physical art matters.

all models are wrong. some are useful.

– George Box

i would like to add to that:

there is no such thing as a paradox, just bad models.

perhaps not bad… just incomplete.

a friend once described learning jiujitsu as experiencing a film by being given one frame at a time, in an almost random order.

pieces that we can only guess as to their order and relation.

snapshots of action, all context inferred.

are they moving towards something? or away?

creating space? or closing in?

the analogy was meant to help me with the feeling of being lost. to assuage the panic that comes from starting something new. a story that fits into my already lived experience, an access point to borrow the faith required to stay the course and keep learning.

this was not the first time i used a story to make sense of an unfamiliar situation.

knowingly or not, when provided with incomplete information we all begin to craft a story. a narrative to make sense of these pictures. we choose an aggressor, a protagonist and infer an objective. we try to make sense of what little information we have, we add pounds of assumption to ounces of fact. we base our predictions on this story that we invented, build a model around the stories we made up based on a glimpse of action…

it is often said that we don’t see things the way they are, but the way we are.

the assumptions we make are based on our own experience, we see what we have seen in the past. we pick out what we wish we had seen earlier. we make everything personal because that is how we see the world. we are each the center of our own universe. our mind uses our lived experiences to extrapolate, to predict, and to place us where it will be the most advantageous. the problem is that our predictions themselves can tip the scales, we become so prepared for an outcome that we invite it. we seek it.

the fear of something happening can seamlessly become the fear of it not.

entire identities built upon resistance. rebellion.

the fear of wasting our life, of wasting our time… of being wrong.

human behavior has always been wildly interesting to me – behavior under pressure doubly so.

pressure has a habit of exposing the limits of models.

one of the hardest things for me is to understand what “good” and “bad” really mean here. is a good model the one that is useful across the most scenarios? or one that causes the least friction between the modeler and their surroundings? What if the model is mostly useful and, on rare occasion, wildly destructive?

There is a difference between knowledge and action. A gap between understanding a thing and it actually affecting your behavior. So often, the statement of I know is functionally the same as I tried.

All models are wrong. Some are useful. All models are wrong. All models are wrong.

True and false, right and wrong feel like immutable things, things we shape our lives around. Things we accept and through that acceptance, alter ourselves. Models help us discern right from wrong, help us identify and act on truth – until they don’t. But models are not immutable. They are neither permanent nor sacrosanct. They are useful. Useful for me. Useful, for now. And when they aren’t, when they return bad information, point us the wrong way – well that is their nature. Their limit. And it is time to switch models.

perhaps i am not being clear…

zenos paradox of motion (also called the dichotomy paradox) basically states that in order to travel from point A to point B, one first must travel half way, and then half of that, and half of that… as we continue cutting halves ad infinitum eventually we realize that logic dictates no one can ever actually arrive at any destination, and motion itself is an illusion.

now, we all experience motion. it is an observable and actionable fact, but how can we experience what logic tells us cannot exist? therein lies the paradox.

now, there is perhaps a special order of physics that can explain the variation – or perhaps there is an explanation even more simple. perhaps it can all be the result of the observer applying a model poorly. moving “halfway” is not a universal truth. not a law of physics but an occasionally useful description, an observation. this observation, this description has no effect on the world. it has no weight or impact or control. in fact many of the most famous paradoxes are stories of individuals being confronted with the limits of their observational model, individuals who’s narrative slams up against reality and their response is at least performative confusion. there is an inability to accept that possibly there is a mistake, that they need to update their model.

watching people under stress is often watching them confront the edge of their narrative. there is beauty there. and knowledge. and opportunity.

is contradiction essentially the same process? a misunderstanding of the limits of a particular model? is a contradiction within an individual simply a sign that there is a different model at work? that the parameters have been misread and they are now operating out of bounds? That apparently being seen as wealthy was more important than actually being wealthy. That the benefits of being thought of as a “good guy” were actually the goal, and being actually good was just a convenient path – until it wasn’t. That we actually just wanted to have the thing, not do the thing – and have been quietly seeking a shorter path this whole time…

a model, like a map, is not the real thing. a 1:1 ratio map would be useless because it would offer no advantage, destruction by fidelity. a truly perfect model is not a model, but an experience. we use models to try and make sense of experience. to preview. to glimpse into a possible future. like the oracles we can peer through the shadows, past the veils into what might be. but our sight can go astray so easily. a model becomes useful because we remove what we deem unnecessary – use familiar stand-ins for larger concepts, and in judging the usefulness of certain bits of information, we impose parameters on our model. when we confront a personal paradox, a contradiction, a disagreement between model and experience, we are confronting the fact that we misread the map, or perhaps we simply grew beyond it. regardless of the reason, through intelligent growth or improper editing we have found ourselves out of bounds, in the woods, the weeds, off the beaten path and out in the cold. faced with the option to open ourselves to the vulnerability of learning, or to harden our resolve and press again into the breach.

too often the response to contradiction is to clutch the map and ignore the terrain.

to grasp at old ideas in the face of new information.

these models function as our safety objects. they help us make sense of the world. we spend a lifetime curating and nurturing them. they are precious to us.

this saved my life. this made sense of a scary world

the trap of a model is well known, if poorly stated. everyone has heard that the way you boil a frog is to put it in a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn it up. the small changes will never cause alarm, the infamous “slippery slope” where tiny acquiescences invite tyranny and ultimately death. the funniest thing about this parable is that it simply wouldn’t work. i couldn’t find one credible instance of this, in fact what happens is, when you think about it, quite obvious. the frog stays in the water until the precise moment when the cost of staying exceeds the cost of moving. the frog has nothing to prove. the frog isn’t trying to be morally consistent about the safety of a certain pot of water. the frog isn’t going to feel ashamed that it should have seen this coming. the frog doesn’t trust that whoever controls the temperature of the water has its best interests in mind.

the funny thing about that parable is that while apparently you can’t slowly boil a frog alive, there is a chance it would work on a human.

the fear of change causes us to clutch at models that are actively destroying us.

the fear of being wrong robs us of the chance of being right.

so much pain and frustration is caused by this refusal to see the world as it is. so much conflict is rooted in the stories we tell ourselves. in the incompatibility of different models. we tear each other into pieces for not being afraid of the right things, for not caring about the right things, for not reinforcing each others models. we reduce every other person in our lives into players in our narrative. set pieces. foils and stock characters. we tell our own story through reducing or elevating others, shaving and shaping their existence to elevate and define our own story.

there is a problem here though.

A paradox even.

while i am convinced that so many of the problems we face, so much pain and frustration can be laid at the door of our refusal to update our models – some of our best moments as human beings stem from the same place. for what is love? what of loyalty? what of hope and faith and forgiveness? we choose a model and apply it in the hope that it will shape the world. we choose the model in spite of the terrain, walking confidently with the belief that the world will bend around our footsteps. that objective facts will yield to our spirit.

the hubris.

the humanity.

the power of narrative. the power of our models. like prometheus, like fire… the ultimate tool of creation and destruction. the source of so much pain and so much beauty.

perhaps a paradox isn’t a failure, but a joke.

a warning.

a reminder that our greatest tools can lead us comically astray if we are not careful.

language is imprecise. assumptions are too often invisible.

observation is not the same as control.

hubris and humility are not opposites, but compliments. like a lever and a fulcrum – they function as parts of the same machine. each alone can only take you so far.

narrative without empathy is narcissism.

sensitivity. acceptance that everyone is writing their own story. that you – that we are all are but players in each others tales.

to make use of leverage we must know which end of the lever we are holding.

awareness, and the capacity to act on it.

we craft our stories with only the most tenuous relationship to facts, we do this because we are human. we do this because it is helpful. because it is necessary. it is our gift and our curse.

so what is the best narrative? is it the most honest? or the most useful?

a myth is simply a lie with a purpose. a leveraging of our psyche. a deviation from the facts to convey a larger truth.

honesty through omission.

your narrative is a map. a tool.

it is a framework, rotating around a central point.

most of us only see it in pieces, a snapshot or a glimpse in a reflection. frozen in time and perspective.

we claim to adhere to objective truths, that we are just responding rationally to facts – but objectivity is an illusion. perhaps not an illusion, but a construction.

another model.

we decide what is important and what isn’t. we create rules, parameters, a framework of action and reference. the complications lie in our assumptions. altitude can have an effect on chemistry, but not math… right? but enough altitude can effect time, but not enough to matter… usually. the phase of the moon impacts tides, but not how medicine works… right? we have run tests, we know that some variables just don’t matter… right?

what we measure matters. but what about those things that don’t translate easily to a table? those things that we cannot measure, or cant even imagine enough to try. we have also studied placebo effects, we try and correct for the fact that the participants belief in a study will often change the outcome. what about the belief of the person providing the intervention? of the person who harvested the ingredients for the medicine?

this is not to argue that none of it matters, that all models are wrong and therefore equal. no, what i mean to convey is that all models have parameters, and understanding those parameters is vital when trying to utilize said model. we talk too much of being right and not enough about how we got here. we argue about the answer but seem incapable of discussing our work to get there. the framework. the world that shaped our models… this is where communication can really happen, where we can finally uncover the conversation behind the conversation.

see, narrative is a force. it is a tool. a lever. it helps us make sense of the world. it assists us, magnifies our efforts through time. it is an extrusion. like another dimension, it adds weight and connects lines. it permits us to move between points. it can help us make sense of things, provide us with a new vantage point, another avenue to see. it is nearly impossible to change your nature, narrative gives us another path. we can use it to reframe problems, to write new behavior as more “in line” than the habits we are trying to break. if we are able to identify the thread that carries through all our stories, we then know how to better shape the ones that we strive to embody, the ones that come next. understanding our motivation allows us to have more meaningful conversations, with each other and with ourselves.

for we are all just stories. we are maps and models and something more. we are agents. forces of beauty and chaos. a story is not a problem. stories don’t have solutions. narratives are more than collections of information. life doesn’t have a meaning just as a story doesn’t have meaning. telling a story gives it meaning. living a life gives it meaning. a story has perspective, knowingly or not, deliberately or not – our stories communicate what is important. where we have been, where we want to go, and where the dragons lie.

stories. maps. vehicles for sharing our unique perspective. universal truth is a perch too high to to claim, and possibly futile to attempt.

perhaps we aren’t meant to.

perhaps each of our stories is a thread. a piece of a greater structure. something to be shared, woven, brought to the front or tucked behind. the point of a map is not to be true, but to be useful. to help us and others. it is a mistake to think that being right carries some universal value – that it makes your story somehow stronger, more valid than anyone else’s. Don’t get me wrong, there are instances where objective truth is important, but bringing up truth within a narrative is most often an effort to stop a conversation, not to start one. Discussing truth is too often an attempt to skip ahead, skip the story and jump right to understanding. Destination without travel, to be without all the mess of doing.

The problem is that all we are is doing. Being. We are a process, not a goal. We know nothing. A brain in a box. Electrical signals interpreted. Truth, reality, these things are built through stories. Emotional responses are a shorthand, a reaction to information and a preparation for what comes next. Signals are made solid, matter created because of what we feel.

This gives us amazing power as a storyteller. We are constantly curating our past, building our stories one day, one interpretation at a time. We tell ourselves what is important, what led to what led to what. We build a narrative and then respond to it. Again, to be clear: We are responding not to what is but to what we feel. Not what happened but what we think happened, and how we feel about it. Stories are our opportunity. Our chance to put our thumb on the scale. To take what happened and shape it, and ourselves, into what happens next.

This isn’t The Secret. Not a hack or a insight into building wealth but an understanding of the mechanisms of our biology. Honoring the process that has brought us this far by choosing to be a participant in its expression. To change and be changed. To believe enough in ourselves to be willing to listen to others. To understand that the “whole” is more like a tapestry woven of all of our stories. It takes confidence to change. Confidence to listen, to let yourself be tucked into the background and witness someone else. to believe that there is a different experience than your own. To see yourself as a minor character in their story. Or even a villain. To listen and think and understand… and to find a way to fold that in to your next story.

The difference between medicine and poison is most often a matter of timing and dosage.

To be able to listen and receive and to share and shout and stand your ground.

Different models but in service of a greater goal.

There is an easy arrogance that comes with the idea of right, with true and correct and eternal. Words that seem synonymous until one of them is used against you. All joy comes with loss, hope itself comes with despair… I was once told that stress is a consequence of giving a fuck – that self-doubt is the greatest protection from true hubris. Without the need to commit to these ideas, this makes for less of a paradox and more of an ecosystem. A relationship. We contain multitudes, and a lifeguard saving someone from drowning is not a statement against getting in the water.

A paradox, to me, is an edge. A breakdown of my current model. It is an opening. An invitation to think bigger, to expand my map. A story, to me, is a map of another kind. It is an explanation, a guide more useful than any list of truths one could muster. A story is open, it is flexible and formative. A good story is, in many ways, unfinished. It is malleable. Interpretable. Personal. Small facts are turned into feelings, and those feelings fuel more stories. Like a fractal, an expansion of experience. As infinite as we allow it to be.

Purpose is a scary thing. Sharing is a scary thing. We.. I… want to be seen as helpful. As insightful and thoughtful. I want to be liked. I want success, or at least success as I define it. This particular story is vague, messy, it doubles back and seems to contradict itself even while rallying against the whole idea of contradictions. It is at moments anti-science, and can be seen to agree or disagree with just about any ethos the reader brings…

And at present, I stand behind it. With parameters, of course.

These words, these ideas are important to me. Vital even. I cant totally explain why, but they seem to matter. Seem worthy of sharing…

Words are important. Words carry assumptions and inferences, they shape the way we think and what we think is possible. Thinking in the terms of a storyteller can give us some much needed perspective, to see our lives through the eyes of someone else. To see our map, to see what is important and what may be missing. These words, these ideas that mean so much for me are both a site of power and of vulnerability. Our stories make us strong and easy to manipulate. What makes us consistent also makes us blind. These are not bugs, but features. Openings for growth. Choices we make as storytellers to build a worthy narrative. Life is hard and scary and uncertain. Fear and doubt make us seek permanence, seek reassurance in absolutes and outside rules.

The role of a storyteller is a half measure, a framework, a model that is a little more forgiving, a little more steady without the need for absolutes. It fits, for me… for now… and I think that is the point.

Models are by nature imperfect and impermanent.

And so are we.

Good luck.

the stories we have, the models, were for the most part given to us. in an attempt to make sense of the world we took what we were given and did our best. that is to be expected, celebrated even. but as we grow is is up to us to imagine something greater. to examine the priors, to operationalize our definitions. to unpack the baggage of history and language and the shortcomings of those who came before. so ask questions. relentless questions. why you have these beliefs? who gave you these definitions and what was their objective?

how many of your truths were simply stages of growth, models that proved their use by allowing you to grow beyond their bounds?

how many of your realities are actually assumptions?

and do these models still serve you?

is there something better?

leaving that which no longer serves you is not being inconsistent.

refinement is a process and is rarely linear.

stories. models. paradoxes.

frameworks of understanding.

scaffolding.

the bones of what we are and what we experience.

start there, the rest is easy.

the same process, but each a unique experience. there is too much to do, too much to know.

so we work.

so we listen.

so we share.

behind each of us is a story, a narrative of creation. lessons and lovers and loss. we owe it to ourselves and to each other to share these stories. to share our experiences and help each other paint grander pictures.

the spear is often thought of as the first human tool. or the club. a focus and a lever.

a force multiplier. a reflection of our primal urge to do damage.

but what if it wasn’t?

