On Mayday I went for a brief bike ride with my daughter through the nature park behind my house. A stream runs through this park, making it an island of green in the sea of concrete that is Athens. My neighbourhood is fiercely protective of our little preserve, actively opposing efforts at deforestation and construction, and even, in the past, forcibly arresting the lackeys of developers who tried to set it ablaze.

On May 1st we went to gather flowers, as is the custom in our country, and briefly entered the Zone.

Roughly ten years ago, on return from Dubai, I started marketing the CIS countries as a territory. The firm I worked for was bidding on tax systems in the Ukraine at the time. Looking for local partners, I stumbled onto a small company called GSC, which was developing videogames for the international market. In the end, nothing materialized from this particular project, but I kept the company in mind.

Some years later, in 2008 or 2009, when I was once again marketing the Ukraine, I attended a live show hosted by GSC featuring their videogame “Stalker,” which had become an international success.

The game is set in an alternative reality, where a second nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone in the near future and causes strange changes in the area around it. The background and some terminology of the game are borrowed from the popular science fiction novella Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky and the 1979 Andrei Tarkovsky film “Stalker” that was based on it. As a result of the film, the word “Stalker” was later used for the scientists and engineers who explored the interior of Chernobyl’s sarcophagus after its hasty construction in 1986, and that probably inspired the videogame.

The key feature of the Zone in both the movie and the videogame was that “nothing remains the same.” You cannot retrace your steps. Dangers that were mapped one morning were no longer there the next, or had moved to a different proximate location. The key directive for survival in the Zone was that everything constantly changed, and you had to keep your awareness focused in the here-and-now in order to remain alive.

So, on Mayday I began introducing my daughter to the Zone.

As we biked through the nature park’s one and only trail, we found that four large trees had fallen across the path, torn up from the roots by strong winds. We were forced to dismount and carry our bikes over the obstacles. The uprooted trees confirmed the presence of environmental degradation close to my own home (four uprooted trees within a single square mile is not a coincidence); at the same time, the disaster provided an opportunity to explain to my daughter that Nature was forever changing, inconsistent, fickle, unpredictable, and dangerous. Nature is, in short, the core principle upon which the fictional Zone is based.

Tarkovsky understood the simile provided by the science fiction novella and used it in his movie. Stalker relies on long takes with slow, subtle camera movement, rejecting the use of rapid montage. Almost all of the scenes not set in the Zone are in a high-contrast brown monochrome, emphasising the monotony of Soviet existence. In contrast, he used bright colours when filming the Zone and portrayed it as filled with verdant nature.

As a follow-up to Mayday’s experiment, I took my daughter into the real Zone over Orthodox Easter: a trip into the wilds near my ancestral home. We visited a small chapel roughly two-hours uphill from our village. But many of the paths were no longer in use, and were overgrown. As a result, my daughter and I made many false starts and had to retrace our steps again and again, an exhausting foray for a ten-year old. What should have taken two hours wound up taking three; it was psychologically daunting to have your goal in sight, and not being able to find any clear way to get there, lost among the trees.

My daughter was exhilarated. It was all the confirmation I needed that what was missing from our lives was, in fact, the Zone.

“Kosta Danaos” still receives quite a few e-mails each week (damn youtube). Most are from Clark Kents who are convinced that, with just the right push, they could spread their wings and transform into Kal-Els (and then they´ll show all the dorks who were making fun of them!). But many e-mails are from people who are just looking for a meaning in their lives beyond their daily routine, a life less ordinary to quote John Hodge.

Here´s an example from a man named Marc:

Hi,

Marc

When I wrote the Magus of Java, I made it very clear in the final chapter that what I personally was looking for were solutions to problems that we as humanity were facing. Most of these problems centre on the loss of Nature´s vitality. Intuitively, I understood back then that what humanity was missing, was staring us in the face all along.

