Where am I going with this? Right here, to this thought: you are missing an opportunity for compassion-training. Get yourself a $30 dollar BugZooka (which is a battery-free, catch-and-release, pump action hand-vac) and spend this summer practicing compassion.

Let me clarify a couple of things. First, I am not advocating for bugs. I am advocating for myself. I live in the world that is more of a jungle than it theoretically has to be, in a world that plays mindless god left and right, in a world that could certainly benefit from a bit of compassion-training. This kind of world is unsafe, for me, for you, for anyone. So, my interest in compassion-training is entirely self-serving.

Sure, I care about the bugs too. Case in point, just this morning as I got up to wash my face there was a moth in the sink on its back, flapping its wings. It was stuck. Its wings were "glued" to the walls of the sink by the moisture. I opened the trashcan and rummaged for something thin yet hard to help the moth peel off away from the surface of the sink. I found the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper and tried to use this. It didn't work: as I tried to scoop up the moth, I kept damaging its wings and it would wiggle its body in desperate agony. I felt like Saddam Hussein's little brother in a torture chamber with a captive audience. I knew the BugZooka wouldn't work in this situation because the wet moth would be stuck inside the capture chamber and I'd have to scrape it out somehow. So, I opened the faucet, hoping that as the water fills up the moth might be able to flip over on its stomach at which point I could try to scoop it out once again. It didn't work. It got sucked into the drain to its death. I felt bummed out for a moment: as primitive of a life as it was, it ended. There was no lingering guilt (after all, I did the best I could) just a moment of regret, a moment of identification, a moment of compassion, a moment of humanity.

This is exactly the sort of thing that having a BugZooka allows you to practice. You see a bug, you grab your BugZooka, you sneak up on the little creature, you push a little red button, and bam: you see the unsuspecting creature temporarily trapped and panicked inside a plastic chamber. Then you open a window or step outside and you release it back into the wild, feeling good that you didn't have to kill anyone. It's a trivial moment but, I believe, it is nothing less than god-training. Fact is: to live we have to kill. We kill to eat, we kill to heal (notice the "bio" in the word antibiotics, "bios" means "life" in Greek). The business of living - on some level - is inevitably zero-sum. We will - one way or another - take life, i.e. play god. So, if we are going to play god, we might as well practice being mindful, discriminant gods, not mindless, trigger-happy, zombie gods that can't stand to be bugged.

One more point to clarify. As I am suggesting this stupefyingly simple compassion-training summer-camp, I realize that there is bound to be a reader out there who will read this and sigh with scorn: "It's just bugs, kill the damn things, they don't know any better. Life is cruel. There is no room for these bleeding-heart shenanigans." I can envision the objection that compassion-training is passivity-training, that compassion training will make someone vulnerable and defenseless. I don't think so: compassion training is one thing, self-defense and assertiveness is an entirely separate matter. Case in point: I spent this morning writing this silly little blog about bugs and yet, should you barge into my home uninvited in the middle of the night, I'll do my physical best to mess you up.

My point is simple: it's not an either/or - either compassion or self-care. No. It's not a dualism of the opposites, it's a dialectic unity of the opposites: compassion is self-care. Meaning: when you practice compassion, when you avoid unnecessary violence you a) take care of your mind/conscience and b) practice and model mindful coexistence that makes the world (and you) safer in the long run.

In short, skip on a week's worth of lattes and get yourself a $30 compassion-training kit. Awaken your benevolence one bug at a time.

Here's the link: BugZooka at Gaiam

p.s. I am not paid by BugZooka, don't own Gaiam stock (if there is one), have not accepted and will not accept any gifts from Gaiam should they want to thank me monetarily for any increase in their sales of this product; writing this was reward enough.

“180” is an attractive product.  Appeals  this male psyche.  Construction yellow.  Rubberized handle bars.  Seemingly weather-proof and rust-proof system (check with me on this when the winter is over).   I love the concept of resistance training with simultaneous balance training.  I tried to do several non-stop super-set style workouts (switching from shoulders to biceps to traps to triceps) while balancing the entire time on the “surf-board.”  Initially, it feels awkward and much of the attention seems to be diverted away from the body-work to balance-work.  But after a while, the body figures the balance out and balancing goes on autopilot and you sink back into resistance focus.   10 minutes later (of non-stop super-setting and exercise-switching) you step of the board and feel surprised that you spent the entire time balancing on this weight-training “skateboard.”

I bought two of these things.  One busted within a week: the max resistance cable got de-capped.  I took it back to Dick’s and got it swapped for a new one.  So, now I have effectively tested three of these gizmos.  I believe the break-down was a fluke.  But I do encourage you to get store warranty just in case.

I dig how portable it is.  The one I got for my office slides right under a waiting room chair.   The one at home travels from one room to another.  The other day, while waiting for my wife to get ready to go out, I grabbed the “180” and took out onto the deck and squeezed in a few max-resistance slow sets – before the sweat kicks in.  The portability of this gizmo is a huge plus.  Unlike my Bowflex, I can toss this thing into the trunk of my car without a huff.

Now, the issue of resistance.  When I saw this baby in the store my first concern was whether it’d offer enough meaningful resistance.  So, here’s the deal.  There are three cables – yellow (light), gray (medium), black (max weight).  If you combine all three and do biceps reps – to my mind – it feels like you are doing reps with 40-45 lbs dumbbells.  So, that’s your reference point.  I am hoping that there will be an upgrade to this product.  It’d be easy:  the board could easily accommodate two more cables on each side for additional weight progression.  Or, perhaps, the company would be willing to sell heavier resistance cables to replace the existent ones (which might be possible in principle).

My wife likes the video that came with this piece of equipment.  I don’t.  Not big on step-aerobics myself.  The 70 or so exercises that are possible are a bit of a stretch.  The chest exercises, for example, really don’t work.  If you lay down on the board and do “flies” – even with all three cables together – there’s just not enough room to feel any resistance of meaning.  At least, I haven’t figured out how to get some mileage out of that.  So, basically, in my opinion, you are looking for an upper-body exercise machine with the element of balancing.  I think that’s enough to justify the purchase.

Enjoy.

ps: TIME FOR A RECALL:   second unit broke after minimal use: was doing triceps with less than max weight, plastic cord capper busted same way as on a prior unit.  I now pronounce this product a promising concept that requires further tuning.