LeGuin posits a different theory. that the first tool was a bag. a gourd. a basket. a tool for extending ones capacity. not to do damage, but to hold. to move and to carry.

to provide.

she even extended the metaphor to storytelling. for what is a story but a way to gather and transport useful ideas? a way to transport each other, to nurture and to commune, to make trades and to display trust. to multiply the forces of love and learning, of hope and knowledge and history.

i cannot express how grateful i am for those who shared their stories with me. for those people who helped me learn to tell my own story. through words, through pictures, and even through movement.

i’ve always found it easier to remember a story when it leaves a bit of a scar.

not scars – per se. but reflections. little pieces of the people i love that have become part of me.

emotional content. tears or laughter or moments of quiet company so solid you can build monuments on them.

friends. lovers. enemies.

the names are important to me, but wont be to you. and that is fine.

they are etched in my heart forever.

a voice at my back. a hand guiding my hand.

company, and confidence.

energy, and encouragement…

.. a story then.

one that i have found helpful.

imagine, if you will – every teacher you have ever had. your parents and grandparents. your ancestors. your friends. everyone who has sacrificed something for you to be where and what you are. like smoke. gentle shadows. hands on hands on hands. every meal you have eaten, every blade of grass you have stepped on. the people who you love and have loved you, the people who you have helped, and those whom you have hurt while learning to do better.

you are an embodiment of both sacrifice and hope.

your actions are propelled by them, empowered.

you contain multitudes. you are legion. an entire watershed gathered into a mighty river.

it is power. vast and personal.

but it is also a responsibility. not just love but loss and destruction.

they are not so i can be.

not an accusation, but an extension of faith.

if all of those entities were gathered, a vast sea of energies – what could i tell them?

what did i do with their gifts?

as much as i hate it, i have always been a performer.

i know the story i want to tell, i know i want to make them proud.

the way i see it, the path is actually quite clear...

...all that is left is the action.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

It is easy to rile against the algorithm, punk rock roots and a current business model based on individual attention make it my knee jerk reaction – but there is folly in not recognizing what is offered to us through this de-skilling. Even if we forget the big picture, the material comforts we have access to because of this mechanization (and the enormous waste and other costs associated with that) –it is the prevalence of how-to videos and step by step instructions for almost anything under the sun allows each of us to cosplay competency. To experience what it feels like to understand plumbing or programming or cooking. With no skill beyond “just following the rules” we can almost guarantee a victory while remaining almost entirely ignorant. We can skip to the end and know what it feels like to repair an engine or prepare a delicious meal for a loved one.

This is an amazing aspect of the technology, but it is also where I see its greatest danger – “Good” is achieved too easily. When success is predicated on having someone else explain each individual step you are never creating anything new, it is a copy of a copy of a copy. But when a modicum of success is within reach, it seems scary and wasteful to not follow the directions. Skill is slow and expensive to build. Building skill without access to a patient teacher is expensive, but not impossible… but to do so we must look at these rules a little differently – not as immutable commandments but as distillations of a principle. They are extrusions – examples of what worked. The exact measurements of oil to vinegar, of tomatoes and salt and sugar are the elements that coalesce to achieve a purpose. To understand, to truly understand how those elements work together we need to abandon those rules – just a bit. We need to risk getting worse in order to allow us to get better. To understand what those rules are really trying to say.

I have often heard the quote ”don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” – usually told to me as I obsess about some small detail that is unlikely to be noticed and even less likely to be appreciated. It is usually used to tell someone to get on with it already. But sometimes we don’t want good enough. Perfection is the kind of goal that is strived for and rarely achieved. As the practitioner, it is the striving that makes it valuable. The pursuit of perfection is often something of an excuse to further engage in the process…

In order to better critique this idea I tried to hunt down the source, and found this:

“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien”

- Voltaire.

There is actually a subtle and meaningful difference between this quote and what I have been told a hundred times – what Voltaire said actually translates more directly into this:

“best is the enemy of good”

And I couldn’t agree more.

Good is inoffensive. Good is as close as we can get to objective. Good is general. dispassionate. Good is passable.

Best is personal. Best is controversial. Best has an opinion. A time and a place. Best is decisive because best has to separate itself from good.

Sometimes we want good. Sometimes we want best.

And it is good to remember that they are wildly different pursuits.

Mechanical rules exist. They simplify. They allow us to try on different hats, explore personas. They also save us money and mental space. Sometimes good is good enough, but if you want more than that then mechanical rules need to be used a little differently. Not instructions, but lab equipment. Not a roadmap but a scavenger hunt. More clues than commandments, these rules hint at deeper ideas and understanding. They can form a trellis – a framework to grow a deeper knowledge. They can be the seeds from which true skill can grow.

Growth in this case has to be deliberate. As a user we must accept that the price of learning will be to sacrifice the certainty that instructions give us, and if the end result is further away from perfect, it will be our decision that made it so. But sometimes falling is the price for knowing. So double the garlic. Pull the pasta out 2 minutes early. We eat our mistakes lest we forget the lesson. Breaking rules will often be the fastest way to understand their limits – how they are intertwined and what they were protecting you from in the first place. The algorithm has made us so afraid of getting it wrong that we adhere to dead advice instead of interrogating the very real and living process in front of us.

Following rules can get you quite far, but if you seek mastery, if you seek to embody true skill, then you need to risk being wrong.

The algorithm has made us crave specificity and call it certainty. Grams and percentages and precise times scratch an itch in our brain. Exact is not the same thing as correct, but if we don’t know how to recognize correct then those details give us confidence. The fact is that rules can not account for the variety inherent in this organic world, these rules cannot know that the tomatoes your neighbor gave you are small like tangerines and as red as spilled blood, impossibly thin skinned and with a complex flavor that hints of citrus and somehow the sea. It simply says use two. The rules don’t know how humid it is in your kitchen or how active your yeast is, but it tells you a precise temperature and duration to bake your bread. The rule says that today you should do 6x3 back squats at 83% of your theoretical 1 rep max. Those may very well be the numbers that someone, somewhere, at some point in time did – but they didn’t download that information in some handy PDF format or stylized app. The rules were written, hopefully, by experts trying to communicate. These rules are, in the most generous sense, stand ins for their knowledge. Stand ins for knowing what to look for and how to respond to that information. That isn’t to say they are right or wrong, simply that their purpose isn’t to limit us but to help us get started. To allow us to accrue the experience required to form an understanding, a data set to mine for the signs and symbols, the language of process and the road to perfection.

There is nothing inherently wrong with obeying rules. Without deep knowledge, it is probably a good idea – but if you want to get to know a process, if you really want to own a product, then it is important to, eventually, trade that certainty of rules for a certainty of your own skills and attention.

It is rarely discussed, but following rules has another deep and potentially damaging emotional benefit: following the rules is an abdication of responsibility. If your recipe turns out poorly, you aren’t a bad cook – you picked the wrong recipe. If you fail your opener at your powerlifting meet or cant make weight then it was your program that was wrong. IT failed ME, not the other way around. Following rules can keep us from asking more uncomfortable questions. Following rules allows us to feel like we gave whatever challenge “our best shot”– following rules makes any shortcoming someone else’s fault. During my more pessimistic moments I sometimes wonder how much that is a true driver of all these online programs, of life coaches and growth academies – the feeling of making progress by outsourcing responsibility, a digital whipping boy for however many dollars a month.

This lack of responsibility is one of the deeper problems I am finding with AI as well. This larger technological algorithm has all the shortcomings of “just following rules” but fully executed by a machine and locked in a black box, robbing us of even the most simple observation. Following rules as a human is an experience, and with a little attention we gain the experience of process. Simply by executing the rules enough, many of us begin to understand a principle, but with AI even accidental expertise is eliminated – the only skill left is learning how to ask the machine more effectively for what you want. Worse than that, a near universal distain allows each of us to blame the AI if something turns out wrong. If I had to sum up the effect of AI in most of its form I have seen, It look sa bit like this: “It’s good enough, and if its wrong its not my fault” minimal effort, near instant results, passable outcome, and a built in excuse for failure. It’s a feeding frenzy for the worst aspects of ourselves.

Once again, good is easy. It is going to take some real effort to get to better, and best is a territory that requires understanding, and a point of view.

He wasn’t the first to say it, but one of the numerous discussions in The Score is the fact that what we choose to measure has an impact on our behavior. How success is defined, what outcome is rewarded begins to shape our actions. It’s hard to walk away from success, it’s hard to risk a known outcome for an unknown – more risk, more uncertainty, and if it doesn’t turn out well everyone is going to ask: “why didn’t you follow instructions? Why didn’t you just use AI?” I think now more than ever we have to examine how we are measuring our success. With so many entities offering their own metrics, for their own ends, we each need to understand what our goals are. What we are seeking in any endeavor, and through that – which metrics help us get there.

The title of this piece is stolen from David Pye (The Nature and Art of Workmanship) – it is a theory about the difference between creation that requires a skilled practitioner and one that is guided more by systems and operators. It is a rather interesting and complex discussion with an attempt to avoid the common trappings of calling handmade things inherently superior (or inferior) to manufactured – I love the sentiment, the simplicity of language because the term “risk” requires an individual and circumstantial value judgement to be brought to the table. Why risk it? What do you have to lose and what do you have to gain? That is the question here. That should be the question when employing these technologies. What are you trading and what are you getting? What is the point of the exercise and for what purposes are you engaging in the exercise in the first place? The point of a board game is to win, the purpose of playing board games is usually to enjoy the company of others. We all have been in the situation where one person committing to the point robbed us all of the purpose.

So many of us are so used to following rules that we end up in lock step without even noticing. A small number of you probably violate rules with an equal level of automation. If you take anything from this, please take it as inspiration to be a bit more curious. To ask what your goals are in any endeavor and how the rules play a role in its achievement. Sometimes as barriers. Sometimes as teachers. Always as information. To get stronger we need to strive, we need to attempt whole heartedly. We need to struggle and to fail honestly to communicate to our cells that change is the fastest, the only way to progress. To learn we must also strive. And if our goal is to learn than knowing what not to do, being able to recognize that line we shouldn’t cross not just in the rear view mirror is a real and valuable skill. Learning takes practice. Practice in this case means sometimes valuing experience over outcome. To seek understanding and ownership.

Rules are tools.

Metrics are tools.

Use them well and you may be shocked by how many of them become optional.

All it takes is attention.

Understanding.

And the willingness to be wrong.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

Comfort and safety, but ultimately in service of the one who built it.

Every time someone pitches me on reducing friction they really just seem to be trying to reduce the friction inherent between me and my wallet. Between me and my information. Me and my agency. That friction, that space between urge and fulfillment – that is the window of discernment. The weighing of want and need, of cost and benefit. It is the battle between Id and Ego, of the wants and cravings installed in me through 43 years of enculturation, of television and internet and biology – between all that history, and the person who I want to be.

Not to get too poetic, but that friction is what allows a match to spark into flame. Friction is how we wear down stone, friction and pressure allows water to cut steel. Friction is the mechanism that allows us to change that which seems permanent.

Unassailable.

Through friction. Through slowing down. Through noticing.

Those are the things that are being reduced in this world of apps and on demand. “Freedom from wants” flattens the entire experience. Smooth means no highs or lows. No stops or starts. Frictionless means that there is no need to slow down, to decide, to change or improve or grow. They sell it to us by promising that we can use all that extra time and space to follow our dreams, to work on our book or project or an app of our own, but it is like selling us running shoes for the low-low price of our feet.

“Just think of all the time you will have”

“How productive could you be if you weren’t doing … whatever”

“Optimization” sounds like a good goal, but the version sold to you comes with sponsors and discount codes, three levels of mastery and an instructors certification, corporate partnerships and bi-monthly billing cycles. In this age you have to ask what someone means when they are helping you optimize. The way Facebook helps you stay connected? The way Amazon helps you find the products you need? Optimized to what end? The ideal consumer. Trimmed and focused and streamlined directly into an instrument of someone else’s profit. It is the ultimate MLM – a financial perpetual motion machine: they sell you the answers for the price of the textbook. Pay the premium and you get to skip to the end, reading is for nerds anyway. Who needs to know how to make matches when you can rent our fire.

It is tips and tricks, solutions and subscriptions. They aren’t always wrong, but they are fucking dishonest. Reducing unnecessary friction and reducing the amount of friction you can stomach are very different things with a frighteningly similar approach.

Learn to tell the difference.

Because the worst part of all is that it works. Simple and pervasive because it solves actual problems. I can drive 15 minutes to the one store that carries the coffee filters I like and stop to get dry erase markers and hand soap for the gym, or I can order them all on my phone. Less than one stop shopping. Why even make a grocery list when I can fill an Amazon cart? Hell, they will deliver today and it’s cheaper and this way I don’t have to give up an hour – they even let me pay a dollar to offset my carbon. True: Friction for frictions sake is just bad design, but smoothness for smoothness sake is equally damaging. The point here is choice. We all know the difference – a meal cooked from scratch. A hand written note. Pen and ink and hard to read script will touch us in ways an email sent by chatGPT never will.

Creation comes from friction. From attention. From an itch, a catch… a pause or break or simply a moment to really feel. Friction isn’t always pain, it’s a sunset that steals your breath, grabs your eye and won’t let you look away. It’s that idea that keeps coming back, whispering for your attention in every quiet moment between meetings and before bed. A frictionless life is a finished life. Absent. Lacking. Sterile.

Friction is the mechanism, not the goal. Like going to the gym, friction signals us to create change. Friction teaches us to deal with more friction. Friction will teach us to hold. To wait. To reach. A chronic lack of friction is like a chronic lack of physical stress. Without resistance there is atrophy. It begins with avoidance. After all, it’s uncomfortable. Inconvenient. And at this point: voluntary.

But it won’t always be.

The slide from unhappy to unwilling to unable is both swifter and more subtle than you think. If you starve the body, the brain of information and signals, each tiny morsel begins to seem more significant. A soft light burns your eyes when you are not ready for it. Cold can feel like pain when all you know is warmth. Equality feels like attack when you are used to feeling superior. Unbearable isn’t a measurement, it’s a relationship. Remove the practice and you will be shocked at what can stop you. Remove the practice and you will be shocked at how quickly what was once normal is forgotten. Unattainable. Every choice, every decision is a vote. A lesson. A reinforcement of synapse and nerves. Do it again. Do it cheaper. Our biology isn’t wired for this abundance, it is our spirit that craves meaning, seeks out challenge. In this day and age it seems that biology has won, our ancestors streamlined our world to give us so much for so little. The natural response of evolutionary success. To avoid that decline many of us need to create the environment that gets the two working together. That embraces and rewards the effort craved by our very soul.

Lack of friction is a sirens song. It delights us and attracts us and smashes us into the rocks.

Claims our treasure and picks over our very bones.

And then it does it again to someone else.

So stuff your ears with wax, or if you dare to lead – lash yourself to the main mast and try to weather the storm. Feel the draw and stay safe through discipline and a well designed system. Through knowing what temptations you can take and where proper planing can save you from future weakness.

In the words of Lisa Feldman Barrett: we are constantly curating our past. Experiences and outcomes are collected and recollected, they create our history. Our narrative. Those stories form our ideas of possible and impossible. Of fun and fancy and fear. Friction is part of that story. The moments where everything can turn.

