John Carrier

Sunday I ran about 21 miles.  I say “about” because I took a wrong turn off the route, and I don’t use a pedometer; suffice it to say that I’ve now seen more of North Minneapolis up-close than I had to date.  It took me a little over 5 hours, not counting time that I stopped to check my map, refill my water bottles in city parks, or buy sports drink at gas stations (appropriately).

This marks two personal records: It is both the farthest distance I’ve run and the longest continuous time I’ve spent running in a single session.  My previous record was around 18 miles in 3.5 hours sometime last summer.

Upon finishing, I felt like a superhero.  Then immediately afterwards until sometime yesterday, I felt like a cripple.  But also still like a superhero.

In case you don’t have my trading card, I’m 6′2″ and weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 240 pounds.  The word “Clydesdale” comes to mind.  Coincidentally, I’m pretty sure that what the people were recoiling from when I went into that bike shop for a water refill was the scent of horse.  Sorry, bike-shop people.

Good tunes for getting your running cadence back: HaDag Nachash

Good tunes to get up those hills on the U of M campus: Rammstein

Good tunes to cross the finish line: White Zombie

Yes, my pace was similar to that of a brisk walk; however, I was not passed by a single walker.

The Twin Cities Marathon is just under 6 weeks away, and I’m gunning to finish in just under the 6-hour time limit. Participant Ribbon, here I come.

It’s no fifty-miler, but 26.2-mile first step.  I’m training for the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon which takes place on Sunday, October 5, 2008. 

I’m a few weeks into a marathon clinic at the Uptown Running Room, and my training schedule has me running a total of 35+ miles this week, including an 18-mile run this Sunday.

My training runs, most of which take an hour our more, have proven an excellent opportunity to practice Hebrew with the Pimsleur recordings I’ve ripped to my iPod.  Pimsleur is an excellent complement to my book learning, and it has really sharpened my pronunciation, I think.  Furthermore, I believe the regular exercise contributes to my mental fitness, which has helped my acquisition and retention of the language.

My wife says my weight is down, too, and I’m feeling pretty invincible.  Theoretically invincible, that is.  My longest training run so far has been 16 miles, and after something like that, I feel physically crippled for a few hours, but the idea that I can run 16 miles (albeit slowly) makes me feel — mentally, emotionally, egotistically — like a dang superhero.

First, I want to thank everyone for your kind words and wishes following my brother’s death.  At a time when I’ve seldom felt lower — Bobby was the first person I was close to who died of anything other than old age — I’ve also seldom felt more love from my friends and my community than I have this week.

Thank you.

Second, while my parents and sisters and I were attending to Bobby’s affairs (he had no spouse or heirs), we decided to start a foundation in his honor.  Now I feel compelled to act on that decision while we still have the emotional momentum of the event on our side.

I’m not asking for money.  (Not yet.)

I’m asking for information — experience, expertise, network contacts — from anyone who has any interest or experience in the following areas:

• Starting and incorporating a non-profit organization, such as a charity, foundation, or scholarship endowment.
• Working with at-risk youth, for example, teenagers with experience in the foster care or juvenille justice systems.
• Attending or working with outdoor leadership programs or wilderness survival schools.
• Fundraising, both online and IRL.

If you are interested in helping and are able to help, even if its just a few words based on your experience that will save my family from wasting scarce time or resources as we work toward making this a reality, please email me at the following address:

john (at-sign) johncarrier (dot) com

If you know of anyone with experience or interest in the areas above, please click on the “tell a friend” button below for a way to easily share this request with others in your address book (with total privacy, of course).

Thanks again for your love and support at this difficult time.

A few weeks ago my wife and I took a vacation to California, and while we were in the neighborhood, we visited the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, one of the schools I am applying to (see below).  Among the many things there that made an impression on me (the gorgeous vista, the kosher chicken wings, Rabbi Dorff) was a comment I heard at least 2 people make: Rabbinical school is a humbling experience.

No matter how successful you were in your previous career, once you start R-school, you’re back to square one.  Not only are you responsible for learning a library full of primary, secondary, and n-iary texts, ranging in vintage from 3,000 years old to yesterday’s HaAretz; you are responsible for learning it in another language (at least one) that if you’re lucky, you enter the school comprehending at a third-grade level: Hebrew.

