yo yo yo !
David Milner here .. doin what I do !
Am I a philosopher..?! Maybe a little bit. I'd like to think that I just allow myself to experience and then reflect and try to understand life, and compare my conscience, self realization and true feelings about the world to interact with this thing called society, which seems to be a place where all manner of engineering and image and ideological controls are taking place at once. I don't identify as a person who uses a religious construct to define my life and direction .. I am more of a free thinking individual, and I think a lot of us in the modern day test the boundaries and evolve and grow in different ways that are different from other people. I don't have a name for the type of person that I am, other than just a Canadian free thinker.
My experience with Tricking was finding and falling inlove with this sport on youtube. I developed heroes and I felt inspired to go to the park across the street and jump off the bench and roll when I hit the ground or try to learn bkick or tornado kick .. eventually finding other trickers and learning backflip, and so on and so forth. I became a Tricker.
Later on I developed health issues and had to learn about my body, and studied TCM ( Traditional Chinese Medicine ) focusing on food as a cure rather than pills, and lifestyle changes which lead me to a plant based diet - but with that comes recognition that animal welfare is a widely concealed topic, and that animal cruelty exists and so I developed additional reinforcement that what we eat is spiritual and not just for our physical sustenance. Having gratitude and being ethical. I began to reject modern society which could be ignorant to these topics. Sometimes you deviate away from what everyone else is doing and start to think for yourself, and as you gain an education, particularly about topics that are intentionally concealed from society, you might realize that you may not want to return to being asleep like others might be.
Throughout history, activists have always pushed against the system and it's lack of fairness - be it granting women their rights, or advocating for certain racial or religious groups to be free from persecution or exploitation. At the end of the day, if we are all humans, and we just want to be happy and to love, why is it that so many divisions were legally enforced? There was a time in history, not too long ago, that you could be killed just for being a certain colour and attempting to form a relationship with someone who was not the same skin colour as you. This is insane by today's standards, no? Back then .. it was the norm.
As a Tricker I fell inlove, I made samplers, I experimented and developed my own style, I specifically travelled to places I wanted to go to, I pursued my own artistic visiion, I competed, developed my own evaluation criteria and I've essentially graduated. I've learned a lot of things along the way, and Tricking is interesting in that it's still an unregulated sport.
We didn't have a governing system that educated us on what it meant to be a professional coach, or how to ensure fairness and equality in judging, or anything of the sort. These are things that we had to essentially build from the ground up, which is why I have a lot of sympathy for essentially teenagers and young adults who likely made mistakes out of naivety. I think it's expected to go in the wrong direction to some degree, when you exist in a world where the rules aren't clearly defined and there aren't guardians who protect you from deviating. As I got older though, and as I took up an interest in law and society and activism related to sports corruption, after a few years now I understand things a lot better - as history goes on society improves and collectively we agree that changes need to be made, and that things that were once deemed to be wrong could be understood to be not that wrong - and that things that people were doing that no one knew about, that people come to find out about, were wrongful in nature .. and so what does that teach us about society?
In general, I think it's fair to say that in order to determine if something is wrong or right, we can't really be living in such a way where we hide who we are and what we're doing. It's necessary for Trickers to identify themselves and to state who they are, the organization they play for, their intentions.. not just in public, but to truly live by that identity even in private, because by doing so...we can trust each other. When people come into the sport who have ulterior motives, we might be betrayed to find out that they are here to do things that we do not approve of, and that our trust could be taken advantage of, and it harms relationships when we find out that we have been deceived or betrayed. It is anti social to live this way, and in a sport where people are competing for victory, some people use anti social or cheating maneuvers, which are not appropriate.
Tricking is mostly hijacked by now by anti social groups I'd say. Cheating is an easy way to win, which is why people do it. Some people slowly play by the rules, and get discouraged when they see people straight up cheat to take a victory. It's human nature to setup a comfortable system and rely on it in order to derive gains with little effort, even if it creates disharmony or deprives others of a rightful gain - people can develop a systematic nature to them, which is why laws heavily punish things like human trafficking or racketeering - which are system based crimes that are done over periods of time and affect many victims.