In his 2012 book “2052-A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years,” Jorgen Randers, one of the original authors of the Limits of Growth, counsels us that change was inevitable, and that what we should do is “mourn our loss and get on with our lives.” Over the next forty years, efforts to limit the human ecological footprint will continue. Future growth in global population and GDP will be constrained in surprising ways, by rapid fertility decline as a result of urbanization, productivity decline as a result of social unrest, and continuing poverty among the poorest 2 billion world citizens. At the same time there will be impressive advances in resource efficiency and climate-friendly solutions. There will also be an increased focus on human well-being rather than on per capita income growth.

Professor Randers closes by affirming that, based on the extensive database underpinning the model developed for 2052, it appears that the human response will be too slow. The most critical factor will be greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. These emissions will remain so high that our grandchildren most likely will have to live with self-reinforcing, and hence runaway, global warming in the second half of the twenty-first century.

A summary of Randers model can be found here: http://www.2052.info/o121013%20The%202052%20Forecast%20(Pestel%20Institut)Slides.pdf

The hell I say. I can mourn when I´m in the grave.

Why should my daughter and her children have to live in fear of endless natural decline due to the short-sightedness and selfish greed of every Kardashian prancing around the world in designer thongs as we speak? Give me a break. And what Professor Randers model does not take into account is the decay of the human psyche that such events will inevitably bring into being.

The Zone is very much a part of our minds, you see. We were built for it. We have not evolved beyond it. The Zone is what we are missing in our lives, why so many of us have psycho-social problems, and why people are yearning for a life less ordinary. Living in a controlled, electronically-networked society and relying on others for our sustenance, we have lost the need to focus completely on the present moment because we are not faced with ever-changing dangers.

But since our brains are wired for the Zone, a good place to start solving our problems is by introducing people to the mental state required to survive in the Zone on a daily basis; this corresponds to Level Three in Pammachon, and I know how to take students who follow my method to this state. It is important that we reclaim our hearts and minds. The popularity of videogames and survivalism are both due to the desire of people to see themselves as heroes, defeating the rigours of a particular Zone; perhaps if we could teach a larger portion of the populace to know their own minds, they would go beyond dreaming to actually contributing towards making the world a better place. Who knows?

Aug 14

This is an enquiry e-mail via http://www.pammachon.gr/ from:

Michael <sandy_phelps@yahoo.com>

{102}{}{You see an extremely tall and lanky ghoul with long hair.}

{110}{}{I am Wooz. What do you want?} {700}{}{Are you dumb?}

First, this isn’t my real email address or full name…after reading your last post my obviously horrifying fear of Woot….

{510}{}{Usually I just pound on the hollow heads of my customers -— sort of like bongos. How the hell did they ever let you out of your village? You’re a danger to yourself and others.}

{511}{}{Bongos?}

{520}{}{You fell out of the stupid tree and hit every damn branch on the way down, didn’t you?} {110}{}{I am Wooz., not Woot.}

…has forced me into hiding behind this persona.  However, I doubt that his services will be needed for this. All that I am asking is that you take a couple minutes and read this brief email, and then I won’t bother you again.

{122}{}{I’ll show you dumb. Talking to me like that is dumb. I’m the Chosen One, you know.}

{260}{}{Oh, the Chosen One. Oh my, I didn’t realize. I’ll just try to stop shaking long enough to tell you something then. (Wooz smiles) Come closer and I’ll whisper it to you.}

To be completely honest, I don’t care about John, and I really have no desire to meet him or ever know where he lives.  Its very clear that he has no desire to teach and may never have in the first place from the research that I’ve done.  And I don’t need any significant education from you either, so after this you don’t have to worry about me taking up any more of your time.