Frictionless is a dating app. Swipe and message, excite and delight but at a certain point you have to go IRL, meet and maybe get let down… or ghost. Swipe on someone else. Smash that dopamine button, make up for the dwindling intensity with a thousand tiny doses and it will almost be the same. For a while. Because frictionless has its own tolerance that we can build up. And when that loneliness comes crashing down we have probably forgotten that the solution is really just the problem we have been avoiding this whole time.

Friction is not the enemy.

It is a mechanism.

It can be a tool.

A doorway.

This rant comes with homework dear reader, a “call to action” if you will. Find some friction. Name it. Not as a pain point to be avoided but a scrape that can turn into a spark. A simple moment to slow down and reflect – to sit in that discomfort or ignorance, to stretch and pull and realize it isn’t that bad – let it ache like a muscle finally being used for the purpose it was built for. Maybe this is just another rep, another instance of learning to try harder – or maybe it is an opportunity for your whole story to change. Friction can be an opportunity to practice, to check back in with what you want and who you want to be. It can function as what my friend and teacher calls “the glitch”.

The interrupt.

The moment to question.

The moment to ask:

To what end?

Who does this serve?

What am I learning?

What am I practicing?

And what kind of person do I want to be?

A millionaire isn’t a kind of person. Successful isn’t a kind of person.

Helpful. Kind. Aware. Observant. Considerate.

Worthy.

Friction exposes. Shapes. Ignites.

In the hands of an artist, friction can be used to form.

To remove everything that is not.

And if you want to use friction, you first need to be able to tolerate it.

This is all practice.

This is all a Practice.

So, I ask once again:

What are you practicing?

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

Training is, above all, communication.

So many of us want the result now, we feel like we started too late and need to catch up – so we try to take a shortcut. Buy some program online and follow a bunch of popular influencers. “This is what the pros are doing” – podcasts about peptide stacks and science based lifting, carbohydrate timing and optimal protein absorption. We are serious and committed so why wouldn’t we try and reflect the best and most current knowledge? Like and subscribe, bio-hack and buy our way to a higher tier of information. The secret list and Red-Folder program. There is nothing wrong with these actions per se, they all have a time and place, but in a rush to get to the finish line I would argue that many people have never really started.

I don’t know if woodshop class is still a thing, but the classic first project is to build a birdhouse. Not because anyone wants to make a birdhouse, but it is an excuse to apply the tools and the skills the class is trying to teach. You saw and drill and hammer and see how your work fits together. Were those angles really cut at 22.5º? Did you set the nail gently or miss and leave hammer marks on the wood? The birdhouse is a physical representation of how you have applied your skill. Of how well you planned, worked, and paid attention. The product will show you the holes in the process.

If you can look at your finish product and see what you would like to be different, then it was a success. Again, the goal was never a birdhouse, but to learn. To learn how to plan, how to use your tools, and how to pay attention.

You can buy a birdhouse off Amazon. Drone delivery within an hour. It will cost you eight dollars and one pathway for progress.

The focus of the lesson is rarely the goal. It is a representation. A construct to apply our skill. A chance for feedback and improvement.

For most of us, the goal is not a bench press or a squat. the goal is to have a positive relationship with our bodies in the world. To understand how to move, how to feel, and how to pay attention.

To me, training is about learning how to be a better person.

About practicing being a better person.

Practicing awareness. Practicing feeling and thinking and being.

About being both uncomfortable and in control.

About normalizing being uncomfortable, and in control.

I can be aware of my discomfort without running from it.

I just listened to a podcast where a couple academics complained about the phrase “get comfortable being uncomfortable”

I think they likened it to telling someone to “feel dry about feeling wet” their argument was that it wasn’t clear enough that comfortable is off the table. That uncomfortable isn’t undesirable. I for one don’t think there was much confusion on that part, but I can take their point – this obsession with comfort and equating comfort to success. In the book “flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi there is a large discussion about not using “happiness” as a good metric of a life well lived. It is too fleeting to be a good goal, it isn’t always actionable in a way that scales, in a way that we can build a practice around. Instead he argues that we seek fulfillment. One thing we try to do in the gym is recognize what discomfort means, biologically. The theory is that comfort is a sign of adaptation. Of balance. Of being up to the task. Nothing needs to change. Discomfort is communication, that things are not as we wish, that we are not adapted to what is happening and in most cases, whatever is making us uncomfortable needs to stop or we need to leave. To move to whatever environment we were in a few minutes ago when things were comfortable. Assuming that I came to the gym today to try and create change, discomfort is the first sign that the message is being received. This part is why I hate broadcast media: I am not saying that the more something hurts the better it is for you, I am not saying pain is a good indicator of utility, I am saying that if the goal is to be different we have to be exposed to stressors that we are not fully adapted to.

Before you can apply the lessons of science based lifting, before you can optimize your stack or even have a strong opinion on sumo versus traditional deadlifts, you need to have a basic level of internal communication. Of comfort and position. Of pushing limits and remaining present in the process.

You need to understand your tools, how they work and how they speak. Building the birdhouse will let you know that your miter gauge is off. That your saw is dull and your hammer swing imprecise. The basics are basic for a reason, and without the basics there is nothing to progress. No feedback and no understanding of how or why or where to go next. So many people are trying to convince you that you need to hurry up because if you slowed down a little you might realize that you dont need to buy whatever it is that they are shilling, that you already have everything you need.

Can you move?

Can you feel?

Can you pay attention to what is important?

These are not flippant questions, or at least they aren’t meant to be. This is the basis of training, the tools of the trade.

Can you move? Can you feel? Can you pay attention to what is important?

There is a lot to unpack in those 3 questions, a solid training program in just a few lines of text.

It doesn’t even matter where you start, these three elements are so intertwined that each one pursued honestly will eventually contain them all.

Can you move? Can you feel? Can you pay attention to whats important…

Enter the discussion wherever is easy, do a squat or a pushup. Tell me what you learned. Describe the sensations like an author, describe how your body moved through space, the curve of your wrist or the cant of your hips. Where your weight fell and how your breath caught in your chest. What was tight? What twisted or ached? Now do it again. What changed? What stayed the same? Was it harder, or easier? And again. Note the changes. Again. And again. And again. Where does the burning start? How do your mechanics change as the discomfort builds? Where does your mind go? Do another one. And another one. Keep doing them until you find a conflict. Until there are two voices in your head – one who is trying to get you to stop and one who wants to keep trying. Do another one. Don’t identify with either voice. You are above this. A parent or teacher or god. You are simply watching, listening to the argument. Do another one. Watch how the body moves. Is that the vessel failing? Or the “stop” argument gaining a physical form… do another one. Can you reach failure? This is an honest question. Quitting is not the same thing. Quitting because it hurts isn’t failure. Quitting because you are satisfied isn’t failure. Quitting is quitting. Failure in this sense is purely physical and way harder to find than you think. Do another one. What are the voices saying now? What shape are the arguments taking? Why keep going? Why not? How does it feel? How does it look?

What are we learning?

Can you move?

Can you feel?

Can you pay attention to what is important?

Feel.

Move.

Pay attention.

Can you and do you are not the same question.

Just because you can doesn’t mean that you are.

It is worth stopping.

It is worth taking longer so you can learn the right lesson.

It is worth practicing.

If you don’t have anything else that it is pressing, this is a solid objective.

Move.

Feel.

Pay attention.

In so many ways they are the same task.

To be.

To be present.

To be engrossed in communication.

Enamored.

Sure, it might be uncomfortable, but being comfortable was never the goal.

To have meaning.

To be worth doing.

To be worth remembering.

Comfort is a goal the way rest is a goal. The way safety is a goal.

When you don’t have it, it is vital. Knowing that it is an option robs it of immediacy, allows us to leverage its absence for our personal gain. It is what we do between our real work, The bank account that allows us to strive and stretch and grow.

We do not need to wholly abandon the idea of comfort, simply to realize that it has its time and its place.

Now is not a time for comfort.

I am awake and alive and striving.

I am challenging myself, obsesssed and engrossed and blurred at the edges. Open to all the inforamation available to me, to all the sensation. Pain and pleasure but also position and tactics, understanding that these emotions are a shorthand for so much more. Training allows us to tear open the envelope and read the letter within, to understand what the body is telling us and how to converse back.

Move.

Feel.

Pay attention.

I find the answers to so many of my questions in those three actions.

It has shaped my relationships, my business, and countless conversations.

When in doubt, look to the basics.

It is easy to focus on minutia, to feel like you are making progress because you bought a more expensive measuring tape. The hardest part about real personal change is that it is rarely a light switch or lightning strike. It is a Practice. A pressure. A Way of Being.

Move.

Feel.

Pay attention.

Because in the end, it’s all pretty basic.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

I wrote this zine in that spirit - my friends had started printing zines out in Salt Lake City, and it revived some old punk rock memories of the creativity that comes from trying to make an impact with a whole lot of time and not much else. That was the headspace I needed, that was the headspace I wanted to encourage and put out into the world.

It has been a while since I thumbed through it, and while I wouldn’t do it the same today, the words still resonate, and its purpose was served in the making.

thanks for looking, and if you enjoy this piece and want a physical copy, they are available here.

most people are not strong enough to hurt themselves. at least not at first. i don’t mean that they physically lack strength to cause injury, i mean that in the gym or any environment that they can exercise control, they will quit mentally long before they encounter any real physical danger. “hard” work is a constant negotiation, your body sends you signals, information about the cost of your actions and you have to convince yourself to keep carving away at that pound of flesh despite the consequences. in that situation, most people drop the knife at the first sight of blood – but as we train, as we learn to get comfortable with the pain, to manage those costs, we creep, inch by inch, into the deep end and one day we reach our toes down only to realize we cant reach bottom, we are in over our head.

this exhibits in a few ways – cramping, vomiting, blinding headaches, symptoms like food poisoning, burst blood vessels in the eyes and face. symptoms usually last from a couple days to a week – working out during this window is usually nearly impossible and certainly ill advised, but something happens during this forced downtime, something transforms. there is a realization; that every time you “went hard” before this you held back. you left something in the tank. as hard as you may have gone before you had never felt like this. it usually happens by accident, a change in circumstance or scenery - an adjustment or challenge momentarily shifts your self image and you fall victim to L’appel du vide, you gave in to the call of the void and this time nothing stopped you, no one protected you – and now the world looks different. shifted. it is like your first true heartbreak – it can’t really be “sought out” and no one wants to wish it on someone else, but there is usefulness to be found in the darkness. the bone-deep realization that the world is a little less safe, that risk and consequences are visceral things, they have a taste and a sound and a cost that must be paid. more than that, there is now an understanding that you possess the ability to do real damage. you have earned a bit more responsibility and the freedom to do with it what you will. the safety is off and the gun is loaded, now it is up to you to hit your target and avoid shooting yourself in the process.

i don’t mean to romanticize this. anyone who has felt it or even witnessed the effects will tell you that it is far from flattering – but that does not mean it isn’t useful. it is a shift in perception. a changing of the rules. after someone goes through that fire it is now up to them to hold the reigns – because we do not get better by doing this – it is a tool with an extremely high cost, and one that does not get cheaper with frequent use. it is physically damaging and even from the most meat headed perspective, it benches you from meaningful training for at least a couple days. but after something like this we realize that we are responsible for these costs – and we can exercise judgement of when it is worth it. we are more capable of making that decision, of exerting our will. most of the time in the gym we chase numbers as reflections of our ability, moments like this are shifts in perception. they are lessons that once felt will never be forgotten.

this was written years ago, in what feels like a different world, and while the struggle i was speaking of might feel a little trivial at this time, it does not feel irrelevant. rites of passage have always intrigued me – a socially agreed upon line where childhood ends and adulthood begins.

often forced. often unpleasant. it is an accounting of sorts. an excising of the assumptions of childhood.

isolation is, ironically enough, a key piece in many of these rituals. to strip away the attention of the community, to make one live for a time without its constant presence – and to ask them to return only when they have something to bring back.

isolation is a beautiful teacher. our environment exerts such an overwhelming pressure on us that without it we become unmoored, we drift and spin and obsess over the past and the future and anything but where we are right now. but then it breaks. the self is all that is left. regardless of what created it, it is the only thing available to explore. so we do. we try and understand our place in all of this. more than that, in learning that we can be cut out, cut away – in learning how much we actually take from our surroundings without thought – we have to learn how to justify our expense.

purpose. purpose is what separates a rite of passage from a crisis. from a penalty.

purpose, above all, is a choice. it is an attitude. it is a way to view a set of circumstances.

so we find purpose. we create purpose.

from a young age we are given roles to fill. without understanding who we are, we are given an objective. faced with expectations and immediacy – the desire to fit into the system often overrides the slower process of understanding ourselves. we are problem solvers. immediate objectives keep us driving forward. the system is massive and redundant, it does not require us to be happy or even content – only useful.

we become so accustomed to tumbling forward, flitting from one judgement to the next that many of us have never made the effort to create an internal structure, a self-referential value system that can at least push back on the environment that surrounds us.

space. and time.

these elements are so often stressors, but in claiming them as your own they become fuel for definition. removing immediacy gives us space to learn. understanding is currency of sorts. a force multiplier. taking the time to understand your objective, your material, and your tools. it is an accounting. identifying what elements you can change, and at what cost.

in defining why we can begin to work on how. raw material is simply potential, it is only after we have an objective that we can understand the balance sheet. assets and liabilities. artistry is the ability to see – to interpret the objective, to understand that a tool is simply a lever, an extension of will. it is that will, that understanding, that striving to be that is your most vital asset. we are all works in progress. snapshots of inheritance and influence. we are often so focused on moving forward that we don’t stop to ask if it is the direction that best suits us, or one that we want in the first place.

purpose. created, deliberate, purpose.

understanding and artistry.

these are things i value.

these are things i choose to refine.

to see the end result within material. to recognize potential and expose it. to nurture it with a deft hand…

a traditional bow is nothing more than a piece of wood that follows a few simple rules. making it is actually quite easy: to bastardize Michelangelo – just remove everything that isn’t the bow. to build a bow is to take a material and, with our action, give it purpose. the “rules” are ones of function, and the skilled hand is the one that can interpret those rules more creatively. it has access to more material because of understanding how to balance and exploit what initially appear as liabilities.

i am obsessed with lessons. with rewards. with identifying the traits our challenges are selecting for. the skillset required to be victorious. matching material with a realistic understanding of my capabilities. understanding appropriate tool selection. the stages of reduction. how to cope with the unexpected…

understand your material. understand your objective. understand what you can change and what you cannot. most of all, understand why.

working with my hands, working with wood or steel or stone will always remind me of these lessons. will force me to look at problems differently, to turn mistakes into centerpieces, to recognize how to make an asset out of a liability, to be flexible and open to new information.

applying these lessons day in and day out have changed me as much as they have changed the objects i have created. it has made me more comfortable being a work in progress, a being undergoing refinement.

and refinement is heavy work, for if i cannot see myself - how am i supposed to see others? if i cannot control my hand then why would i lift a tool that will multiply my effect exponentially?

i wish to have an effect.

i have limited energy.

to maximize my effect i must understand my material. i must seek out and master the tools that will best allow me to craft that material to a purpose.

to my purpose.