To that end, I’ve started working with a Hebrew tutor twice a week.  We’ve been using the widely recommended Ivrit min HaHatchalah (Hebrew from Scratch), level one, to start me learning modern conversational Hebrew.  Last night I also began a course of study with a friend looking at Torah (Bible) and Talmud (ancient law codes with copious commentary), and it quickly became clear that my lack of Hebrew would be a hindrance, so we added a component of learning Biblical Hebrew into the mix.

What’s the difference between Modern and Biblical Hebrew?  Modern Hebrew is a living language spoken in Israel.  Biblical Hebrew is the original language of the Torah, the constituent parts of which are between 2,000 and 4,000 years old.

Consider the difference between these two phrases, and you’ll see the range I’m grappling with:

Modern: “My name is John.  I am a student.  I want to drink juice.  Where is the bathroom?  I drank a lot of juice.”

Biblical: “And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.  And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.  Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.  And he said unto his people: ‘Behold, the people of the children of Israel are too many and too mighty for us; come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there befalleth us any war, they also join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land.’ ”

I feel like I’m bungee jumping up and down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  But of course, before I can understand medieval commentary on Ancient Near Eastern cosmogeny, I have to relearn, at age 32, how to eat, drink, and find the bathroom.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

–MK Gandhi

I’m in a bit of a quandary.  Perhaps you can help me out.

Since late last night (while up past my bedtime to prepare for Passover) I’ve been thinking of the famous, bumper-worthy quote above.  It has resonated with me since the first time I encountered it (in a collection of quotes, or perhaps on a t-shirt), and that resonance deepened when I read Gandhi’s autobiography a few years ago. 

It is a simple and direct yet elegant and profound instruction on how to live one’s life meaningfully, mindfully, and deliberately.  It is also incredibly existentially demanding.

That’s the trouble I’m having…not whether I can be the change - which is challenging enough - but exactly what change I want to see.

Where do I begin?

Where do I cease?

Beginning is easier: I want to live in a world in which people are less attached to their possessions and more committed to their relationships.  This is the primary change I want to see, a world where spending time with someone is more laudable that spending money on someone, or even worse, spending money on yourself to impress someone.

More concrete: everyone stop working so much - and I mean long hours, not hard work, since who really works hard anymore? - in order to buy stuff for your spouse or kids to make up for the fact that you work so much.  Leave work at a decent hour, go home, hug your kids, and gaze into your wife’s eyes for a full, uninterrupted minute.  Your kids will remember your warmth long after they forget what PlayStation is.  Your wife will not miss the trinket you could have bought with your overtime.

That’s the change I want to see.  I think I can start being that.

What change do you want to see?  Why can’t you be that change right now?

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

George Bernard Shaw

Today, I’m going to do a little mashup of ideas from two of my current living heroes, Timothy Ferriss and Keith Ferrazzi.

Keith’s new thing is sharing your goals with your friends to garner their support (and deepen your relationship with them), and in that spirit, he recently blogged his goals for the new year.

Tim’s book, the 4-Hour Workweek, teaches you to throw out your reasonable goals in exchange for unreasonable ones. His logic? Since (a) radical goals can be waaaay more motivating than humdrum ones, and (b) there’s less competition for the far-out stuff (more people dream of owning a dream house than a dream castle), then (c) you are more likely to reach your crazywild goals than your run-of-the-mill ones, if you take your crazywild goals seriously and actually take the first steps toward achieving them.

The mashup: here’s my list of the Top 10 Insane Goals I want to accomplish this year. I came up with this list after much thought over the recent holidays using the methodology Tim calls “Dreamlining.” Out of 30 or so things I would do if I had $100 million in the bank and there was no way I could fail, these 10 (in no particular order) would be the most life-changing.

1. Take a family trip to Israel.
2. Run a 50-mile race.
3. Take the BOSS 28-day wilderness survival course.
4. Purchase a dining table that seats 12 people.
5. Take a volunteering trip through AJWS.
6. Through-hike one Triple Crown long-distance trail.
7. Take sushi-making lessons. In Japan.
8. “Winter” (as a verb) someplace warmer than Minnesota.
9. Take a family trip to Europe.
10. Start a “virtual” brewery: Develop a tasty beer recipe, contract-brew it at an established brewery, and distribute it solely through the Internet.

Accomplishing any one of these goals would change my life for the better. Accomplishing 2 or 3 of them would make it the best year of my life (after the birth of my children, marrying my wife, blah blah blah). I’m going for all 10. Now, where’s the coffee?

Has anyone out there done any of these things? What’s the best way to start? Please use the comments below for tips and trips, or better yet, to list YOUR most outrageous goals for 2008.