{220}{}{ Have you seen an apple, lately?}

{221}{}{An apple?}

{230}{}{I just love apples, but there aren’t many left anywhere. I hardly ever see them.}

{231}{}{I didn’t know you were such a fruit fetishist.}{232}{}{I’ve heard that you could really savor an apple because they were so slow to eat.}

{240}{}{Slow?!? You are dumb. Fuck you! Apples are just as fast to eat as any other fruit. Apples rule. If it weren’t for a conspiracy on the part of fruit manufacturers we’d all have apples.}

{242}{}{Oh, yes… apples really are wonderful. (You back away slowly) Yes, that’s right. Good Wooz, easy there.}

As you can imagine its been a complicated road trying to find some answers to some very simple questions.  You probably don’t remember, but my first step was to try and contact you about two years ago now.  I obviously had no luck.  Then about a year ago I was able to make contact with Jim McMillan.  At first, I thought I’d struck gold.  We exchanged several emails with me asking quite a few questions, and him ultimately ranting about how John wasn’t the man he thought he was, and how his life was unfair because he’d worked so hard, etc. etc.  After that…more failures elsewhere.

{301}{}{Uh, I’m really sorry I pissed you off, Mr. Wooz. I just wanted to ask you something.} {304}{}{Uh, did I tell you how much I really just love apples?}

{310}{}{Really? I didn’t know that. Well, if you love apples, I guess you can’t be all bad. Now, what the hell do you want?}

In any case it seems I’ve come back “full-circle” in taking one last shot in the dark that you might be willing to give me some kind of answers.  I understand your annoyance of being bombarded by probably thousands of emails, calls, etc. over the past decade, but I’m hoping you can at least understand that you really are my last real option.  Also, on a side note, I hope on some level that despite your annoyance you feel a little proud that your work has reached so many people.  Its something that most authors never accomplish so for what its worth, congrats on that.

{530}{}{Yeah, it’s all about a head, see. But it’s not attached to a body. You see, it’s been severed.}

{531}{}{A severed head. I see. And this becomes entertaining when?}

{540}{}{Now just hold on a minute. This severed head, you see, it’s in Hell. (hah, hah) And it flies around there, you know, in Hell. And it runs into all kinds of famous people there… (ho, ho, ho)}

{541}{}{Wait, a severed head is in Hell, and it flies around…doing what?}

{550}{}{Well, it’s doing stuff. (hee, hee) You know. It’s got, things that it wants to do, or maybe things it’s forced to do. The point is, it’s doing stuff, you know, there in Hell. Oh God, (hah, hah, hah) I just can’t stand it!}

{551}{}{You kind of obsess about this, don’t you? Hmm.}

{560}{}{No, you just don’t understand. It’s all about a severed head. Get it? Heh, heh, heh, It’s funny! How can you think about a severed head, in Hell of all places, and not laugh?}

{562}{}{Oh. I see. Why, yes. Of course; that’s very funny. Heh heh. I just can’t contain my amusement… But enough enjoyment — oh, my splitting sides — I need to ask you something.}

{570}{}{Fuck you! You’re just like all the rest of them. I tell, you it’s hilariously funny. It’s not my fault that you don’t have a sense of humor.}

{571}{}{You’re right, Wooz. I guess I’m just not as clever as you are. You’re truly a pearl amongst swine. Now tell me something else.}

What I am looking for is simple, yet something that few people really know.  A few basic questions that have been gnawing at me for years…

{601}{}{See? I told you it was funny. Is there anything else you need?}

Can the correct training produce the results that you wrote about in your books? Essentially, can people with proper knowledge and training become something…more?  In your opinion (with your experiences and knowledge), what are the depths of this…in other words, where do you personally think the limits of this training are?

{600}{}{Are you dumb? I already told you all about it. You must have a really short memory.}

You’ll see that these are pretty basic in nature.  I am not looking for lessons, or to become a student, or anything like that.  All I’m asking for is 5 minutes of your time; a short response that at least gives me some basic answers that I’ve been trying to find for far too long.

{706}{}{I wouldn’t shit you on this one.} {745}{}{Is Wim Hof the Buddha?}

In any case, best of luck to you in the future.