the gym never made sense to me before it was given a purpose. to me, that purpose was initially as a laboratory, and later as a crucible. i realized that i needed to better understand my material, to understand myself. my behavior. how it changed when i was tired. when i was hungry. weak. scared. when i was cocky. when i was preforming. when i was alone.

i needed first to see myself. honestly and without judgement. material is not good or bad, but degrees of usefulness in reference to an objective. the gym allowed me to explore so many scenarios, to better understand my potential, and where i was lacking. it also provided a structure to add and subtract – to develop skills to cope with my worst failings. it became a framework to exert some control, to start to unravel 25 years of short sightedness and quick fixes. like the crafting of a bow, the gym helped me remove the dead weight. to understand the interplay of flexibility, strength, and potential. of minute changes, leverage, and their effects.

purpose. self-knowledge. what we are really building here is ownership. i am this way because i decided it is the best way for me to be. for now.

without the space to really explore who and why you, how can you ever claim that ownership? and without it taking responsibility, how do you plan to be in control?

a plan.

and control.

one of the first thing i had to do when starting jiujitsu was reexamining my idea of control. in the gym, if i can control myself, i can control the weight. in jiujitsu, if i can control myself, my greatest hope is to influence my opponent. it became shockingly clear that even in combat, control is an illusion. until that last moment, our greatest hope is to understand. to use the knowledge of our own body and our opponents to exert influence, to steer events in a direction where the last choice of the enemy is an obvious one, and one where we are comfortable with either outcome. the part that really struck me from this realization is that the only way we demonstrate absolute control is by destroying something. anything less than destruction is not control but influence. attempts to control carry an implied threat, and the cost associated with that.

knowledge of my opponent, of what they value, allows me to manipulate them more effectively – but thinking i have control over them blinds me to the directions they still have to go. to engage in this challenge requires me to try and see my actions through the eyes of my foe, to be willing to accept that the plan is not the goal, the goal is the goal. the plan is one vehicle that may or may not get there. changing the plan is respecting that the goal is the important part. exerting “control” by executing a plan in spite of the facts on the ground is not control but vanity.

don’t mistake the map for the territory. we identify what we think is important and focus on it at the expense of the rest of the information. worse yet, we pick up someone else’s map and do not ask when they drew it, or what they were looking for when they did. we don’t question their experience or their motives in giving it to us. when we exit the simplicity of the gym we must accept that the things we can control are actually almost infinitely small. but it is all we have. the tools which we have to work. so we must learn. we must learn to be sensitive and dynamic. to listen and to understand. being honest with the limits of your toolkit will allow you to spend your energies more effectively.

this is not control, this is commerce. this is about knowing yourself, about knowing your audience, and about your ability to communicate. this is about understanding. the gym is easy, it is practice. it is where we start. as we invite other variables, other players, other agendas – the idea of control swells and recedes. the acceptance that what we possess is a degree of self control and information. and that’s it. the relationship between those attributes is our leverage. the better we understand our sphere of control, the larger we can cast our sphere of influence. and the better we understand ourselves, the better chance we have to recognize which end of the lever we are holding.

too often i see people defiant in the face of information.

criticism rejected because we don’t like the source. opportunities to grow turned away as being borne of jealousy or some sort of attack. friendship tossed away over misunderstanding and ego.

we live in a disposable world.

we live in such excess that it can be difficult to differentiate discerning from dismissive. be it business partners or personal relationships, we are all, on some level, replaceable. we can classify whole swaths of people as not my problem, in fact we have to – simply to stay sane. the problem arises when wielding that knife comes so easily that we risk using it without regard of the consequences. personal growth is constantly at war with personal preservation. it is simpler to cut away those with which we don’t agree, or who we feel wronged us in some way. we can go to another bar, move to another block, find new employees and new friends. growth is not linear. the process of investing involves setbacks, challenges, and finding a way to incorporate new information.

aggression is too frequently mistaken for power, threats stand in for control and impotence is wielded like some sort of weapon. in an attempt to be seen as powerful we give up the only true power we have. to control ourselves. to direct our action. to exercise agency. we cannot change what happened before this moment, but we can influence what happens next, and through that – what happens after what happens next. training, for me, is an exercise. it is an exercise in patience. in managing small things. in managing myself throughout the process.

i wish to be an agent of change. of progress. and the first step is to understand the material. the tool with which i have to work. to ask questions and seek out information. to seek out leverage. to practice influence deftly, applying all that i have, all that i am to the situation. and with luck, making whatever it is better for me being there.

ultimately, agency is understanding and the will to act.

it is as simple and as complicated as that.

good luck.

traditionally, the first project of an aspiring blacksmith is a pair of tongs. with adequate heat and something to bang against, a serviceable pair can be made. this gives us reach. access. and with that access we can craft a better hammer. and with that, better tongs. each iteration also brings knowledge, of how the material moves and how we like to move it. leverage and focus and impact. the difference between a crease and a cut. how to bend and when to break. understanding the material and the goal allows us to apply creativity, to forge better tools and better art, because in this endeavor we are both the means and the end, the story and the author.

agency is accepting your role as artist and architect. subject and storyteller.

so gather your tools, and sharpen your skills.

our tales will be told in the doing.

- the station

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

At some point in my late teens I became quietly obsessed with an idea: What do I offer? What do I cost?

Why yes, I was depressed at the time, but interestingly enough, this thought provided a rope – and while I can certainly see taking that idea (and that rope) into a dark place, It actually propelled me to a wildly different relationship with my existence.

What do I cost?

What did it take to get me here? To feed me and grow me and teach me?

Well... that’s a lot…

Everything I have eaten, every blade of grass I have stepped on, every person who I have hurt or failed or let down… but it’s more than even that. Every teacher who gave up their afternoon to explain a subject I didn’t understand. Every coworker who covered my shift or helped me out of the weeds when I was drowning behind the line. My grandfather working late to leave a little more money for his grandkids and his grandmother who taught him how to skimp and save and as a gift to a generation he may never meet.

The artist who painted my favorite painting or performed my favorite song. All of this consumption, all of this taking. I invested it all, filled my belly and my bones and my very soul. It made me who I am…

Now what?

In the midst of a shitty 19 year olds version of depression on the 3rd floor of an anarchist collective in Detroit, I imagined facing my cost. Facing everyone and everything that suffered or died or was slightly inconvenienced to make me who I am and I asked:

“was it worth it?”

Well, I sure as shit didn’t say yes – but that question was actually the glimmer I needed – the crack in the dark that a sliver of light, of hope, bled through.

The answer I felt in my bones was: “not yet.”

Because I could feel each of those 19 years of debt, but suddenly I could also see generations of investment. Ancestors and teachers, friends and strangers who have given me so much. Built me and equipped me in a very real sense. I am an accumulation, a collection of hope and good will and belief that small actions can make the world a better place…

It has already been given. Now the only question is, what am I going to do with it?

That thought never left. It is an old friend at this point, an endless well and a wind at my back. I contain multitudes. I carry the smile of miss Delito – my 3rd grade teacher who wore jean jackets and had a cool haircut and I carry the quiet encouragement of a man who never received that kindness himself.

This thought carries me, each impact of a moment someone made me feel important or listened to, and each moment where I failed to be a a link in that particular chain.

To be clear, this isn’t some running tally that I obsess over, not some constant threat or worry – but it functions as more of a yardstick. As a scale. A constant reminder that I am and always will be a person of consequence. Each moment I am making decisions, acting in ways that impact the people around me. I can’t always control the ripples, can’t be paralyzed by fear or indecision (which is a decision in itself) but must always act with as much information and awareness and responsibility as I can. My presence costs. It is undeniable. My path is to minimize that cost, direct it, and try to provide a benefit that is at the very least, worthwhile.

And to bring it all back down to earth, this is what I am training.

Ripples. Choices. Costs and opportunities.

We live in a world full of socialized loss and personal gain. Parking like an asshole rarely causes a problem – what are the chances that they really need to use this fire lane? Or this handicapped spot? I will just be a minute…

And if this is that time – that one in a million, that situation that necessitated the rule: What then? Who pays the price for that decision? What did you learn and how does that impact your life moving forward?

Injury and inconvenience distributed. Your life was still easier. Their life was harder. That is your legacy. That is the energy you are putting into the world. More than that, that is what you are practicing. Training. An acceptance, to risk damaging others for your convenience. It is an announcement for anyone who is paying attention of exactly where your values lie.

This decision tree happens a hundred times every day – when I am in the gym I try and watch people come in, see their demeanor, ask questions and understand what they are working with. I move and stand and speak with intent to organize, to orchestrate an experience. To let people know that they are seen and paid attention to and cared for. To model behavior – to practice awareness. The entire point of a gym is to accept deliberate immediate discomfort in search of a future (and not guaranteed) gain. I am simply trying to expand on that idea. Opportunities to offer up a small discomfort of my own to help someone else. To begin to see leverage advantages that allow relatively cheap actions on my part have an outsized impact on someone else. To take that chance to invest my time and energy in the hope of a better world.

What do I cost. What do I offer.

I make mistakes. Often. I try and learn from them and repair the damages as much as circumstances allow. Inconsiderate is a volatile word, but it is, by definition, without malice. It just means that I missed something. Was unaware of my impact. A friend once told me that curiosity is the greatest training tool that there is, and I love that idea because if we are curious about the world, the first order of business is to pay attention.

Inattention is insidious because it is self-protective. We can only change what we see and if we fail to feel or notice the consequences of our actions then it is easy to believe that any problems couldn’t possibly be our fault. Failure to look inward, failure to examine our part in this causes us to see everyone else as the problem. We take up too much space, waste other people’s time and opportunities because it is less work for us. “This is easier for me and probably isn’t a problem” and the unspoken addition – “and if it is a problem, it is someone else’s”.

Privatized gains. Socialized losses.

We can turn on the news and see the consequences of those decisions on a world stage. CEO bailouts, global war and back room dealings. Greed and selfishness and the normalization of “looking out for number one”. These men rail about how they are self-made. “Alphas”. That they earned their status without any handouts. In general there are two types of these guys: The grifter who’s next line is an offer to sell you the secrets of their success, the cheat codes to break out of the matrix and that fucking people over is the natural order – and the unaware. Those who simply fail to see how many people are out there trying to make the world better, all the people who have worked and gifted and helped them without asking anything in return.

It is sometimes useful to turn the question around. To think about every time someone else took a little bit of discomfort or inconvenience to make your life better. Think about all the times a stranger went out of their way to make life a little easier for you, not because you are special but because they could. We are the amalgamation of so many individual efforts, of parents and teachers, bosses and coworkers, of clients and call center employees who had an opportunity to help and chose to do it. Think about how it felt to be considered, and think about what you did with that feeling. Did that sacrifice die with you? Or was it nurtured? Strengthened and spread and carried to someone else?

These are the flowers, seeds sown by everyone we have ever interacted with.

How did I tend to them? Did I weed or water?

And what seeds am I sowing?

What do I offer. What do I cost.

That question saved me. Made me. Admittedly made me a little neurotic and anxious, but when I see the alternative I would rather err on the side of caring more.

The gym was described to me as a laboratory. Over the years it has become more akin to a garden. An environment in which I can practice and grow. I can practice seeing the ripples, how my choices affect my outcome. More than that how my actions influence the space, how that in turn influences the inhabitants. What are the repercussions for my decisions and who pays for them.

I still love the phrase, “a person of consequence” – but I think that wording leaves the most important piece unspoken.

Deliberate.

As much as possible.

Deliberate consequences.

What do I cost. What do I offer. What are the effects of my actions and who pays the price.

I have impact. I have consequences. I have a price.

The trick is to make it worth while.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

What follows is an excerpt, or maybe an attempt at one… For the last couple years I have been considering doing a seminar of sorts. An attempt to take a weekend to walk people through the training philosophy that informs my practice, and the process I use to turn these esoteric notions into the sets and reps of a workout plan. The hope is to provide both a discussion of philosophy and the practical skills to design and implement one’s own practice. I’ve written and re-written the manual, and have recently started over once again…

I still think there is value here, maybe even a “market” – I thought this might be worth sharing, a little for research and a little for myself, to maybe stop trying to make things perfect and focus more on making them helpful.

Who is this for?

In short, this is for me. For who I was. This is, in its best form, a stand in for the people who guided me. People who helped me see and understand a tool that has changed my life. This is a tribute to those who gave me so much, an attempt to be a link in the chain and contribute to the growth of others. To pay forward a level of care and assistance that I can never pay back.

And honestly it is just trying to offer a perspective I don’t see out there very much.

The short answer is: For anyone. Anyone who can look at the gym, or physical training in general and can feel it in their bones that’s there is something important here – but is having trouble touching it.

Maybe someone who is already training and has experienced the inkling of deeper changes, not just of body but of mind and spirit – and hasn’t had anyone they can talk to about it.

Is this for you though? Honestly: I don’t know. I don’t know you.

But maybe this will help:

“A psychological practice with physical side effects”

“This is where philosophy has consequences”

“These guys come in here at the same time every day, they do the same sets, push in the same machines with the weights fixed into tracks… One way to progress. What do you think that does to their problem solving? Do you think that maybe they are getting more conditioned than they are aware of?”

These are a few notes scrawled in the margins of my journal from nearly twenty years ago, notes from Mark Twight during my first GYM JONES seminar, notes from my friend Ryan who introduced me to Sufism, notes from Bill McConnell, the founder of PAST skills wilderness school and my friend and teacher during my 6 month residency there….

Bill made a gym membership part of the residency program. Non-negotiable. He made me see fitness as a sort of bank account. That our reach is defined by our skill and our raw material, that our utility as a wilderness first responder was tied inextricably to the nexus of those traits. How far from home could I venture and still be an asset? How well did I know my own abilities, and would I bet my life (and the life of someone else) on that knowledge? We did Bikrams yoga and watched parkour videos and talked about how that ability reframed an individuals relationship with space, that a level of skill and physicality must change how you see, how you define fun and fear and possible. What you can do, What you know changes what you see and how you see it. That in turn changes how you experience the world. That on a fundamental level our conditioning determines our reality, and our condition is something we can change…

Ryan introduced me to the idea of a working group. To the benefits of practicing a physical skill, some benign task while exploring the philosophical underpinnings. About the deeper lessons that can be learned from wood working or weaving or even from working out. that everything is teaching us, molding us, but that engaging with allegory is more than just a choice we make but an active practice.

And Mark. Mark made it into a process. A game. A story. Mark made it explicit and immediate. Mark taught me the language I needed to speak to my body, and also the ability to listen and interpret. Made it as meaningful and natural and easy as breathing. Mark gave me opportunity and confidence and that push I needed to commit to a different life.

These are some of my teachers, a few of the lessons that inform the practice. The changes are usually rather subtle in practice but surprisingly grand in scope.

Fitness means so many things. These individuals helped me build a relationship with fitness that addressed my real goals.

Yes. I want to get stronger.

But I don’t just mean I want a bigger bench press – I want to be strong like a wall and a pillar and a mountain. I want to be resolute and immovable. I want to be strong like a mother’s love and the hug from your closest friend when they tell you that it will all be ok.

I want to be powerful, and I don’t just mean that I want to be able to sprint and throw and jump. I want the power to change the world. Or at least someone’s. I want to make an impact. To impart. To be powerful like a thunderstorm or an avalanche or Oratory. To radiate potential and the ability to make things different – better because I was there.

