One of my favorite TV series of all time is Babylon 5. And one of my favorite episode titles is “Falling Towards Apotheosis“.
The episode is part of an arc that leads to the final confrontation between the Shadows and Vorlons about the future of the galaxy. The episode is the moment at which the final events that will either lead to a bright new future or a dismal past become inevitable. After this episode the die is cast.
What is interesting about the title is that it juxtaposes apotheosis – a climax or highest point – with the idea of falling … We are to imagine the story no longer moving out of it’s own free will to the end, but the force of history and events pushing it towards the end. Whereas most of the time apotheosis is something we move towards – our actions drive us to the climax.
In many ways JMS’s title was hearkening to another title, a book by Thomas Pynchon called Gravity’s Rainbow.
The phrase Gravity’s Rainbow is an image used by Pynchon to describe the parabola formed by a V2 rocket.
A V2 rocket is fired into space, for a period of time it has control of it’s destiny, and at some point the rocket loses control of it’s fate and after that point gravity takes over. The parabola formed is what he calls Gravity’s Rainbow. The broader theme of the image is this notion of loss of control and hurtling towards your fate for good or for ill. And that notion of control followed by a switch to destiny plays out repeatedly throughout the book. The book, particularly explores that moment when you go from control to destiny as an important transition point.
For the last couple of weeks I have been in that transition point in the parabola. This is why I haven’t been blogging. In this state between moments, there is s certain amount of breathlessness. There was this nagging feeling that I am loosing control over the outcome of my race.
And this loss of control is disorienting. You feel that your ability to change the outcome is slipping away and that powerlessness is crippling. And you’re trying to desperately do one more hard workout, to focus one last time because if you do the outcome will be different.
And you know it’s pointless.
And then suddenly you embrace the loss of control.
The training is done, the preparation is done, the die is cast. Nothing more to be done.
There is still the small matter of doing this race, and I have control over that but the outcome of this race was determined over the last 8 months of insane training.
And now that the race is days away, I feel good again. I feel that I am no longer in the moment between control and lack of control – I have made the transition. I am now hurtling towards my apotheosis or destiny like a V2 rocket.
And that makes me feel good again.
Final weight loss status update
If you can read this graph what you’ll see is that I lost 26 pounds. My starting weight was 220, I reached 193.9. I was on track to get to 185 but shit happened. As it is I lost about 4 pounds a month which is pretty good.
Fun facts about my weight loss. I dropped 4 sizes from a size 36 to a size 32. I will need to buy a new wet suit when I do my Ironman next year. For a mile swim the suit is okay, but for a two mile swim it’s kinda baggy. I had to buy new training clothes because nothing fits anymore. Making this a ridiculously expensive bit of weight loss.
Weirdest part of losing weight is that I can’t stay in cold water for as long. Turns out the fat was keeping me warm – who would have thunk it 🙂
We still need to get to 176 before the Athens Marathon… unclear I can pull that off … but I will still try.
The one important consequence of my weight loss is that I did make the promise to myself and my family that if I couldn’t get to 195 by the time I did Vineman, I was not going to do an Ironman. Completing an Ironman weighing over 200 pounds was unrealistic. And if I hadn’t loss the weight 1 year before, I was just going to do a whole lot of exercise and ask them to deal with my workouts and fail and that was not fair to them. I met my goal, so now we can start looking for events to sign up for.