{300}{}{Fuck you! You are dumb. What the hell do you want here?}

{302}{}{Fuck me? Fuck you! Your bar sucks. I’m out of here.} {195}{}{ I must have a hole in my head for wanting to buy drinks for a bunch of rotting zombies.}

Gentlemen,

Despite many posts requesting the contrary, I keep getting e-mails and contact requests regarding the Magus of Java or the Mo Pai. I have stated repeatedly that I have not been a member of the Mo Pai for a decade. I had not foreseen the development of youtube or the extreme loss of overall IQ among the general populace when I wrote the book in 1999 - otherwise I would have never written it. I mean, come on, guys, you are not very clever; think about it: The reason you know my real name in the first place, is because I no longer have an active interest in the subject matter of the book. And, very important, I have no interest in taking your money. Which means, in order for me to bother with you in the first place, you have to catch my interest as a human being. Please note that I retain the ancient Greek conviction that expressing your opinion is not a right, but a privilege that must be earned and maintained through constant contribution and growth.

So here is what is going to happen: if you write to me about the Magus of java or the Mo Pai or any related subject, I will turn you over to my buddy Wooz. Now, Wooz owns a bar, is very old, unpleasant, smells very bad, and looks like a zombie. As such, he has a sparkling personality that is fait accompli the inevitable result of his good looks. Wooz is apt to answer your questions with retorts like: “YOU ARE DUMB! F@@K YOU! I HAVE CRUSHED YOU!” (Insert choice of verb or noun: fink, fork, folk, funk, etc). Along with Wooz’s reply, he will most likely post your name and e-mail address. I still get a couple e-mails a day (and yes, many people wonder why I do not simply charge 400 dollars a pop, but that is not me and never has been), so probably what will happen is that Wooz will gather the results and hoist up each fool on his own petard at the end of the month.

I am sure you do not want that, unless YOU ARE DUMB.

My advice? Stay away from Wooz.

Thanks,

Kostas

As I get older, I fully comprehend that I’m not that bright. Don’t get me wrong, I never thought I was that bright in the first place. I mean, I could follow Einstein’s math in class when I was a kid (circa 24-25 I think), but that phase passed very quickly, and I just went back to being lil’ ole me. Most of what I have learned in life has been through trial and error and persistence, not great insight. The school of hard knocks as it were.

So as I get older, I understand that far brighter people than myself have tried to tell us the truth for a long long time, but we, not being as bright as they were, cannot discern the wisdom in their words. Or possibly worse, we do not believe them, and think we know better. Then we learn.

Cleobulus (or Kleoboulos) of Lindos in Rhodes was one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece. He was both the tyrant (absolute monarch) of Lindos and a scholar. Clement of Alexandria calls Cleobulus “king of the Lindians,” and Plutarch speaks of him as a tyrant. But Cleobulus is said to have studied philosophy in Egypt, and was the author of poems, songs and riddles. He advised men to be listeners rather than talkers, to do nothing by violence and to educate all children, both sons and daughters - extraordinary opinions for the times and for a man for which we now use the appellation “tyrant.” In fact, the city-state of Lindos, which also governed much of its neighboring area, reached its peak in the 6th century BC under the reign of Cleobulus, becoming a prosperous town known for its quality of life. Cleobulus is said to have lived to the age of seventy and to have been greatly distinguished for his strength and beauty.

Cleobulus is best known for one quote: “moderation is the best thing” (Μέτρον ἄριστον, which actually doesn’t translate well from ancient Greek, as the word ἄριστον is better expressed as “the best of all things”). When I was younger I scoffed at this, retorting with Heinlein’s quote “Μoderation is for monks, everything in excess!” I no longer believe that this is even remotely true.

It is very easy to get dragged into excessive practices, moreso in the worlds of martial arts and the esoteric quest. In many cases, this leads to catastrophe and a quick death.