I want endurance. Not just to run or hike or climb for hours, but to be able to hold someone’s hand next to their hospital bed. To understand and embody the conviction to not walk away. To understand in my bones what my friend Michael meant when he wrote that “Endurance is love”. I want to be able to carry weight. Expectations and responsibilities… I want to have grace, even when frightened or fatigued. I want to understand why humans are so damn good at hurting, at choosing to hurt, and at choosing to do it anyway.

I want flexibility, not just of body but of mind. I want to be flexible in my response to a challenge, to be dynamic enough to see a problem from another angle, to see myself through the eyes of those who disagree. I want to be able to let go of what is no longer serving me and to always be open to new experiences and information. I want to know, and more than anything else I want to be helpful – regardless of what path I have to take to get there.

I want capacity. I want it all. To be able to hold, and to pass through. Because capacity is not a static “thing” as much as it is a relationship. For what is the capacity of a theater? Of a battery or a pump or a priest? Capacity is how we talk about something’s limit, about its relationship to what it is meant to do. Capacity is about weak links, but not weakness. It is about what is stopping us from being more. And even more than that, it is about understanding those limits so we can derive a strategy. Capacity is an understanding that everything has its limit. That everyone dies. If that is true than I want to develop my relationship with this edge, because “not dying” isn’t just off the table, but to attempt it would be antithetical to the real goal of living life to its fullest.

I want to expand my capacity. For strength and power. For flexibility and endurance. For love, and loss. For the human experience.

The gym, as I see it, is a system. A process to explore all of these facets and more.

And as esoteric as it sounds, I feel like I can draw a bright line from the practical to the magical. Between a back squat and becoming a better person. Because it was never about the movement. It was about the question.

It was during a set of push-ups at a Golds Gym in a strip mall in Bozeman Montana – I don’t remember if I had read it, saw it in the “behind the scenes” portion of Zach Snyder’s 300 or heard Mark say it in person, but it was just a simple question that popped into my head:

“Did you quit? Or did you fail?”

Not an admonition. Not a taunt or a challenge…

An earnest inquiry. A plea to pay attention.

Did you quit? Or did you fail?

Because this was never about the push-up.

This is about practice.

The Practice of telling ourselves the truth, because only then can we address the real problem. Because maybe if we tell ourselves the truth enough then we will be able to tell it to others. Maybe if we tell the truth enough, we won’t have to – maybe they will see it in the way we move and breathe and live. Pushing limits offers so many opportunities to meet yourself. To find out who you are when you’re tired or hungry, when you’re hurting or excited, elated or depressed. We can explore how and who those moments make us. More than that, if we pay attention, if we ask questions and listen to the answers, we can use the gym to revisit those sensations. We can orchestrate those same experiences, have a rehearsal of sorts. We can use these tools to practice being the person we would like to be under more and more duress.

And if we practice enough, if we are deliberate and clever and sensitive, perhaps we can even become that person. Exist as more than a collection of coping mechanisms but as a story, one that we may have inherited halfway through but through hard work and diligent practice we can take the role of editor, and eventually exert a little authorship.

To me, the gym is both pointed and pointless. I don’t think I care if I ever lift “heavy” again. I do love having a body that can – a body that allows me to say yes and experience more of the world. To have the capacity to help. To be an asset to those who I am beholden to. But more than that I love having a Practice and a space that has taught me how to listen. That has taught me how to have a conversation with the system that is me. To be able to experience biology and psychology and conditioning in all its forms.

More than anything, the gym is a chance for me to practice agency.

To spend a little time in charge of my own conditioning.

And if all that sounds interesting, then maybe this is for you too.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

Warmups are Essential.

At least that’s what I’ve been told...

Although I will admit that initially I only did them because my coach told me too, and later because I was coaching others and was trying to set a good example. In a group setting I found that the warmups function well as a transition, a ritual to create the divide between out there and in here. A process of shifting attention and intention, of winding down certain external concerns and shifting focus towards more immediate ones.

As a younger man I admittedly rushed through them. I did a decent job while teaching, slowing down and explaining the purpose – but when I trained on my own I was frequently “already pretty warm” and would jump right into the meat.

I can’t say when it happened, possibly as my explanations of the process matured, but eventually I found something in the warmups that was a little deeper than just getting the blood flowing.

There is probably a word for it, but I can’t think of it right now…

It is the act of backfilling purpose.

Of meaning making…

Semiosis? Phenomenology?

Whatever the deeper process, I am really just talking about the wall squat.

To do a wall squat you walk up to a wall, all the way up to it, as in touch your toes to the surface. Do that with your feet shoulder width apart and completely perpendicular, 90º with no external rotation – stand like this, arms spread out like a child begging to be picked up, and then squat down as far as you can.

That’s it.

Or at least, that’s all I was initially given.

Without further context I thought it was supposed to teach me to keep my knees from going over my toes, maybe check spine flexibility (the old “chest up ass back” squat cue) and test a bit of balance.

I must also entertain the very real possibility that the guy who showed it to me was just good at it. He had a lot of spinal flexibility and never passed up an opportunity to show up everyone else in the room.

I did wall squats for years. Had other people do them for a few more years, and at some point during that process I began to actually find some very useful coaching moments within that movement. Some harsh lessons, beautiful reminders, and a very reliable feedback loop that I could exploit. This was never about depth or spinal flexibility or knees-over-toes, this was about rules – and paying attention.

If you have never tried this, I can explain the problem: It’s a stupid way to squat. Your body isn’t meant to move this way. If you think of the human body as a system, as a series of levers that work together to accomplish a task, this particular task – with this particular rule-set, isn’t on the list of things we have adapted to. At no point in human history has being able to move like this been an evolutionary advantage, and certainly not one selected for. In a normal squat, the knees are supposed to go over the toes, our hips can rotate out, and our feet can move in order to allow us to get down – even if we are plastered against a wall.

No, this movement is absolutely artificial, Completely arbitrary – but the richness of information, the utility, comes from that fact – not despite it. If we stick to those rules a few things happen to almost everybody: as we start to lower we do get a lot of spinal movement (which actually can be a bad habit when squatting) the knees quickly come close to or even hit the wall and as your bodyweight shifts towards your heels it feels like you are going to fall. For most people this happens at a height that they can normally squat to with no problem, and stumbling on the first rep is a common occurrence.

I have come to believe that this is the actual useful part.

We have removed a couple solutions, a few actions that are so familiar to many of us that we wouldn’t normally think of them as choices, and without those relief valves stress piled up in a new way and the system couldn’t cope and… well, we just lost our balance a bit.

A little f failure.

Information.

What happened right before you lost your balance? What sensations preceded the loss of control? We are feedback machines, I’m sure there was something, the real question is are you listening?

One common response to stumbling or to not hitting the depth that we believe we should is to start to bend the rules. People will step back an inch, turn their feet out slightly (and not-so slightly) or adopt a sumo stance. All good solutions to the balance problem…

All missing the point.

We are not trying to win the wall squat.

We are confronting artificial constraints. Moments where the self-imposed rules of position and range of motion will be the hindrance to our progress. Where self-control and self-awareness is what holds us back, and at the same time what makes the work useful.

What gives it meaning.

The wall squat is the dumbest way to do that movement. Your body knows it and will rebel. That is the strength of the wall squat.

That is the point of the wall squat.

To start an argument about “form”, about right and wrong and useful.

Better yet, a discussion.

Between you and you. Body and mind.

Decisions in the past, Options at Present, and the results in the Future.

Yes, it would be easier if you turned your feet out. It would be easier if you took a step backwards.

It would be easier if you stayed in bed too.

Easier was never part of this equation.

Unless you are competing then the movements we use in the gym are like physical versions of mnemonic devices, handy little rhymes that help us find and focus the muscular contractions that we believe will help us achieve our goals of strength and long life and visible abs.

The wall squat is the ultimate display of the absurdity of these rules. It is also only useful to me because of them. What I learn from my wall squats is how good of a listener I am today. I am testing how loudly my body must shout that I am losing balance before I pay attention. I am warming up my ability to notice when my body takes the reins, deviates from my technical instructions in order to avoid the impetus to change. The wall squat is a reminder that none of this matters. That change is the result of internal confrontation. That the entire purpose of training, of this space and all the equipment in it is to orchestrate a very deliberate and specific problem – to create a situation where a specific muscle or tissue or joint angle is obviously the weakest link, and to sit there. To experience this problem. To show my body in the most basic of terms where “fitness” is lacking.

Where to spend its limited energy.

How to take this tiny step.

This is how we change.

We are each molded by so many hands, moments and experiences where we were just trying to get by, trying to solve some biological or emotional want and developed these habits because of what each of those systems rewarded. These habits ingratiate us to those who had similar solutions, and those tasks that best suited to our particular talents and hang-ups. We are a collection of initially small decisions with equally small side effects. These quirks of chance created a feedback loop, a snowball effect of options unfolding based on past success and further reinforcing decisions and consequences and decisions that we don’t even remember making.

The gym is a chance to challenge that. It is a space that exists to confront and reshape habits. To choose, deliberately and with intent, how to solve a particular problem. To practice retraining patterns you probably never consciously laid down.

To change something, you first need to be aware of it. To be aware of the circumstances in which a habit is rewarded or challenged. Of triggers and warnings and what exactly happens in the moments before your biology takes over.

To pay attention to both your intent and your impact.

There is the story about the guy who brought a cat home from the shelter and later that week it got eaten by a coyote. So he adopts another cat, and sure enough, by the end of the week it too gets eaten by a coyote. He gets another one, and another one, and another one – and at a certain point, whatever he wants to call it, he is basically just feeding the coyotes.

In order to change we must be able to execute the change we want to embody. The beauty of training is that it is a controlled environment, one where we can mitigate the stress in order to practice that change. Rehearse right action. And slowly turn up the dial. Deliberately and meticulously add stress back in and learn how to cope with it. Ramp it back up until we are equal to the task – and then find some new failure point.

Something else we want to change.

So yeah.

I guess I would say that warming up is essential.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

I guess I have talked too many times about my struggle with writing.

I know my problem, or at least I thought I did… I have often said that I don’t treat it like a professional. I never make space for it. I have tried, after a fashion anyway… Well. One chapter in and I took a pause to write this. If you haven’t read it, the book opens with her describing students who arrive at one of her writing classes. About how many students open up asking her about how to get an agent and how to navigate the publishing process. Not disparagingly, but she talks about the difference between the urge to write, and the urge to be “a writer”.

She explains that the gift of writing as a practice is that it trains us to pay attention. Gives us a tactile reason to drink up the scenery, to ask questions and to try and put language to the texture of our grandmothers palm, or maybe find a way to describe the exact color of golden green-blue that flecks the eye of the person we love. To practice writing is to practice noticing those things, to practice holding them and giving them shape. Folding emotions up in phonemes, origami and organization and understanding the deeper meaning of the word authorship.

Of storytelling.

publishing, well… that’s mostly logistics.

I don’t write exclusively about fitness, but it has become “my beat” so to speak. That chapter struck me dumb because it put things in a way that was so familiar that I am almost embarrassed to have not seen it myself.

For literal years I have described the practice of fitness as an excuse to pay attention.

It is a process, a mechanism to learn how to pay attention. An arbitrary task that allows us to understand better and worse. Advancement and regression. The role of sensitivity and selective engagement. Of control. It is a practice that allows us to expand our ability to feel and to act. To respond deliberately instead of reacting. To find beauty and purpose and calm in what we once avoided.

I guess what I am saying is when it comes to fitness, I am not just interested in being published.

I am content to exist in the practice.

I have build a respectable physical capacity. Over the years I have deliberately remodeled my vessel, added muscle and lost fat. I am proud of my thick thighs, and while I wouldn’t mind if some of this extra grip work I am doing led to bigger forearms – my path was never based on a how I was perceived. Initially, it was a matter of utility, but before long I began to value the journey without a destination.

Or better yet – the destination sought was here and now.

I have never had that clean of a relationship with the written word. I write because I want to be able to communicate what I feel. What I am thinking. I want to share, to connect. That desperation makes a clumsy sentence feel like a failure. A blank page is an admonition because what I am feeling is anything but blank. I am feeling scared and hopeful and content and unappreciated. I am feeling wide eyed and enlightened and like I always come up short and that I failed the people closest to me.

A waste of space and better than everyone else…

Thank you Anne.

Thank you Courtney and Bridgett and everyone else who asked me “Have you ever read bird by bird?”

Perhaps I can cultivate this new attitude.

An excuse to pay attention.

Another excuse to pay attention...

Fitness.

Photography.

Cooking.

It isn’t the barbells…

It isn’t the camera I bought or the frying pan I used.

It is that I paid attention.

It is that I tried to understand the little differences.

How engaging the shoulder just right can move the stress into my back, or how the light cuts through a partially open window and the shadows line up just right…

I paid attention to the balance between acid and fat and spice and the difference between sad and somber and subdued…

I like all of these things. I like being the focus and the filter. It feeds my ego to notice things that are normally overlooked.

I like the feedback loop that comes from knowing how the world is speaking to me, the secret language that was never actually a secret – It was just waiting for me to learn how to listen.

Writing is an exercise in paying attention. To practice writing is to practice Authorship. Attention and editing. Description and filtering. I want these things, want to make them as natural as breathing.

So I should probably practice…

I can’t divorce my writing from the finished product though. Not yet, anyway. I keep looking at the written word as a tool. An effort with a goal outside myself.

To convey.

To share.

To communicate.

And (to bring it back) if I looked at fitness this way, I probably would have quit by now.

I am 43 years old, I have been training in a gym regularly for almost half my life. Teaching people how to do it professionally for over 15 years now. My body composition has not changed drastically in that time. I have gotten stronger, but nothing exceptional.

If I were to judge my fitness “career” the way I judge my writing I would consider myself a failure. Or maybe just a fraud. Not a writer, but a glorified note taker…

“…and how does that make you feel?”

In actuality, I am wildly proud of what I have done with fitness. Partially because I would never even look at it that way, more like “what working with fitness has given me”

I have built and operated a business based on using the gym to help people pay more attention to their environment. Especially the internal one. Through paying attention, through the constant practice of engagement we have all gotten a little stronger, a little more capable. But the real success I see is that so many of the people I have trained are more comfortable being uncomfortable. More comfortable shedding a tear or telling someone that they love them. More comfortable sitting in silence or speaking up when it seems that no-one else will.

Practice makes habit and a racing heart is a racing heart. We practice showing up. Meeting that galloping beat with eyes wide open. We practice being uncomfortable and doing it anyway. We practice sticking to our word and sticking it out for those around us. We know how inspiring it is, to see the inexplicable change behind someone’s eye when they decide, truly decide that they are not going to quit. We have all been saved by witnessing that moment and seek to honor it – to continue the chain and be that for someone else.

So this is a small attempt. An attempt to not quit.

Actually, better yet…

This is just me. Paying attention.

Thank you Anne.

I’m trying.

And I’m going to keep trying.

And isn’t that how it always starts…

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

To pay for.

