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Supposedly my Capricorn-Boar birth date supports my dogmatic take on certain things. I take people’s efforts of persuasion as entirely fruitless when they do not benefit a greater good. Anything that is an “acquired taste” is kind of pointless to me. Why should I try to like a material something? What is the point of buying into a particular philosophy that has not come naturally to me, in all my cognitive years? I have a short, but reasonable, list of things I won’t budge on:
- Coffee. I do not like coffee. I do not need coffee to start my day. Coffee is an acquired taste, but I didn’t like it the first time, and I do not need it to keep my synapses going. I don’t see why I should build an affinity for it.
- Beer. I will tolerate beer, but I think it tastes bad. I don’t need beer to enjoy myself. If I need an alcoholic relaxer and there’s something within my price range on the cocktail menu, I will not head for the tap.
- Bikram yoga. I do not like Bikram yoga. I have tried Bikram yoga. I have worked at a Bikram yoga studio. I do not need Bikram yoga. I do not need to defend my right to not like something to people who like Bikram yoga.
- Religion. I was baptised Catholic, spent weeks at Christian camp, was blessed by the Dalai Lama, and graduated from a Jesuit school. I do not participate in organized religion. I have my own set of morals that I created all by my lonesome. And that makes me a very happy Agnostic.
I am, however, all for independent thought. This makes plenty of room in the world for my apathy toward your choices and your own practice of things I will not participate in. I do not care if the first thing you do every morning is order in fake Italian at Starbucks. I do not care if you can distinguish four different labels in a blind taste test of beer. I do not care if you wake up at five to sweat to Bikram yoga. I do not care if the “I <3 Jesus” part of your Facebook profile is not actually ironic.
I do not care if you think I am uncultured in the ways of the bean, hops, or skivvies workout sessions. I actually don’t care if you think I am a heathen and I am going to “Hell.”
But when you try to descend upon me with poor parsings of semantics, that’s when I care. That’s when you give me ample reason to say, “Yeah, turns out Bikram yoga students really are full of shit. All they wanna do is come off as eclectic, and if you’re not in their camp, you’re not fit to sip from a Sigg.” When you try to paint your way as the only way, you make me roll my eyes.
I am not sorry you feel like you were rejected. I am not sorry your devotion has made you oblivious to the statements “I am not interested. I do not like it.”
I’m just not that into you and your bullshit. I don’t mind you drinking beer-flavored coffee after Mass as long as you don’t interrupt my Bai Linging with my big dogs.
I HELLA (note how I never say that) get what you’re saying. It makes me want to go out of my way to stick my middle finger in their face.
Add the medium of the Internet to the discourse, and the instigator may as well just stamp “FOOL” across his own forehead.
Amen. And beer-flavored coffee…that’s one I need to try.
There’s actually a place here in the East Bay that serves a milkshake made with coffee and Guinness. But that’s about as close as I can get.
You are now my favourite blog. I could not agree more.
Oh, and Bikram…really is the devil.
I agree with you about Bikram yoga and would like to share my experiences of the last week. I attended 2 classes in 3 days to see what it was all about. I’ve been practicing / teaching Shivanada yoga / chi kung / five Tibetans for over 20 years and sauna / swim every morning, so I thought I’d find Bikram yoga fun and quite easy. I sweat alot generally and within 2 minutes of the class starting was completely drenched. By the end of the class I was very dizzy and feeling sick – although for some reason as I was walking home I couldn’t stop laughing…like ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe I just did that!’. After the second class (2 days later) I vomitted in the toilet and it took me 40 minutes to get myself together enough to put my clothes on and start walking out of the chaning room. Yes, it was a good ‘kick up the ass’ but for me it is surely dangerous to continue. I was definitely suffering from heat stroke.
They had this chart on the wall with ’30 day challenge’ written on it – I guess that means some people are doing it every day for 30 days. Ouch! That can no way be healthy. Salt deficiency is a HUGE problem in the world because most of us are consuming table salt instead of real sea/rock salt. Real salt contains 85+ minerals and when the body gets depleted of these mineral opportunistic infections and all sorts of other diseases can arrise. Regular Bikram practitioners who are not closely monitoring their water/real salt intake are playing with fire as regards to their long term health. I write about dehydration and salt deficiency in my book ‘The Five Point Plan’ – simpletruhts.info
The other thing was the strip lights with no protective cover on them. My ex-girlfriend suffered from epilepsy and I’ve had to help her out during ‘grand mal’ attacks a few times, not pleasant. Strip lights interfere with neurophysiology and can trigger epileptic fits.
So its back to the gentle, harmonious yoga/chi kung for me. I’m glad I went to a couple of Bikram classes but I’m sure I’ll never go again.