"Live the questions. You will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear."

- Stephen King, The Body (via Doctor Jazz)

Slippery when wet.

Nay sayers, despise the new hi-tech swimming era.

Stripped back, swimming is one of the purest athletic competition sports. The medium is repeatable, it's water, in a pool. The pool is the same length. The lanes are the same width. Whether it's indoors or outdoors, there is very little to affect your progression through the water. It is you, in your own lane v's the clock. If you're the fastest, you win.

Nothing has changed. If you're the fastest, you still win. The difference is, we can't tell who is the fastest athlete.

The one who has done the training, passed their drug tests, got their taper right, got their mental state right, had a race plan, executed it better than everyone else on the day, passed another drug test, and been the best at combining those elements. That makes you a winning athlete.

Now, we are stuffing this combination in to tight fitting polyurethane suits, and masking some of these elements.

There are plenty of arguments:

Coaches: "These suits are a substitute for correct training. They artificially enhance endurance, core stability, technique, and this should be taught correctly, by coaches". - Well, coaches, maybe you're not as important as you think you are?

Past athletes: "All the old world records are being beaten, in our day it was all about us, not the suits". - Guys, do you really need your name at the top of a start list to reaffirm you and your EGO that you were indeed great, a legend? Times change, history does not.

Current athletes: "The suit doesn't swim for you, you still have to train, to race, to turn up prepared". Let me clean the vomit from my mouth, yes, yes, yes we know that. But, THEY ASSIST YOU! - Say it in private first, it might just make it easier to cough out in front of the camera.

The media: "Scandal this, boycott that, a win for technology, tension in the camp, ripped suits, asses on camera". - Thank you, swimming has found a new way to be in most news breaks and papers.

This is not simply about who has the best technology, they can all source their fabrics from similar suppliers. It is about who is able to access this technology, in time, to make it a legitimate, proper element of their athletic performance package. And, this is about the interpretation, and more importantly, the enforcing, of ambiguous rules.

For those manufacturers, who have been brave enough to take on the rules, construct new suits, and fight hard to have them allowed, I say well done. We have had an explosion of brands enter the sport recently, willing to invest millions of dollars on R&D and marketing, to grab a slice of the pie. Is that a bad thing?

The real problem, are those that sit at the dizzying heights of the sport's administration. The politicians. The shiny pants brigade. The rubber desk Johnny's. Swine.

FINA, you have allowed all of this to happen, via ambiguous rules and by-laws, shoddily interpreted and applied due to threats of withdrawals of funding, law suits and heavy handed tactics, to that I say, YOU ARE PISS WEAK!

If you love this sport, and not the junket it provides you, show some balls, make some hard decisions, make them with the best possible information available, make them known well in advance to allow for adaptation, then enforce them.

This may just allow the even playing field that everyone is striving for.

And no, taking the retrograde step of rolling back technology to the pre 2000 era, whilst leaving the modern day rubber records on the books, IS NOT a decision. It's a fucking embarrassment!

And, for the technophobes, step outside your ego, swimming is a pumping conversation piece, for a lot of wrong reasons, I agree. But, do we want to be pure and boring, or hi-tech and thoroughly engaging.

There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Windmill

- Edeowie Station, Flinders Ranges

An airport affair

I'd just flown back from a business trip, it was 6ish and I was tired from a hectic few days.

Heading towards the carousel to get my bags, I noticed a guy I vaguely recognised as the husband of a friend. It must be said, she is a friend of a very good friend, so a bit removed, but a friend none the less. I had met him only once or twice before, but he had these translucent blue/green eyes, that were hard to mistake.

Strange thing, he was being greeted affectionately, by a woman, and no, it wasn't his wife.

It wasn't a motherly figure, nor was it a familiar greeting from a sibling, it looked too intimate for friendship...I was suspecting. I didn't say anything about it when I got home, not sure why, I just got on with my week.

Friday night came around and we had some friends over for dinner, including coincidently, the ones that provide the link to my midweek sighting. Well, it was really a passing comment, rather than a gossip piece, "Hey, did Justin fly back in from Sydney on Wednesday?", I asked. "I think he did, actually", Mandy said back. "Oh, I think I saw him", I pause. "Did you say hello?", Mandy asks. " No, well, he had someone there picking him up, so...".

Silence.

Mandy is now leaning forwards on the table, looking directly at me.

I remember thinking to myself, what the fuck have I just got myself in to?

By this stage, all eating and drinking had stopped too, and now everyone was looking to me for the next piece of information.

"Well, he was greeted by another woman, and it wasn't Leanne, it didn't look like it could be his mother, and looked a little too intimate to be just a female friend". "Um, does he have a sister?", I ask, lamely.

It was silent.

Mandy looks to her husband, and says "I told you!".

Fuck.

"Now, hey. I haven't seen this guy for ages, and you might want to be careful what you think, or say", I sprout out trying somehow to climb back up this greasy pole. Alas, we are in free fall.

"I want to know everything you saw", Mandy barks, "I'm going to confront him".

Ah, fuck me, I am now the accessory to a possible dalliance, and I for one, do not want that position. Guess I should have thought of that before I opened my mouth.

Fortunately, there was more food and wine to hide behind for a short while, and being the cook, I had plenty of reasons to get up and down from the table to excuse myself from the fire I had started. And, it was raging.

I had a habit of being opinionated, my friends knew it, and expected it of me. I just said it as it was, straight to the point, it is black or white, left or right of the line, nothing straddled the middle. This to me, at the time, was another straight out "tell it as you see it" moment. Oh, how wrong I would be.