Because I can remember before.

we often rise to circumstance, but no good deed goes unpunished. the hope is to learn in the process, and fail better next time. a couple days ago a dear friend of mine and a coach at station515 had a confrontation with the outer limits of his physical ability, and the price that swimming in those waters demands – and while i don’t want to think of this as a “rite of passage” it certainly qualifies as a teachable moment.

many of us have experienced the edges of this, a hard workout that leaves you so sore the next day that you have to change your plans. a headache or nausea that lingers for a day, we used to jokingly refer to it as “flu like symptoms” – but there is a tipping point, a level where it is no longer funny and becomes a line of demarkation.

most people are not strong enough to hurt themselves. at least not at first. i don’t mean that they physically lack strength to cause injury, i mean that in the gym they will quit mentally long before they encounter any real physical danger. “hard” work is a constant negotiation, your body sends you signals, information about the cost of your actions and you have to convince yourself to keep carving away at that pound of flesh despite the consequences. in that situation, most people drop the knife at the first sight of blood – but as we train, as we learn to get comfortable with the pain, to manage those costs, we creep, inch by inch, into the deep end and one day we reach our toes down only to realize we cant reach bottom, we are in over our head.

this exhibits in a few ways – cramping, vomiting, blinding headaches, symptoms like food poisoning, burst blood vessels in the eyes and face. symptoms usually last from a couple days to a week – working out during this window is usually nearly impossible and certainly ill advised, but something happens during this forced downtime, something transforms. there is a realization; that every time you “went hard” before this you held back. you left something in the tank. as hard as you may have gone before you had never felt like this. it usually happens by accident, a change in circumstance or scenery – an adjustment or challenge momentarily shifts your self image and you fall victim to L’appel du vide, you gave in to the call of the void and this time nothing stopped you, no one protected you – and now the world looks different. shifted. it is like the your first true heartbreak – it can’t really be “sought out” and no one wants to wish it on someone else, but there is usefulness to be found in the darkness. the bone-deep realization that the world is a little less safe, that risk and consequences are visceral things, they have a taste and a sound and a cost that must be paid. more than that, there is now an understanding that you possess the ability to do real damage. you have earned a bit more responsibility and the freedom to do with it what you will. the safety is off and the gun is loaded, now it is up to you to hit your target and avoid shooting yourself in the process.

i don’t mean to romanticize this. anyone who has felt it or even witnessed the effects will tell you that it is far from flattering – but that does not mean it isn’t useful. it is a shift in perception. a changing of the rules. after someone goes through that fire it is now up to them to hold the reigns – because we do not get better by doing this – it is a tool with an extremely high cost, and one that does not get cheaper with frequent use. it is physically damaging and even from the most meat headed perspective, it benches you from meaningful training for at least a couple days. but after something like this we realize that we are responsible for these costs – and we can exercise judgement of when it is worth it. we are more capable of making that decision, of exerting our will. most of the time in the gym we chase numbers as reflections of our ability, moments like this are shifts in perception. they are lessons that once felt will never be forgotten. they replace fear and uncertainty with knowledge and a price tag. athletes i train don’t pull this pin in the gym, once they know what is possible it is reserved for when it really counts. gym rats are allowed to poke around its borders maybe once or twice a year, just to remind themselves what they are capable of. it is uncertain territory, and we as individuals need to balance risk and reward. it is a dark and expensive endeavor. it is a tool.

wield it wisely.

-the station.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

This is a slight departure from what I usually focus on but it has been bugging me…

I own a gym. I practice jiujitsu (although not very much as of late) I own and occasionally enjoy shooting guns. I have read a bit of stoic philosophy. I’m a straight white guy with a beard and a shaved head.

The algorithm has opinions about me, about what content I should be served.

And, surprisingly enough, Substack has served up some of the worst Andrew Tate wannabe bullshit I have ever seen. I truly hope that 90% of it is AI, grifters trying to engage in fan service – but I know there are real people out there, real people writing, and real people reading.

One common idea that I simply can’t get out of my brain is the relationship to the idea of vulnerability. The opinion in the space seems to be that “modern” men are told be vulnerable to appease women and that the entire idea of being vulnerable is counter to heart of masculinity.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

The meta nature of this argument is a little too on the nose – but I guess I can’t shake it because I have seen it work. I have met too many young men who share this adolescent view of vulnerability – and occasionally it has been my job to disabuse them of that notion.

Hiding your weakness is a child’s answer. It is cleaning your room by stuffing your closet. It is a focus on how you are seen, not any actual substance or process.

Actions speak louder than words, and regardless of what they say – these people are eaters, not hunters.

They want to be not to do.

Like a kid who wants to be a millionaire but thinks “working hard” is for poor people.

“Victory” for this type of person is about being seen wining, not growth or actual improvement of themselves, and definitely not helping others (unless, of course, it is properly and publicly attributed, “liked” and subscribed)

In every endeavor I have participated in, vulnerability is the key to growth. To change you must first recognize that you need to change. That part of you is not as you wish it would be, a place that you are exposed and feel like you can be harmed.

Exposure. And adaptation.

That is my profession. Add patience, honesty, communication, and individuals you trust, and you have the ingredients for progress and partnership.

I started doing jiujitsu because I couldn’t practice it alone. Progress in jiujitsu is about finding vulnerabilities, and then working with a partner – laying it out that “in this position I feel helpless” – and then you work on improving it together. You workshop solutions, get frustrated, backtrack, make progress, and find new problems.

Someone asking you to be more vulnerable in a relationship is someone offering to help. Someone being vulnerable in your presence is someone, with their actions, saying they trust you not to misuse that information. Vulnerability is an offering of trust, someone asking you to be vulnerable is someone asking you to trust them, someone asking you to be vulnerable is someone asking to get into the mess, to be a sounding board. To be treated as a partner and someone with which you want to build.

Hiding your weaknesses doesn’t make them go away. There is a tactical reason to do it, for sure: We can never fix everything so when we are in competition the strategy is to do everything you can to not end up exposed. When you want to win you try and force your opponent into playing your game and to make them think that you have sured up every crack. But that is competition. A space where only one person can win. In training we don’t spend much time in our positions of power because we actually have confidence there. We own it, honestly. We are here to improve, not just to celebrate, and there are more useful things to spend our time on. See, we are not trying to beat our opponent, but to help our partner. To help, and be helped in return. We work on our weaknesses to improve our tactics and develop strategies to deal with the very real chance that we might end up there regardless of our wishes. We become stronger by inviting others in, by listening and practicing, and when we make a mistake we tap. We ask our partner to stop. We identify where we stopped improving and fell back into useless habits , and then we try again. We practice being better.

What the fuck do you think therapy is?

In jiujitsu, If you work on your weaknesses enough, they will improve. The window in which someone can capitalize on them gets smaller and smaller. The more advanced you are, even your place of weakness is pretty damn strong… but that is the result of doing the work. That is the reason to keep doing the work.

In the gym, feeling weak is the precursor to getting stronger. It is the message that leads to the adaptation. If you refuse to feel weak than you can never tell your body to get strong. “I don’t like feeling this way” is a crossroads, you can lean into it and try and understand what is going on, or you can flee. Avoid it. But avoiding it does not allow for a plan B. It doesn’t allow for a next step. It is a severing of that pathway of growth. And frankly, that seems like a big god damned vulnerability right there.

What baffles me is this strategy of avoidance will almost never hold up to even the most basic test. It doesn’t take much knowledge to spot a fake, these indivudials positions of “power” are predicated on the inexperience (and eventual indoctrination) of those under them. The McDojo style “our art is too deadly to actually practice which is why only the secret military uses it and they won’t tell anyone” bullshit. The fragility it screams is deafening – this kind of unearned confidence… well, there is a reason I used the term “adolescent”

In the off chance that algorithm works both ways and may serve up my work up to the men (because it is usually men) who would click on those articles: let me offer an admittedly oversimplified counterpoint:

The people writing those articles are not your friends. They do not have your best interest in mind. They don’t want you to get better – they want you to make them feel better. If enough people agree with them, like their post or sign up for their newsletter, then it is proof that they don’t need to change either. That society is wrong, that everyone else needs to change – not them.

The number of self described “lone wolves” who order uber-eats and use a laundry service would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking exhausting.

And don’t get me wrong: if you already feel weak or under attack, someone asking you to make yourself vulnerable seems like a terrible idea – but it makes me wonder about the environment you have made for yourself. What is that quote? “Before diagnosing yourself with depression make sure you aren’t just surrounded by assholes”? Something like that? It’s a big world out there, and some people are trash. Find out what you like. What makes you feel good. Then start asking questions..

The same is true for the things that make you sad or scared.

What do these things have in common? Is there a theme? What is my biology trying to tell me?

Because feelings are information. The neuro-chemical equivalent of flashing lights screaming that “this thing is important” So pay attention. Ask questions, and yes, allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to ask for help in figuring it out. Because understanding yourself is the surest path forward – because these surprises, these highly emotional responses to stimuli - they are a warning. Like realizing there is a block missing from your foundation, and if you don’t deal with it now then everything you build on top of it will be at risk of collapse.

To me, aggressive, unshakable confidence is a sign of either a grifter or an uncurious mind. Neither of which I would choose as a teacher. Openness to new ways of doing things, openness to being wrong about something – the confidence not in a brand or an ethos but in one’s own ability to deal with whatever comes… that interests me. Someone excited to bump into the edge of their knowledge and ability. Someone who is excited to find people more talented or more knowledgeable than themselves…

There is no skipping the work. Hell, the way I see it, skipping the work can never get me to the same place. So often the results that people are shooting for are only meaningful because of the work it takes to get them. That once the shortcut is exposed the entire endeavor becomes hollow.

Change and growth are the bread and butter of humanity. Adaptation and community are our evolutionary superpowers and they feed each other. Find people who you trust enough to be vulnerable around. Who will treat you as an equal, and worthy of investment. Of time. Of care. Of patience.

This has become a pure rant, but I want it to still be useful. Perhaps as some sort of letter to my 13 year old self, swimming in the shallow edge-lord waters…

In short, if anyone tells me there is a shortcut – a way to avoid the “hard” and get everything I want, I have to examine their motivations. In short: Am I their shortcut? If they are telling me to lie, to sneak, to take advantage of others… and I am supposed to believe that they have my best interest in mind? That they wouldn’t lie to me?

Hiding your weakness, in the long term, is more effort and less effective than working on it. Full stop. Refusal to expose and work on your vulnerability is effectively supporting and actively defending your liabilities.

I have heard a lot about the male loneliness epidemic, I have seen so many men who feel like they cannot share their problems or express emotion or feel cared for – and just about everything I see come across as being made for those individuals suffering doesn’t just reinforce that world view, but profits off of it.

If you want things to be different, you have to be different. It will be uncomfortable and take practice. It will feel like moving backwards at times. You will make mistakes. Like learning any skill, find people who are further down the road than you and ask for help.

Look for the Kind, curious, and capable.

Confidence can be a result of one’s position (and its advantages) – it can also be a a result of one’s experiences and ability. If you want to be more confident, you can either spend your energy getting into (and then defending) a dominant position, or building a skillset worth believing in.

You have probably met both of these individuals. I feel like I have been pretty transparent about which path I believe in.

Confidence in position is transitory, and should be defended. In short: it can be taken from you because you can’t guarantee that you will ever be able to get back there.

Confidence in ability is earned through challenge. Exposure is greeted with eagerness and curiosity – or at the very least understanding.

One path is quick, and is a direct reflection of luck or the power of the person who placed you there. It is limited because it lacks a pathway to advance, unless it was bestowed by someone higher up the food chain – in which your confidence is simply that you have the favor of your superiors, and the acceptance that your position is only as secure as theirs.

The other path is often slower, but is limited only by your own willingness (and ability) to work and to learn. This confidence is often carried lightly, there is no threat because if someone questions your position they are either wrong – which causes zero problems, or they are correct – which gives you an opportunity to improve. This is confidence in process – and the process is not something that someone can take away from you.

In 1984 George Orwell wrote “weakness is strength” as an example of doublespeak, and while “it takes strength to be vulnerable” is quite easy to draw parallels for the sake of argument – I am confident that reading the book will sort out which type of confidence he was warning against.

I implore you to think about the things you want.

Then think harder about why you want them.

Most of all, to think about how all those things make you feel, and what that means to you…

And to never forget that in matters of personal growth: a shortcut takes you someplace else.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

the job of a coach or trainer is all about communication. we meet with people, help them problem solve – we talk. we tell people things, explain and cajole and convince people to do something that is often scary and wildly uncomfortable…

and then we get paid for it.

we often joke that excelling in our profession often resembles a degree of sociopathy. the goal is to be whatever the client needs at that moment. to read and anticipate and fill a role. the agreement is that this is about them. their goals. their process. our job is to accelerate their process. to be a force multiplier, to be a guide, a catalyst. this has made many of us hyper aware of the nuance of communication, the different approaches we need to take depending on our current audience, their state, and where they are in their process.

the internet. the glorious web of interconnectedness, has robbed us all of much of this nuance. not robbed us, but exposed us. in general, i don’t recruit the same way i reinforce. i am deliberate with tone and phrasing, and sound different when trying to invite versus trying to incite.

audience, and objective.

we all have been at that crossroads when we can choose between being clever and kind. jokes that make those close to us closer, or vulnerability that invites those who don’t know us to step inside and share their experience. arrows and olive branches.

we are told to never watch how sausage gets made, that if we knew it would spoil it for us. that is fine for children, but as we mature we should be able to recognize – and accept – our own behaviors in others. to extend the openness and understanding that we ourselves would like to be afforded. the hard part about that approach is it requires us as the listener to accept that we are not always important. that in many instances, the speaker wasn’t talking to us. that certain information was not for us because to them, right now: we do not matter.

communication is vital, profoundly personal, and infinitely tactical. it always has been and it always will be. if we are forced to perform communication for the world we will have to sacrifice its effectiveness. i don’t think there is anyone out there will disagree that context matters. that audience matters. that intent matters. and it is our intent as listeners that we can control. are you trying to learn, or trying to win? are you trying to understand another human or looking for more bricks to fortify you position?

how are you presenting your argument? how are your performing as an audience? in training, we talk about creating behaviors. rep by rep, experience after experience. we are placing our thumb on the scales, lending our will, our actions towards an outcome… so what outcome are you working towards? what behaviors are you encouraging, both in yourself and in the people around you?

if you are unaware you are a liability. worse than that, you can’t even be aware of how much of a liability you are. objective is a lens, it has a focus. this focus gives us power, but it does it at a cost. like focus, our reality is also filtered through the lens of our emotion. regardless of how hard we may try to be objective we cannot avoid the aberration that comes from the things we want and we feel, the most we can hope to do is to observe them, accept them, and try and make corrections.

being afraid changes our perception, it changes what we see and how we interpret it. if we fail to recognize our fear, than we can not correct for our bias. we believe that we are being rational, that we are actually under attack. we project our animal instincts on the world around us, and without cooler heads to prevail, we create the “reality” of our nightmares. anger. depression. petty annoyances… its ok if you are angry. it is ok if you are scared. if you are lazy, depressed, or even just pissed off for no reason. if you feel it, then it is effecting you. affecting you. and if you can accept that then you can work with it. make tactical decisions to correct for the distortion. how many relationships are damaged because one person is having a tantrum and cannot admit it? at least if you can admit you are having a tantrum, communicate it, there is some ground to work with. ignoring our emotions is ignoring empathy, and without empathy, it is not communication, it is performance.

in general, i do not fear making small mistakes. in training, in cooking, in communicating with someone close, i am afforded opportunities to course correct. to bracket an idea and through honest exchange and small adjustments – honestly approach the objective. written word lacks that corrective step, and sound bytes doubly so. in jiujitsu, if your goal is to improve a large part of your practice will be spent with people more skilled than yourself, will be spent deliberately putting yourself in bad situations and working your way out. if on the other hand your goal is to win, your objective is to avoid any place you are weak and make it impossible for your opponent to be strong. so the question is: are you trying to communicate, or trying to compete? to progress or perform?

both have their place. but first you have to know what you are doing, and what it costs.

then act. clearly. honestly. and with intent.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

I first heard the idea of a genuine fake from a Tom Sachs video. (Keynote: authenticity)

I was pointed towards 10 bullets by a friend and teacher and it resonated deeply with what I was trying to create. I realized that I was passively familiar with some of Sachs’ work, but to hear him explain himself allowed another layer of resonance with those creations. Sympathetic magic, authenticity versus “authenticity”, impact and creation.

