The Meaning of Life, or This Blog, At Least

As you may or may not be wondering what the title of this blog means, I will force you to view the answer to this non-question (even if only from your peripheral vision). K-1 was a kickboxing league of sorts in Japan (it is no longer). The fights would be aired on television much like boxing matches in the US before pay-per-view stole all the fun. These matches were quite popular when I first moved to Japan in 2002. That's the end of the preamble...now on the story.

I lived in the prefectural teacher housing in a small 1-bedroom apartment on the first floor, but that is, of course, another story. Several other foreign ALTs (Assitant Language Teachers) lived in the same housing development, in the same building, and in the same stairwell as I did. The guy who lived above me was a Kiwi named Pike, who is a really great guy and still a good mate of mine. In about my second month in Japan, I entered a Judo tournament and wound up getting tossed on just shy of my head, which would be my right shoulder. For my efforts, I was carried away in true VIP style with flashing lights and sirens. The result of my one and only Judo tournament was a permanent trophy that took its shape in the form of a dislocated collar bone. To showcase my trophy, I walked around with my arm in a sling for about a month.

Around the same time, Pike injured his hand playing basketball and had to wear a brace of some sort. One evening after work, I went up to visit my mate, Pike, and as I knocked on his door, I noticed that his apartment number was 204. Even thought I had looked at his apartment number numerous times before this one, I had a eurethra moment. His apartment number was 204, and since I lived below him, mine was 104! Now for those of you not familiar with Chinese and Japanese culture, the last few sentences have no meaning at all, so I will explain it to you. In China and Japan, the word for the number 4 sounds like the word for death; therefore, it is a very unlucky number and most apartments and buildings do not have any floors or rooms with the number 4 in them. Back to the story, so I had a eurethra moment and shared my new discovery with Pike while exclaiming that this must be the reason that the two of us had been inured. Upon sharing this information with him, he looked up at me, grinned and said, "Yep. It's a long, hard road on the path to becoming a K-1 fighter."

As both of us were also studying Okinawan karate at the time, his statement had a unique significance and humor, and it has stuck with me ever since. We're all on our own individual paths to becoming K-1 fighters, or experts in our fields of choice, and every experience that finds us helps to shape, train and push us one step closer to that ultimate destination. These experiences, or our everyday lives, are the path, and how we walk it is seen in our reactions and the choices we make.

Unfortunately for you, the reader, this blog is mainly focused on my path, so you may or may not find it of interest, unless of course you are on the path to becoming a K-1 fighter.

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