A Trip to the Track

I must confess…

These past two weekends have been a heap of fun—full of Play and Awe-njoyment.

First, Alicia and I had the pleasure and good fortune—given we nearly missed the show, thanks to an inadvertently large dose of our chosen fun time substance—of soaking up the sweet sounds of Giolì & Assia and devouring dumplings in Vancouver.

And this weekend past, my brotherman Erik and I enjoyed a few blissful hours indulging in another one of my favourite-but-rarely-done forms of play (here’s the other one).

One of my favourite aspects of Play is the banishment of thought—where you become so engrossed in what you’re doing that the rest of the world falls away, any problems you’re carrying fade into the background, and all that exists is the

In my near-sighted eyes, there are few better ways of reaching this state than by seeking the perfect lap of Vancouver Island Motorsport Circuit.

Accelerating up to 130km/hr and braking down to 50km/hr over the course of one lap, you have nearly no time to think—save for how you can take a better line into or carry more speed through a corner, or how much later you can brake without barrelling into the run-off. There is only instinct.

(Or as was my case on this outing, figuring out how much earlier I needed to brake into two turns specifically, lest I end up running off to make friends with the gravel.)

My pie in the sky career is that of a racing driver—so the few blissful hours I’m able to snag in a given year driving at this gem of a track (which was designed by the same engineering team behind numerous Formula 1 tracks) are an absolute joy.

After days like these, I’m especially grateful for having invested in a car that’s got the ‘stuff’ to not only handle being thrown around on a track, but thrive and come aliv

I shan’t suggest that you hit up your nearest race track if you’re looking for a big ‘ol dose of Play or Awe-njoyment (unless you’re curious/into such things), but will close with a reminder that Play (which Awe-njoyment is a component of) is such a critical piece of our well-being. As Coldplay, Passenger, and surely 100s of other musicians have sung, life is for living. To play is to live—and so I hope that you inject as much play as you possibly can into your life over the coming months. There is no downside.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander