We live in a noisy and distorted crazy world! Sometimes I wonder how people can manage to go on with their daily lives totally unaffected by this ubiquitous distortion. Personally, I don't think I can do it. I can't seem to live a normal structured life in the midst of all what's happening around me. The pace that life dictates is too fast for someone like me. So I tend to concentrate my efforts on what I believe are positive actions. In some ways I consider those "actions" to be my contribution to the civil society. Veganism and reducing my carbon footprint seem to top my priority list. It's a combination of my respect to other living species on this planet (probably more than my respect to humans) and the eco-system that are the main driving engine behind my actions. I believe in "cruelty-free" diet. Modern societies have gone too far in their farming practices; modern farms have become more of industrial sites rather than tradition farming… Anyway let us not dwell over this point, there are a plenty of literature on the net on why veganism is the best step humanity can adopt in order to save this planet. Mind you, I am no perfect vegan, I did cheat a couple of times and had a bit of cheese and Nutella. As for reducing my carbon footprint, I try to adopt a minimalist approach in doing things. Perhaps not minimalist enough, but I like to think of it that way; it can be summarized in buying less stuff, trying to cut on processed food, significantly decrease car, water, and electricity usage, use less cutleries, etc… I have adapted my work to suit my lifestyle, slow and flexible working hours. So I am getting enough time to train, read, sleep, walk and use public commuting system. Of course this sometimes comes at a cost of earning less, but you can't always have it both ways. Cycling… hmmm where do I start? Well things have been going in a positive direction. The long training hours (sometimes averaging to 16 hours a week) have paid off in a 3rd position in national rankings; dreams of Olympics qualifications have started to lure me. The idea was my team mate's. He suggested we ride the Asian Championship to try to qualify at least one rider (in this case it would be him) for the 2012 Olympics; my turn would naturally be 2016; but hey… you've got to start somewhere. Enough rambling for now! I want to end this post on this high note: Dreams of qualifying to the 2016 Olympics.