Take Bruce Lee for example; he died when he was thirty-three. He is widely considered by many commentators, critics, media and other martial artists to be the most influential martial artist of the 20th century and a cultural icon. Let me quote from wikipedia, editing the text to describe his life in summary, in the context of this blogpost:

Lee’s father, Lee Hoi-chuen, was one of the leading Cantonese opera and film actors at the time, and was on a year-long tour with his family on the eve of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong. Because of this, Lee was born in the US in 1940 (San Francisco).

Lee’s mother, Grace Ho, was from one of the wealthiest and most powerful clans in Hong Kong, the Ho-tungs. She was the niece of Sir Robert Ho-tung, of Eurasian descent and patriarch of the clan; perhaps this factor influenced Lee’s stance toward Caucasians. The young Bruce Lee grew up in an affluent and privileged environment.

At the age of 18, Lee returned to the United States because of a fight with the son of a leader of the triads. With $100 in his pocket and the titles of 1957 High School Boxing Champion and 1958 Crown colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong, he moved to Seattle in 1959, where he worked for Ruby Chow as a live-in waiter at her restaurant. In December 1960, at the age of twenty, Lee completed his high school education. In March 1961, he enrolled at the University of Washington, majoring in drama according to the university’s alumni association information; he never got his degree, but dropped out in the spring of 1964.

Lee began teaching martial arts in the US in 1959, almost immediately upon arrival. He first taught friends in Seattle, starting with Judo practitioner Jesse Glover, who later became his first assistant instructor. Lee opened his first martial arts school, named the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute, in Seattle (Lee Jun Fan was his real name).

Bruce then moved to Oakland in the spring of 1964 to live with James Lee, a well known Chinese martial artist in the area. Together, they founded the second Jun Fan martial art studio in Oakland. James Lee was also responsible for introducing Bruce Lee to Ed Parker, organizer of the Long Beach International Karate Championships at which Bruce Lee was “discovered” by Hollywood. Because of his demo at Long Beach, Lee got the role of Kato alongside Van Williams in the TV series The Green Hornet. The show lasted just one season, from 1966 to 1967, with three crossover episodes in Batman. This was followed by guest appearances in three television series: Ironside (1967), Here Come the Brides (1969), and Blondie (1969).

At the time, two of Lee’s martial arts students were Hollywood scriptwriter Stirling Silliphant and actor James Coburn. In 1969, Lee made a brief appearance in the Silliphant-penned film Marlowe where he played a henchman hired to intimidate private detective Philip Marlowe, (played by James Garner), by smashing up his office with leaping kicks and flashing punches, only to later accidentally jump off a tall building while trying to kick Marlowe off. The same year he choreographed fight scenes for The Wrecking Crew starring Dean Martin, Sharon Tate, and featuring Chuck Norris in his first role. In 1970, he was responsible for fight choreography for A Walk in the Spring Rain starring Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn, again written by Silliphant. In 1971, Lee appeared in four episodes of the television series Longstreet, written by Silliphant. Lee played the martial arts instructor of the title character Mike Longstreet (played by James Franciscus), and important aspects of his martial arts philosophy were written into the script.

Not happy with his supporting roles in the United States, Lee returned to Hong Kong. After negotiating with both Shaw Brothers Studio and Golden Harvest, he signed a film contract to star in two films produced by Golden Harvest. Lee played his first leading role in The Big Boss (1971) which proved to be an enormous box office success across Asia and catapulted him to stardom. He soon followed up with Fist of Fury (1972) which broke the box office records set previously by The Big Boss. For his third film, Way of the Dragon (1972), he was given complete control of the film’s production as the writer, director, star, and choreographer of the fight scenes. Warner Brothers then offered Lee the opportunity to star in Enter the Dragon, the first film to be produced jointly by Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. Filming commenced in Hong Kong in February 1973. However, only a few months after the completion of Enter the Dragon, and six days before its 26 July 1973 release, Lee died. Enter the Dragon would go on to cement Lee as a martial arts legend. The film sparked a brief fad in martial arts, epitomized in songs such as “Kung Fu Fighting” and TV shows like Kung Fu.

