The Threads of Ariadne: A Love Letter to End the Outlier Challenge

affiliate • Feb 14, 2019

You made it! Only a few weeks of Winter’s gloom remain and the end of the Outlier Challenge is already upon us. Wasn’t it a quick 6 weeks? With each year’s Challenge, we attempt to deliver a fresh package of full-bodied human (10) experience. Likely, that meant a bit of mental and physical stretching for everyone. Whether it was noodling on the sophistication of Zone portioned meals or staring down an ice-cold shower, we hope you found yourselves properly tested throughout the journey. Moreover, maybe it goaded you into questioning what it really means to be fit and live a vibrant, healthy life. It’s that line of thinking and patchwork idea – what does it mean to live a proper life – that I hope to stitch together here. 

You’ve probably heard one coach or another mention the hero’s journey throughout your time at the gym – probably referencing a workout, a brand of metabolism , Jordan Peterson or maybe even Steve’s favorite – Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was that heroic thread that lead me into a mythological deep-dive as the years transitioned and the Outlier Challenge began. At best, my understanding of myths were shaky. These are the oldest stories we know and I wasn’t sure how to interpret them. Are they fact…fiction…a fiction more true than fact? To find out, I did the most ‘obvious’ thing: signed up to take a Greek and Roman Mythology class and plunged head-long into a Joseph Campbell book

To be clear, I’m not here to harangue you into reading Homer or Ovid, nor to virtue signal from atop an ivory tower. But, I do believe there to be a relevant mythological story worth sharing as we hem-up the end of this year’s Challenge. It’s the story of Ariadne’s precious thread and it’s a love story – kinda. Briefly, the girl (Ariadne) falls in love with the boy (Theseus). This boy is slated to be offered as sacrifice to a monster (Minotaur) living in a maze (the labyrinth). To save the boy she loves, the girl gives the boy a sword to slay the monster and a ball of thread in order to retrace his steps escaping the maze afterwords. Long-story-short: it works and the two sail into the setting mythological sun.

I can hear you already. Galen, how does all this even begin to relate?
 
Hopefully, like Ariadne’s gifts to Theseus, the Outlier Challenge armed you with genuine weapons to face your daily monsters. Swords like:

  • Nutrition – a functional understanding of various feeding/fasting strategies coupled with a quality, quantity, and nuance focus
  • Movement and Mobility – be active everyday and quickly find yourself enjoying the benefits of compounding effort
  • Sleep – maybe we can finally and literally put the “I’ll rest when I’m dead” mantra bed; every hero in every story enjoys a long sleep after their toils

Likewise, when the monsters of our personal fitness are slain, we hoped that the nonfitness related Outlier challenges would provide a guiding thread to find a way through life’s own version of the labyrinth. How does one best live a human life? That’s a riddle with no definitive answer, but we think it’s spun with one thread of quality, loving relationships and one thread of humble, self-discovery. Too often we look for great wealth to save us or a great authority to answer our questions when all we need is a lone piece of string. 

Wherein lies the truth of a myth? That answer is as deep as it is wide. But, I’ve tied myself to the notion that myth teaches what’s far below the surface of literature and art. It attempts to get at the gist of what it means to live a proper human life. Sounds a lot like philosophy, doesn’t it? Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. Perhaps the fabric of timeless philosophy is knitted on the frame of a mythological loom. Who knows. What I am certain is that like Ariadne’s love saved Theseus from the labyrinth, we hope that our admiration of you Outliers at 10Experience helps you to realize the same powerful potential available in your life’s unique maze. A fitness challenge is merely a challenge until it refines how you view yourself and updates the way you choose to live. When you acknowledge your inner hero, you recognize the greatness of your own strength…and leave that selfsame guiding thread for all to follow. In doing that, you not only enrich your own existence, but you nudge the world in a much better direction.

Still carrying fire (plus a ball of thread),

G-

References:

Campbell, J., Moyers, B. D., & Flowers, B. S. (2012). The power of myth. New York: Turtleback Books.

