with our hearts on our sleeves) to be harder than life (while never losing sensitivity to the hardships of others). No ‘woe is me-ekism’ because history has shown that the meek don’t inherit the earth. Rather, the meek are forced to pound sand. So yesterday’s war stories are just that; dead and gone. Us, we go to battle daily for ourselves and for others — as an army of lovers — because that is the call to answer, and the duty to perform; proven day in, day out in big and small ways.

We’re Here To Be in Service to Others…but We’re Not in the Business of Being Suckers

We must invest our energies into tending to the ill or disadvantaged (being those who genuinely want to improve)…but cannot mend those who’d much prefer to be — or remain — sick (unless we want to go mad and join their company). You can’t fix what wants to be broken…but that’s no excuse to be less kind. Have limitations to safeguard yourself…yet love without limits.

Love to all…let’s get after it; to a better us, to a better world. Move! Create! Expand! Grow!

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