Pulling your own weight.

During this past weekend I took a road trip down to the LA area with two friends from Crossfit Monterey, Oly lifter Shareef Fahmy and coach Jacob Tsypkin to go watch the Crossfit 2011 games. One night we met up with Jake's friend Serge at a place called the Yard House (get the BBQ bacon cheddar burger, it's one of the best I've ever had).

Anyway, this guy that was with us, Rob, he convinced the only person at our table that wasn't a lifter to explain some of his personal beliefs. Rob also displaces the most space out of anyone at the table. He's kind of a big guy and this non-lifter Matt doesn't exactly displace a lot of other matter.

I'm pretty sure his name was Matt. Someone there was named Matt.

So this guy Matt goes on about how his biggest pet peeve- the thing that irks him most- that which twists his panties in the greatest angle of rotation... is the growing stratification of class in this country. He made some good points: mainly that the issue is largely systemic, but then he started talking some bullshit. Basically, as I understand it, he was promoting various welfare-like systems, such as rich people providing for poor people. Charity cases.

People started yelling, there were a couple personal threats made in really poor fashion (racial insults said to some rather large people)... a lot of poor dialog because we were all a little drunk and talking about politics. I was a little too in love with my meal to say much besides "om nom nom" and "oh my god, this burger..." and "the fuck... did he really?" so I thought I'd explain my thoughts on the issue of the segregation of rich and poor peoples.

I'm a big fan of small government. The role of government should be reduced to it's smallest role possible, and not more or less than that. I'm a big fan of the "teach a man to fish" approach. Provide the tools that people ask for- for they cannot and will not use the methods and means that they are not inspired towards. In that end, I act in a way I believe is best, and as a side effect, I show people around me ways to live more properly if they like what I'm doing.

If your situation is crap, don't worry. Take that crap situation and make it excellent. That's alchemy. That's worth doing. One of the only things worth doing.

If you're poor, put more weight on the bar.