Here in Canada the way our system in sports works is that a group needs to establish a non-profit organization to be approved by the ministry of sports to evolve into a sports governing body, which sets out criteria, rules and manages the sport with a higher level of professionalism, focus and integrity. People are clearly defined with roles and duties and there is a hierarchy and so the sport can clearly be established for everyone to clearly understand. My issue with the Kerbit Collective is that they take the exact opposite approach - the structure of their organization is intentionally masked, from the view of the public, their existence may not even be known, and who is in charge can change depending on the situation. Financially, they work for the USA, and their rules are based on their need to survive and promote their political interests, and their tactics are anti-social. Instead of promoting a transparent and safe environment that proudly showcases athletes playing by the rules of the sport, you might be disappointed or even betrayed to find out that they intend to win in any way that they can, even if it amounts to criminal harassment and cheating. That is why on one hand there is a properly established organization, and on the other, one seeks to make it's existence anonymous based and difficult to track.
People who want to do things properly and win the right way naturally want to live in the light of day, where as people who do things they aren't supposed to will hide it.
We either become more transparent and open about who we are, or we get better at concealing who we are - what direction is the sport going in?
Here in Canada, sadly most people I think are going in an anti-social direction, but not me. Even after graduation, I still put out free Tricking content in some form, the same as I did since day 1.
I've learned about society and other industries - there are adult focused industries in society, and I think it's necessary that as we grow older and we move into different aspects of society, we have to create separation. I would say that my understanding compared to day 1 is far more mature, and I'm not trying to return to who I was when I first started off as a Tricker, and I'm also not trying to get involved in the industry. I feel like I did everything I set out to do, and I think I've captured my experiences in chronological order and keep those on youtube as history to look back on. I went through different phases over the 15 or so years that I was active, and I've now moved on.
Focusing on injury / health / rehab, but also just studying society and seeing how it functions, how laws work and change, how people work together, or where things fall apart. I do think competition drives most people's actions.
I noticed how in some parts of the world society gets broken up. In some countries, entire regions are dedicated to specific industries. You can't really mix everything together .. sometimes things have to be separated and broken apart. Look at the red-light district for example.
Pro-creation is a natural part of life. It's essential, and it's normal and natural, and it's often associated with a lot of positive experiences and feelings. Naturally, it's done between people who love each other, and there aren't factors such as money, force or deceit that drive the interaction. Under natural circumstances, it kind of just happens .. naturally. The world isn't that simple though, and where there are people who think in terms of systems and are driven by competition and finance, this is why laws were created because people might no longer be viewed as people and could be farmed, like animals, and funneled and exploited into adult industries.
The evils of the world all impede on our sense of freedom and being forced to do things against our will. If pain is brought upon us, or we have to do things that violate us and harm us emotionally. Some people in society want to cause harm, and find various ways to do it, and the people in particular could be vulnerable or disadvantaged in some way. The laws we have in society are meant to keep people in harmony, and to cooperate and trust each other, so that we can do business and build families, and communities. Society is great, and we're fortunate to have what is otherwise clean, orderly and truthful - which is exactly why it's difficult when people threaten it.
We become protectors and truth keepers, and we fight off people who come into our lives who brings lies, and want to cause harm and take our things - they are the villains, and we fight against them.
Society has to be fruitful enough to provide for everyone, but people also have to be honourable enough to respect others and not do things that are unfair.
We correct people when they are off - we help heal people who are injured, and we maintain truth. That is what being a positive contributing member of society is all about.
People don't like it when you fight for what is right, and push against them. People don't always enjoy being challenged, and when you do battle someone, they may retaliate and attempt to seek revenge in ways that they might want to hide, for fear of being discovered that they don't fight fair.
In life I guess we choose who we want to be,
for me thats why I keep track of my history.
I am proud to live in the light of day.
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