Work takes time. Value is a function of time. I made this. It is hung in a space that I also created. A space of art and action. A space of ritual and of growth. Of authentic forgeries.

To say someone “has the knowledge” has become akin to saying that they “tried their best” it speaks volumes in what is not said. Having knowledge is different from practicing that same knowledge. Practice need not be spoken.

Copying is flattery. It is a compliment and is just as useful. Feedback adds a layer. If someone copies my work and lets me know how it felt or how it made them think, they are now part of a process. It has become additive because of communication. If someone copies what I intended but changes it to fit their needs then they have blessed my efforts through use.

Art is a celebration of process.

Process is, in some ways, the ultimate luxury. Process is our product. Process is our science and our art. It is our soundtrack and our religion. Process is the lever with which we, like Archimedes, will move the world.

Process lives and grows. Like knowledge it is not known as much as it is practiced. It is lived and worked through. It is influenced, challenged, torn down, built up, catapulted, abandoned, and returned to. In many ways, process is a luxury – but I don’t think it should be. Process should be stolen and embodied. Ripped and torn, sewn, sown, and re-sewn. it is truly “The least most valuable thing there is”

And it should be shared.

And in the off chance that mr. Sachs sees this – I hope you agree.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

I can remember the feeling of lying in bed and panicking, squirming in my own skin and wondering “what had I done”

I can remember realizing that it was a panic attack. And I could remember some movie where the main character was talking about fear, and allowing the fear to run its course. 5 minutes. Let it run rampant for 5 minutes. Then get back to work.

That sounded pretty cool… so I tried it.

That was a bit over 15 years ago. I had just signed my first commercial lease and was going to find out if this little Vision of mine deserved to exist in the world. 15 years ago today I laid the last mat. Tightened the last bolt and straightened the last kettlebell handle (not for the last time) and looked around my gym.

I had a lot of ideas. “Philosophy with consequences” – originally scrawled in the margins of a binder I got at the GYM JONES facility in Salt Lake City. I am a planner by nature. Cautious and, dare I say, thoughtful – I knew I could survive if this didn’t work. I’ve never been the “burn the boats” guy – I love a good backup plan. The way I see it, it frees me to fail honestly. I can’t say what lines I might have crossed if this thing surviving was my only path forward, so I schemed. Worked two jobs and risked what meager savings I had to give it a year to operate as intended, or return to dust knowing that I tried. At least in this case, I would rather be an honest failure than a compromised “success”.

Word of mouth, posting a few fliers, trying to navigate 2010 era social media… shockingly it worked. Mostly thanks to a few individuals who saw something in what I was doing, a few people who pulled in a few more (and a a few more) and the space flourished. I was able to expand, to extend the opportunity of doing this for a living to a few clients who felt drawn to it.

Nothing is all roses – business is business and turning friends into employees has its own unique set of struggles – and yet we persisted. Covid-19 had me on zoom workouts and delivering cardio equipment to peoples houses so they could stay sane. We formed running groups, exercises in the parking lot, in parks, and in masks.

I never thought this would be my path, but it has truly become my passion. The thing that wakes me up and gets me asking questions. Not just the physical, but the deeper changes I have witnessed. I have seen people put themselves back together after a divorce or the death of a parent. Seen people turn self-destructive urges into life affirming habits. I never imagined it, but this space turned into a model for me, a laboratory. I could try and fail and try again. This place helped me learn how to be in the world, and it survives in the world because of the people who fill it. The people who trusted me before I had earned it. The people who continue to challenge my understanding and ask good questions. The people who resonate and give life to brick walls and rubber floors.

15 years since we left the garage. 15 years of trying to merge passion and commerce. I am excited for what comes next, to continue to learn and grow – to help create more spaces for thoughtful approach to physical and emotional fitness. Today, however – we celebrate.

And we reminisce.

Not just “What have I done?”

But look at what we have done.

And stand in thanks of everyone who made that possible – I can never thank you enough, all I can do is to try and show you that the trust you placed in me was well founded.

“Onward” indeed.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

Imagine, if you will, a busy commercial kitchen.

Stainless steel. Tile floors. Cutting boards and noise.

Knives. Fire. And saucepans.

Cut. Sear. Stew. Mix.

Despite all the action, there are only so many ways to interact with the raw material, only so many ingredients readily available. How long do you think it would take watching work be done before you understood the restaurant? The mission of each individual and the vision of the creator? What is the goal? Who is it for? Sure, it’s all food – but we know it is also so much more than that…

Is this a utility sandwich shop, or a destination spot?

If all you see is the prep – how close is salsa to bolognese?

Broadcast media has always irked me because it is one way communication. Even when interacting on a platform with notes and comments I so often see advice fail because of a lack of context. A rush to answer. Even when asking for help, people (especially beginners) will omit the most pertinent information, and the comment section will fire back with all kinds of replies – each anchored in more unspoken assumptions.

“Am I cutting these tomatoes right?”

“You aren’t even using the right tomatoes”

“No, you need to slice them”

“Yes, keep it up!”

“Canned are better”

“First off: what are you making? Is it your first time making this? How often do you cook at home? Are you making it for yourself or are you trying to impress someone with it? Are you getting paid to make this? What is your point of diminishing returns as far as time/effort investment and improvement in final product?”

Each answer could very well be correct, and too often when we people are asking the internet for advice they are seeking a simple answer in order to move forward. Without context it is a crapshoot. Hell, even with context the internet is a crapshoot – but goddammit I want to believe that some people are honest and earnest and willing to try.

I want to leave the space better than I found it. I want to give back to something that gave me so much. If I’m going to be completely honest, I want to have interesting conversations. I want to work with people who think about this stuff, and I want to be able to feed off their questions to fuel my own. I want to challenge and feel challenged. I want to make art. To create. To engage the parts of myself that sing and vibrate and feed on movement and learning and joy.

I just read Rick Ruben’s book “the creative act” and I laughed at how useful it would as a manual for creating a good gym routine. Not in detail (of course) but in the overarching themes. In the understanding of what to look for and what questions to ask.

Exploration. Attention. Arbitrary goals in pursuit of learning your tools…

I feel like the fitness space is filled with lists, and people slogging their way through them. Vague or poorly understood goals (and occasionally both) being approached haphazardly with insufficient understanding and a constant deluge of amateur advice. And to be clear – when I say “amateur” what I mean is advice lacking both context and history of the specific situation they are commenting on, regardless of any accolades the commenter may or may not possess.

The individual whom I want to watch in a kitchen is someone on a mission. I don’t care what that mission is, perfect pizza or the best chocolate chip cookie, hell – if your goal was to hit all your macro’s in the simplest 3 meals a day while controlling for calories – I’m probably going to listen. Specific goals allow us to weigh our actions, they allow us to measure our feelings against facts and force us to ask questions. Having a goal, having curiosity and context and the courage to be wrong – that’s what interests me.

That’s what I want to engage with.

I think more people would be better served thinking of training as a creative space. As a test kitchen. A laboratory. A place to ask questions and seek answers. A place to feel and to flail. To tinker and laugh and orchestrate spectacular failures. And to sometimes succeed. To sometimes find peace or transcendence. To, above all, pay attention. To Practice. To widen horizons. To have experiences. To get to know yourself and the people around you.

A gym is a funny place. The same tool can be deployed towards countless ends. If you don’t know why you are doing a push-up then I probably won’t be able to help you do it much better, but if you are willing to put some thought in to it, to really consider why you are doing a thing and how that should be reflected in your greater choices – well then I for one would be truly interested to hear what you are thinking.

And would love to create something together.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

Practice and planning are, on the surface, too mundane to garner our attention or excitement. They don’t foster wonder or stir emotions. But try cutting a deck of cards precisely in half – 26 cards in each hand. Now do it again. Do it until you can’t fail. How much practice do you think that would take? How many times of doing it wrong, assessing that information, modifying behavior and trying it again?

Now do it while you are talking. And walking. On stage or up close, with a crowd staring suspiciously at your every move. Now “shuffle” the deck, but do it controlled – riffle, cut, riffle – but keep the order the same. Left card / Right card – perfectly interleaved, right? perform your perfect cut, then right card / left card. Perfectly un-done. It’s the same trick. The same stupid answer.

Practice.

Attention.

In his book, Derek DelGaudio mentions that a common issue with magicians when they are learning a new trick is frequent blinking. It is the result of practicing in front of a mirror. Of spending hundreds of hours trying to hide in plain sight, to smoothly switch a deck of cards or palm a foam ball. Your brain knows what you are trying to do, and helps you out by blinking at the perfect moment – deleting a single frame and making it look smooth. Letting the magician “off the hook” so to speak. “We got this, can we move on now?” – His teacher apparently made him start videotaping his work so he could see it as the audience would, spot the tells and make the act look entirely natural. Another step. More work. A chance to connect with an idea, and let it teach you to do more.

“It’s not ready yet. Keep working”

Magic is stupid because no one cares that much. No one would put that much time and effort, that much care and intention into this little act. We see the answer and dismiss it immediately. “No, it can’t be that – do you know how much work that would take?”

Most of us are familiar with Arthur C. Clarkes third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Clarke was a science fiction writer and a futurist, and his experience with magic followed those pathways of understanding. I am a trainer, and a lover of art – and in my observation: Any sufficiently advanced display of skill is indistinguishable from magic.

Any sufficiently advanced display of skill is indistinguishable from magic art.

Magic is a trait that is imparted, to an object or an experience, by the artist demonstrating a level of time, attention, and dedication that defies the logical mind.

That offends sensibilities.

We are enamored by paintings and poetry in much the same way we are stunned by sleights of hand. We all use words, and most of us have held a paintbrush – perhaps as even as often as a we have a deck of cards. But this… but the results that rise to the level of “art” or “magic”… there has to be something else, right? Some trick? Some secret muse send by the gods to guide the artists hand.

There but by the grace of god go I. Hands and eyes and mind but what we do with them could not be more different…

Time.

Attention.

Deliberate Practice.

Love.

Caring.

Dedication.

So often what we call “art” is the result of caring about something so deeply that the logical mind rebels – or at least retreats. We are left marveling at something that we cannot comprehend because there is no way someone did this “the long way”. No way someone cared that much. We can be fascinated and touched and moved to tears because someone committed themselves wholly to the work.

Writers write. And read. And edit. And write. Stringing words together and feeling their deeper implication. Poets play with cadence and spacing and use these instruments to form a symphony. Always working. Always refining. More than most of us are willing or even able to imagine.

We all take pictures, but how much do you think about the pictures you take? How much time is spent trying to understand why you were drawn to pick up the camera in the first place? What did you see? What were you trying to capture? What would have made it better? A wider framing? A different angle? How much can a single f stop change the story? How far can this tool be pushed and twisted? Can be made to speak, and share, and feel?

It is just practice. And attention. Taken to its illogical conclusion.

Just practice.

Just attention.

“What if I cared about this thing so much, practiced and prodded and plumbed the depths… what could I discover? What could I create?

This is magic. This is art.

Caring more than is practical. Caring more than is reasonable. Caring to a level that sends the very notion of reason and sensibility spiraling… leaving only one explanation:

Magic.

Too often “art” is something other people do. “Magic” is simply that which done by methods we cannot comprehend. In a way, both art and magic are destinations. Elevations. Descriptions of a state of being. The road to get there is actually frightfully simple, even if the distance is unfathomable…

Practice.

Pay attention.

Care.

About anything.

Do it enough, and it becomes magic.

Becomes Art.

We are all magicians. We are all artists.

All we have to do is practice.

Is pay attention.

Is care.

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this is a link to Derek DelGaudio’s “in and of itself” – its 90 minutes and worth watching.

burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

I am not good with people.

Perhaps that is overstating things, lets just say that I am good with myself. Perhaps not always kind or productive, but we have a relationship. Alone is my natural state. Safe. And therefore: desired.

People stress me out. As a default I distrust the ability or willingness of others to control themselves and be aware of their surroundings. I cannot rightly say if it is the result of genetics or upbringing – what I do know is that it has been with me as long as I can remember, and having run relatively unchecked through most of my childhood – it has had some effects.

I was an indoor kid. Computers, books, Dungeons and Dragons. My values and my pursuits were self-referential, and regardless of which of those came first – these facts fed on each other and served to shape my relationship with the world. Action feeds action, and what we have done paves the way for what we will do next. I moved, I grew – in a way. I focused on my self to the point of ignoring others. Ignorance bred misunderstanding, and I began do define myself as much by what I was not as by what I embodied. Counter-Culture, straight-edge, vegan, anarchist. Definition by deletion. I stood against as a matter course, but still found myself almost constantly disappointed.

So I cut deeper. Maintained many of my morals but cut out the communities that I believed were failing me. I had become comfortable alone. I did not feel unaided, but unencumbered. Took pride in not accepting help. I wanted to be alone, or perhaps I feared I would be alone and so I decided to choose it for myself before someone else chose it for me. I worked to fortify this position, eventually I sought to strengthen my body, to expand my abilities and not need anybody else. To not risk being seen as a burden.

Training in all forms started, for me, as an exercise is self. Self-Discipline. Self-Control. Self-Improvement. Self-Reflection. I was so sick of being let down by other people, so disgusted with letting myself down and so afraid of failing others that I became obsessed with capability. Depression had made me cruel to the face in the mirror. Not malicious – just unsympathetic. Explanations would not change the fact that something needed to change, and I chose not to change how I looked at myself, but instead to change what it was that I was looking at. To turn myself into an individual that I was proud of.

In respect to that goal, athletics was not an end in its self, but a vehicle. I worked to peel parts of myself away, to break cycles of thought and behavior and my training reflected that fact. Pain and discomfort weren’t just part of the process, but in many ways the primary objective. I was drawn to it. “Because it hurts more” was a good enough reason to do a thing, there was an immediacy to the work, and being “different” felt more important that whatever final shape different would ultimately be. There was a sort of wisdom to this, to burn the field before you plant anew – but it is so easy to get enamored with the fires and and forget that if we don’t plant something new, the same weeds will grow.

The thing about incremental change is that it is so easy to carry our baggage with us, finding a new way to break stuff is not the same as making something new. I was warned of this, explicitly so, and I probably would have wallowed in it for god knows how long if it wasn’t for an unlikely savior. An accidental community. A couple guys working on my property saw me training and asked if they could join. So I used them. The first thing I think I learned while trying to change was how to lie to myself, and while that knowledge was apparently not enough to keep me from doing it, it helped me recognize a way out. The beautiful part about witnesses is they can force you to be accountable. This kind of shallow martyrdom only works with an audience, so I created one. I couldn’t muster the energy to change for myself, so I found a way to perform change. From a young age I was taught to be a good host, to put on a brave face and greet people with that begrudging mid-westerner hospitality. That is to say, I am good at fulfilling expectations. So I created some. People were a tool, a lever that I could pull. I arranged the schedule, created dependents of a sort. I fed and starved my ego as I saw fit, I created the circumstances for imposter syndrome (possibly) knowing deep down that the way I would deal with would to become obsessed with living up to the trust that I was given.