Online Courses From Top Universities. Join for Free. (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2019, from https://www.coursera.org/learn/mythology/home/welcome

Previous Posts

By affiliateadmin 10 Feb, 2022
Disclaimer: This may not be for the novice reader/exerciser. However if you are truly looking to invest the time to learn your body, this will help you. Brace yourself for a deep dive as what follows is sure to lead you down the proverbial rabbit-hole toward better mobility and improved body mechanics both in and outside ... The post Mobility for Weightlifting appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliateadmin 02 Jan, 2021
[et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text] With each new year at 10 Experience, we aim to challenge our members and ourselves to sharpen our minds, our habits and our lifestyles. To whittle away at a #10exlife. The Outlier Challenge provides precisely that structure. Like previous challenges, this year’s version takes a fresh approach to the general blueprint we know ... The post 2021 Outlier Challenge appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliateadmin 20 Jul, 2020
Lessons from the Book of Our History The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding. – Will Durant In 2010, two bonehead kids leapt from a plane without much of a parachute or any real understanding of how to safely land. By a stroke of ... The post 10 Rules for Gym Life appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliateadmin 30 Jun, 2020
  If you’re familiar with the original ideas behind CrossFit (the idea that we as a business fell in love with), you know about hard work, community, self-improvement, acceptance and all things the like. Charging towards health and wellness via voluntary hardship and sweat equity is the surface level idea. Look one layer deeper and ... The post CrossFit at a Crossroads appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliateadmin 27 Mar, 2020
Hope Floats and a 10ex Rolodex What do you get when you combine a roller coaster, a cliffhanger drama, and murder mystery? You get the month of March 2020. And you can begin to encapsulate the last few weeks for planet earth. The emotional spectrum ran full-bore through all of us with a pulse. The ... The post April ‘s Outlook appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliateadmin 05 Oct, 2019
  SCENE: A local artisan donut shop buzzing with happy patrons. Sweet and savory smells fill the air accompanied by the grate of freshly roasted coffee beans. It’s a place engineered specifically for the sensations. It’s a foodie’s dream. Enter: HEALTH-MINDED COUPLE, DONUT SHOP ATTENDEE DONUT SHOP ATTENDEE: (speaking to newest patrons) Hi! Welcome to ... The post Donuts + Decision Fatigue: A Secret Success Formula appeared first on 10 Experience.
By 321go 01 Jul, 2019
Most of us have an area in our life we wish we were performing better in. That part of us that doesn’t quite fit into our own skin. It could be a touchy subject that our spouse and friends know to steer clear of, the elephant in the room. It could be the promotion you ... The post Test Post appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliate 25 Apr, 2019
In the past, we’ve discussed the difference between fitness as sport and fitness as a life-long pursuit – these are starkly different end games. If you find yourself in the ‘fitness as sport’ camp, these following opinions of mine (and others) are of lesser concern. However, should you find yourself in the ‘live long and ... The post The Immortal Jellyfish and You: A Blueprint to Live Long and Prosper appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliate 16 Sep, 2018
Whether you have dealt with this problem from a distance or up close, cancer has come up on your radar at some point in your life. Truth is, technically speaking, you have cancer right now. There are cancerous cells all in our bodies, that are only triggered/turned on when a fragmented version of our DNA ... The post Movement…The answer to Cancer? appeared first on 10 Experience.
By affiliate 19 Aug, 2018
On a rainy weekend in the fall of 2009, a handful of unhappy kids stole away to a cabin to vacate their life. As you’d imagine, they followed standard Sevier County cabin protocols. They ate, drank and made general merriment. But as the day grew dark, so too did the color of their thoughts. They waxed a bit ... The post Conspiracy in a Cabin appeared first on 10 Experience.
More Posts

Ready to get started? Join 10 Experience now!

Schedule Free Trial
Share by:
Wodify Iframe