Mandy's blood pressure was bordering hypertensive, it is one of her best friends involved, and I hold the details to a possible life changing event in both of their lives, especially Leanne's.

I'm flushed, and feeling pretty fucking ordinary. "More wine?", I cry in desperation. For me at least, comfort me dear juice of the grape.

Over the course of the night, I have every minute detail of the 3 or 4 minutes of data I posses, extracted from me. I tell you, interrogation should be carried out by a woman scorned, she was relentless. I told her each time, "listen, you should be very careful, I saw them briefly, from a distance, and I couldn't tell you the last time I saw Justin".

Well, fortunately, for me and the others, we managed to get off this subject, with brief digressions back to THE sighting, and finish the evening, on topics far more light hearted. We laughed a lot, enjoyed each others company, as we always do, but something has now changed, for good, Mandy knew this, and looked at me so.

One thing is for sure, I knew Mandy was going to take this further, it was just a matter of time. I told her that before she planned to confront him, she should consider it very carefully, and that if she was definitely going to do it, I would give her some steps to follow.

I had been workshopping some issue and conflict resolution techniques I had learnt from a management training course, and without fail, they worked, every time I used them. I wasn't going to confront him, I didn't know him well enough, so by Mandy choosing to do it, she needed my information to validate her reason for the confrontation. This made me nervous.

Number one rule in using information from a third party in a conflict resolution, do not reveal your source, say only that you know this to be what happened, and then ask the accused for their perspective. They then simply have 3 choices, refute it with proof, confess, or lie. If it turns out to be false information, and you reveal your third party source, they're dead.

I am the third party, I value life.

As every one was leaving, we worked through the usual procession of kisses and handshakes, with Mandy being last. We hugged, and she said, "I'll call you". I knew she would.

For now, all I could do was wait.

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

- M. Scott Peck

Don't, don't.

Heard of don’t-ing? I bet you do it, don’t you?

The act of don’t-ing is describing an action you want carried out, in the way you do not want it done. Make sense? No.

Let’s give it a try, shall we?

Now, don’t think about the fact that you are driving down a 6 lane highway. Don’t think about the 3 lanes going each way, and the nature strip in the middle.

Don’t think about that!

Now, don’t think about the palm trees in the middle of the nature strip, shading the grass, stop it, don’t think about that! Did I mention the highway had 6 lanes, 3 each side? No, don’t think about that.

Don’t see the yellow car, driving down the middle lane on the left hand side, bright yellow car. And PLEASE, don’t see the elephant that is driving.

DON’T!

Without re-reading any of the above, how much of it you can remember? Most of it? All of it? I told you, DON’T think about it! Why does it happen? Another example, first.

Little Johnny is up a ladder, the following events unfold:

Dad: “Johnny, don’t jump!”

Johnny: *jumps*

Dad: “otherwise you’ll hurt yourself!”

Johnny: *midway in flight, realises he wasn’t supposed to jump*

Johnny: *hits the ground, hurt*

Dad: “I told you, you’d hurt yourself!”

What happened?

Dad told Johnny what he didn’t want him to do. Johnny heard the action, what he thought he should do. Johnny obeyed his Dad. On the way down, Johnny then realised he got it wrong, and also realised he might hurt himself. When he did hurt himself, his Dad told him that would happen. Johnny feels stupid, hurt and disobedient.

Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?!

Well, your brain is wired to hear the action first, not the consequence. So if you tell someone not to do something by using don’t-ing, the first thing they will hear, is what you do not want done, then the brain processes the don’t, and realises you want the opposite of the action you described.

Spend some time listening to others, and notice how often directions are given by using don’t-ing. When you hear an example of don't-ing, try to think of a way to ask for the same thing, describing what you actually want done:

Don’t shout – Speak in a quieter voice, please

Don’t touch, it’s hot – keep your hands away, it’s hot

Don’t talk with your mouthful – wait until you’ve finished your mouthful, then you can talk

Dig it?

When you give direction to someone, tell them what you want done, rather than what you don't, the result might surprise you.

Ladder, anyone?

If you were in a labyrinth, and someone offered you a ladder, would you accept it?

This ladder would take you up high enough to see over the maze, help you to plot your path, and lead you out the other side, to freedom.

Well, I'm not talking about cheating in a fun park here, it's a problem solving metaphor. In my experience, and yes, I include myself, we often say no. Why?

It is important for us to suffer. We like to say how hard it was, how hard we worked, as if the toil is some badge of honour, at least when it comes to bragging rights.

It's also because, we are not all that often, offered a ladder. The old adage of "no one was there to help me, so you can find it out for yourself", speaks volumes for the lack of rational thinking when it comes to problem solving. We find some perverse pleasure in sitting back and waiting for the mistake, just so we feel good when we correct the error.

So, next time you recognise a problem, and you think you can help, offer it. And, if you are faced with the problem, consider accepting the help.

Hopefully the ego's on both sides can be put aside for long enough to see that might be what you are both looking for, and give you something better to brag about.

If I'm in neutral, will I go anywhere?

Have you ever tried to not think? Well, not in the “I am not going to think about anything” type of way, but not allowing yourself to consciously process thoughts?

They say it is like being the watcher of the thinking mind, rather than being the thinker. You recognise the thought, then dismiss it, leaving your mind free, rather than embroiled in self-talk.

It takes some practice, and yes, discipline, but it allows your brain to switch from being in gear to spinning in neutral. It's not often mine does that.

Breathe.