As years got on I became more adept at manipulation – I had gotten good at breaking things, at identifying weakness and biting down on it until it split. And while it still held some morbid enjoyment, I found that it was no longer enough, I wanted to make something. Damage for damage sake had taught me a lot, I knew how to strip away – but there is always something left. Something fascinating. I realized that all the work I had been doing was to this end, to experience and interact with what was left. I would use physical work to focus the attention of those who trusted me, drive them physically to have certain experiences, to be confronted with emotional questions and lay the groundwork for the conversations I wanted to have. I wanted to grow and realized, at least on some level, that I could not get there alone. These experiences and conversations were proxy to my own struggles, and if I could change others, then I could change myself… right?

This finer manipulation took work. Breaking people is easy, it is like cutting down a tree – force plus time will end us all – but I wanted to carve down to a specific ring, and graft something on there, something new. I needed to learn about people, to be sensitive to their motivations, to read the difference between anger and fear and despair, and to be able to direct those feelings. I had to gain trust, and maintain it even while I was lying, and most importantly I needed to know how to help pick up those little pieces and put them back together. To fit them deliberately, with determination and well earned knowledge. In my quest to not need anybody I ended up forming some of the closest and most impactful relationships in my life. In fact, the majority of my work nowadays is focused on the emotional health of those who I work with. Everyday I have discussions about stress and sensitivity and self-image. On expectations and consequences. On how to manage the way we deal with a myriad of problems we face each day, and even more importantly: the steps we can take to do better next time.

To be clear, this is a hindsight analysis, an after action report. I can only wish to have had that kind of prescience – to be as cunning and manipulative as that. There is a clarity in looking back, only in hindsight did I see how performative my change was, how much other people functioned as a catalyst for that work. From the beginning my quest for self was shaped by others, first as something to push against, then as a tool – a lever, and finally as a destination. It is my growth edge, to practice trusting and being trusted, to practice stumbling and recovery, failing usefully. Perhaps some day I will be able to carry this weight on my own, perhaps not. At present I do not care. I still do better when I am beholden to someone. To some thing. I am aware of it and use it tactically.

A friend introduced me to the term “belay knife” – it has always made me laugh, a tool – honed, maintained, and carried specifically to cut away dead weight. He taught me a lot about how to use that particular tool, how to keep it sharp and use it with conviction. The funny thing about tools is that they are extensions of the user, and that which was used for years to keep people away can be used to bring them in. The sharpness and familiarity can be repurposed. That same knife can live on, can carve space for people instead of cutting them away. After all, a Sunday roast is easier to carve than 9mm of nylon, it just requires a different sort of risk.

Yes. Hell is other people. But I think that some part of me sees salvation there too.

Please do not misunderstand – if asked I will still say that I fucking hate people. I am cynical and a grouch. Still smug and curmudgeonly. But I am working. I am practicing trusting people. Believing in people. And in letting people believe in me. In risking letting others down in the hopes that, maybe, I won’t. Training has taught me to recognize my growth edge, to see “ease” and “comfort” as variables, as information instead of goals. It has taught me how to practice. To review. To fail, and fail, and fail again. To realize that I assign value to things in my life. That meaning is made, every day. That my practice is my Practice, I can create an environment that pushes me to be the person that I want to be, that my actions now build my future options. I am still my only option, my only point of action and my only source of judgement. But if that is true, then it is uncomplicated. Act only in a way you will be proud of, everything else is simply a mechanism towards that end.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

The discussion of models, their creation and modification is a near constant refrain at my gym (which is, in itself, an interesting model) So much so that it sometimes feels silly. The thing is that it is often so very useful. The topic is also a pretty central theme of the narrative zine released last year (link for capitalism) if you are interested.

This iteration revolved a lot around teaching, and finding a teacher – like many things, it was in response to a discussion in the gym, a fact that brings me so much joy, that 15 years in I am still finding insight and challenges. The intellectual engagement, the curiosity and determination I encounter every day is, more than anything, why I love this profession so much.

All models are wrong. Some are useful.

When I first came across that quote, I will admit I think I missed a large part of the lesson. All models are wrong. Even the useful ones.

When choosing a model, the right fit has nothing to do with true and false – but simply if it is useful or not. A model exists to simplify. To illustrate relationships and allow predictions. This is done, primarily, by editing. By labeling a few key points as important and ignoring the rest. Take a map, for example: A very simply model that we have all interacted with. A perfectly detailed map that preserved all information at a 1:1 scale offers no advantage. It is death by fidelity. An absurd example, no doubt – but illustrative. The utility of a map is dictated by what few pieces of information are represented and at what scale. A model exists for a purpose, for an audience and a moment. A road map of your country would differ from a bike map of your city would differ from a child’s drawing of where treasure is buried in your yard. Each iteration has a person, a place, and a goal in mind. Each is wrong in its own ways, and through those omissions – the information is given shape and purpose.

If the previous idea is accurate, then each model has a sort of world-view. Crafted by a person, as a means towards an objective. Each model contains the bias of its creator. The simple judgement of what is relevant and irrelevant to the goal, what should and shouldn’t be included in the model shapes all the information that can be extrapolated. What I missed in my first reading of that quote is that a useful model is just as wrong as a useless one. As we progress and the scope of our endeavor matures, the information that meaningful towards our goals change – and so must our models. The bias inherent in the model is only really a problem if those assumptions go unaccounted for. Like the perfect map, we cannot afford to pay attention to everything. We need to make judgements, and absent experience: we borrow the judgment of others. The trick is to not do this blindly. Those biases function almost as an organizing principle. Each model tagged in a way with its objective and starting parameters. Because nothing is useful in a vacuum. Current goals and past experience create an intersection of language and scope. The model is a tool – shaped with purpose, to be wielded with both skill and the knowledge of its limitations.

And to be put down when its job is done.

As interesting as this all may be, we started on the topic of utility. If we put in the effort to understand the issues with models, with all models, we can begin to use them more effectively to make progress in our own lives. When learning a new skill, we lack the knowledge required to edit out what is important, to simplify the task and create a model – so we borrow. When I started jiujitsu, I didn’t have the experience to understand the motivations behind my opponents movements. I didn’t know much, but I figured my opponent didn’t want anything good for me, so I would resist every movement they would make with equal intensity. Fear and ignorance made me predictable and easy to manipulate. The assumption about my opponents intentions was correct, but I needed a filter. I needed to find a better model.

In a parallel to the Dunning–Kruger effect, there seems to be a gap between being able to recognize that you need a teacher to help, and the ability to gauge if someone can be a useful teacher for you. We are often in such a rush to make progress that we forget to examine what progress even looks like. When I am learning a new skill, before I think about trying to “do well” my focus is now to learn what resources are even required to do well. What traits seem to be rewarded the most? What are all the “good” people consistently good at? If I am lucky, I can recognize greatness when I see it – but I often can’t pinpoint why it is great. So I try and understand the environment. The prerequisites that greatness arises from. To understand how someone sees and interacts with the task, as opposed to just how they ultimately deal with it. When I realize I need a teacher, I try and engage in the same process. The goal is to first figure out how to identify what makes a useful teacher for me at this moment. The best teacher isn’t always the best performer, and the best teacher for me right now isn’t always the best teacher for me next year. I am looking for someone to guide me, to listen and weigh in. To filter. More than that: I am looking for someone to help me build my own models. Someone who understands that their skillset is also a world view, someone who won’t just show me a map but teach me how and why it was created.

One of the first hurdles we encounter when trying to learn something new is finding out what we can ignore. One of the most difficult hurdles we encounter when trying to refine a skill we have practiced for years is seeing the impact of something we once saw as trivial. Reminding myself that these models are inherently “wrong” as a design parameter has helped me switch between them more readily. To keep the emphasis on utility as opposed to using them to define myself. It has also helped me identify why I value teaching so much. A new student, one who is eager and interested will make me examine and reexamine my own models. Will allow me to see the problem from a new light and interrogate things I have taken as gospel. At this point in my growth – a good student is a valuable teacher, and often harder to find.

Ultimately, we are all teachers.

We are all students.

We are all wrong.

And if we all try very, very hard…

We can all be useful.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

I’m not sure how I feel about that number.

Spray and pray. A quick skim of the files yielded maybe 200 ish images that were even worth looking closer at. That had a chance to communicate something.

One percent…

I’m pretty sure we can call that luck.

But I can’t argue against the freedom to make mistakes. While my relationship with my camera is a little finicky as of late, it’s not unheard of for me to have a day where I only take 10 shots. Where I can recognize the feeling, the spot and the moment – and I know how to capture it.

Digital media has allowed us to take more pictures in a year than photographers a generation ago may have taken in their lifetimes. This is a double edged sword – sheer volume, luck, and a commitment to editing can land a person at “good enough”– a Nostradamus like effect of making sure everyone only hears about your success; but if one is willing to pay attention we can tighten the feedback loop, interrogate the variables and actually make a picture worth sharing.

Or we can not. We can get away with it. It seems like that is the way with so many modern conveniences. Cheap data and assistive technology rushing us into “goodness” so quickly that the quest for greatness seems unnecessary. With the right capital investment we can be good enough without much effort. Large language models, AI image generation… with these technologies we are each the proverbial million monkeys at a million typewriters.

And once in a while Shakespeare will fall out.

And I’m worried we might all be a little poorer for it.

I am not a Luddite. I am not riling against the machine. Personally, I think analog photography would make me less likely to rekindle the relationship with my camera.

But I think I get the draw.

I want to be deliberate.

I want to reward sensitivity and curiosity.

I want to use this technology. To leverage it.

I can try and see, to feel out where I should stand, what I am trying to get out of making a picture – and try it.

And then try it again.

I can see what worked and what didn’t. I can intentionally change the variables, the focal point or the aperture size and try again.

I can afford to miss.

I can see the result of my choices immediately. Try and notice what elements are consistent in the vaguer notions of “like” and “don’t like”. I can try and understand what composition means to me, what made me want to pick up that camera in the first place. Start to pick apart how light speaks to me, how to listen and on occasion, how to use the variables under my control to shape those words into a song.

I want to de deliberate.

It will always be easier to be lucky.

This is going to take a little more practice. And, for me, a philosophy… an ethos… will drive me to a practice more than anything else.

Am I trying to be deliberate or trying to be lucky?

More importantly, which of those things am I rewarding?

Luck will always be a factor, and I will always accept it… and maybe if I practice being sensitive, train myself to be aware and agile and deliberate, I can find that luck just a little easier.

-the station

*it was a thing we did in 2010.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects

One of the first things I constantly need to address when training people is sensitivity. That and communication. Possibly because most people don’t look at a “crossfit” style training facility with a black and white website to be a bastion of either, but this simple goal of becoming more sensitive has probably been more essential to individual growth than any other.

Become sensitive.

Be able to communicate.

See where that takes you.

in pursuit of constant improvement the process of progresses too often overlooked.

this is not a camera.

the picture of a thing is not the thing itself. the measurement of a trait is not always indicative of true ability. more directly: you can change a number without changing yourself.

simply put: biology is messy. training is less like building a machine and more like cultivating a garden. there is preparation and execution and then faith and waiting, and often unintended consequences…

we learn by success, by rewarding certain behaviors; which begs the question: which behaviors are you rewarding?

this is not a rhetorical question, but critical and frequent exercise for anyone seeking to build a cultivated self.

what behavior gets rewarded? what sort of future am i building? be it in the gym, at work, with food or friends or hobbies – what am i encouraging? is that a place i want to go? is that a person i want to be?

progress is vital, but it can be deceiving. it is possible to move in the right direction, but in the wrong manner. perhaps i am being unclear…

it is possible to get closer to the symbol and further from the source.

it is easy to get so focused on our goal, on improvement, that we loose sight of why, of what exactly it is we are rewarding and how we expect that to impact our lives moving forward. think of it as a map – the “direct” route is not always the fastest one, or even viable. there is terrain to contend with, replete with open roads and dead ends. it is a common human problem to get so focused on the horizon that we trip over our own feet, we take for granted that learning is a skill, or even worse: assume we have already learned everything there is to know and blind ourselves to the information before of us.

in order to learn we first have to pay attention, and to pay attention we need to understand what is worth paying attention to, how it changes, and what those changes mean. before we can learn, or even learn how to learn – we have to first become sensitive enough to gauge whether or not we are making any real progress at all.

sensitivity is a trait too often overlooked. sensitivity is recognizing the terrain under out feet, the weather over our heads, and if the road we are on is a dead end, regardless of the fact it heads in the right direction. we all want to rush headlong towards our goal, we (or at least I) feel like we are already starting too late, and that we need to get to work. the question always circles back to goals. do you care more about making progress of being seen to make progress? are you interested in getting better or getting high?

too often we hide behind hard work. if we are constantly moving no-one can accuse us of being lazy, right? rushing around, dead end after dead end, may feel like making progress, but if our objective is truly to improve wouldn’t our time be better spent not only examining the terrain overall, but learning how to tell the difference between real progress and immediate gratification? accepting that the first step to progress is to learn what progress really looks like and how to be sensitive to the changes dramatically alters how we weigh the costs and benefits of each day, and may be extremely helpful in exercising control of your current situation.

if we are to accept that sensitivity in and of itself is a skill, then it would make sense to find a way to reward it. i used to wonder why so many of the people i look up to, so many individuals who seem to be fiercely, relentlessly competent – are also good photographers. or climbers. people who practice jiujitsu or enjoy some level of firearms training. these hobbies are a simple way to reward sensitivity. to practice receiving feedback and altering course. to practice asking the question “why?” why is this different? what did i do? is this better or worse? if “some” was good, is more better? these tasks allow us to constantly practice the art of learning. of improving. of being sensitive enough to listen and flexible enough to change. of recognizing when the barrier to our progress is our process, and how to change accordingly.

it is about rewards. it is about rewarding behavior that we want to encourage. with that perfectly composed shot, the ring of a steel target, or a well timed mount escape – we are rewarding having listened. we are rewarding appropriate response to the environment. we are rewarding some level of communication and even cooperation with the opponent. ultimately, our goals are our own. our progress is our own. i do not mean we get there alone, far from it, but that we are responsible for our part. we are responsible for how we respond to the circumstances we find ourselves in, and for how we influence the circumstances we face in the future.

to be responsible for a thing, you must first learn to see the thing – and one of the first things you need to see is what behavior you are rewarding. in all circumstances, what are you encouraging?

where does this road lead?

how will this influence my behavior in the future?

the cultivated self. with every action we plant and prune, we feed habits of thought and action and create the environment where the new habits are going to grow. the nature versus nurture debate is worthless in that it lacks utility. it is not an impetus for action. it doesn’t matter to me. nature is more important because starting today my environment is fixed, everything before this moment already happened and has created the raw material of which i have to work. nurture is more important because action is what i possess, what i use to alter my environment today.

tomorrow it all begins again.

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burkey - owner/operator of Station515 || ferndale, mi || www.station515.com || physical objects