But Lee knew nothing of this. He was dead of a cerebral edema, most likely due to overtraining. He had enjoyed international fame and prosperity for precisely two years.

One wonders if he would have thought it was worth it, knowing he would be soon dead and unable to enjoy fame, knowing he would be dead at 33, knowing that his son would also die young and he would be unable to protect and guide him.

Watching episodes of Longstreet or his interview with Pierre Berton, one cannot help but be impressed by the depth of Lee’s philosophy and the scope of his learning, decades before such wisdom became commonplace. He was truly a driving force in the union of eastern and western culture. But he never got to see Enter the Dragon in its finished form. He never witnessed the publication of the Tao of Jeet Kune Do (purchased with glee, among others, by a young Kostas Dervenis). His own fame and passion were a platform capitalized on by others to develop their own fortunes.

So the question remains: do you think, that he would think, that it was worth it, being dead at 33, with his son’s death following on the heels of his own?

Incessant training, pushing the boundaries of the human envelope, is a function that requires a goal. Why are you training? Why are you doing what you are doing? Is it to be powerful? There is no point to this. As we have seen, tactics and science have always been definitive of human power, not speed and strength: otherwise, the dominant species on the planet would have been the cave bear, and not we human beings. Are you training for fame and wealth? A viable option, but one should always recall Bruce (and many others) if this is your goal. Are you a professional warrior? That is another matter entirely, and incessant training is a necessity in such circumstances - but one must always live close to death having made such a choice. Are you a spiritual seeker, a monk or meditator? Then your goal is driven by theology, and we have no right to discuss same on this blog.

Ι myself trained in excess for a decade. I now wish I had not done so. I now believe it is pointless, and will explain.

My intention then is to discuss an overall successful strategy for life. And the ancient Greek word metron (μέτρον), which really loses a lot when you think of it in the context of “moderation,” reflects profound wisdom in dealing with all aspects of life. Perhaps a better contextual interpretation of metron would involve concepts of “balance” rather than restraint.

In Pammachon, the way we study martial arts if as follows: we first train our bodies. When we complete this, we are said to have finished Level One. We then insert emotional context into what we do; when we complete this stage, we are said to have finished Level Two. Then comes mental training, Level Three, where we seek the still mind in the face of conflict. Finally, we may, or may not, choose to address Level Four, because at the end of the day, Level Four comes to you whether you address it or not. Or it doesn’t, whether you address it or not. It is not up to you or your efforts; Level Four comes from something beyond our own selves and opinions.

Confusing? Let me make things a bit easier for you with a diagram. We are physical, emotional, mental and spiritual beings whether we want to be or not, so the four levels overlap as shown. (You can leave the spiritual out as you will, it makes not one shred of difference in the end, as we will see.)

Look at the drawings. Assume the Levels are indicated as shown, 1,2,3, and 4:

So you see the overlap? Do you see how mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual share evident common ground? Let me make it easier for you:

So let’s assume physical, emotional, and mental training are represented by circles 1,2, and 3 respectively. As you can see, Part 4, the spiritual quest, is there whether it wants to or not, whether we want it to be there or not. You don’t have to strive towards it; it is already there.

The shaded area reflects metron. It represents the epitome of virtue, of a life in balance, according to the principles of a man who is remembered 2500 years after his death, who ruled a people with benevolence and led them to prosperity and independence, and about whom not one negative word has been said over millennia.

You decide whether or not this man knew what he was talking about. Then decide whether you want to follow his advice or not. You will have to face the consequences of your choices one way or the other.

For myself, I will try to comprehend metron and make it my flagship. Pammachon functions whether one is a superbly trained athlete or a desk jockey - that has already been proven. The art does not rely on exceptional physical prowess (though many students are unbelievably proficient physically) but on an understanding of human nature, of our body, emotions, mind and spirit. Maybe I had Cleobulus’s words in mind, I don’t know. But in any case, you have to decide for yourself whether you want to embrace moderation or pursue a path of excess. Who knows? Excess might even work out for you.