By: Runner Bear
This article was first printed in our very first issue of The Beartaria Times Magazine, Origins, A Revealing of Legends
I’m going to tell you a story. This tale is, like all of us, flawed for its realness. It’s about the recent adventures that I’ve been on. Despite being anything but a cinematic masterpiece, I believe many of you will enjoy relating to what I have to say. For what I’ve been up to is the same as what you have been up to: the pursuit of a more honorable circumstance. We seek to live better. Although my adventure is (God willing) far from over, there is already much that can be said. This is the story of my origin. For all that has happened, all that continues to happen, and all the community that has helped make it this way, I am most grateful.
Now. Where to start?
Rewind the clocks back to August 2019. Holding papers, I was sitting alone in my apartment having a crisis of conscience. I had a choice to make: should I sign the twelve-month September rental agreement or not? Bit of an odd conundrum at first glance. For what I was doing at the time, the apartment was ideal: fantastic landlords, good price, and a great spot. There were few tangible downsides I could point at, and a whole encyclopedia of obvious upsides at the ready. Yet… I was torn. Having listened to Owen since the start of his podcast, I was starting to stitch together the big picture, and the macro-economics portion of the tapestry was not looking good. I’ve never been a doomer end-is-neigh kind of guy, and I’m still not, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something tectonic was about to happen in cities. It felt as real and as obvious as the fingers that inevitably terminate the ends of my arms. Somehow, something in me knew that whatever was going to happen would take place before the twelve months was up. So what was I to do? A visceral part of me wanted to pack up and abandon everything so I could move out to a rural spot straight away. My instincts longed for a place where living men and women grow their own food, harvest their own eggs, and build their lives around family. But there was something substantial keeping me in place: I had made a commitment. I promised to help David Johnson, a blind athlete and Canadian record holder, try to make the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics as his professional guide runner. After some deliberation, I decided to uphold my word. I figured, if my conspiratorial intuition was correct, whatever craziness that would unfold would happen slow enough that there was nothing to panic about. Ultimately, I found comfort in knowing that my fate, as always, was in God’s hands. Thus, despite the nagging feeling that cities were about to get goofy, I signed the paperwork. Having now made the decision, my inner world calmed, once again grounded. I got to work training in the hopes that a year later, I would help David run 400 meters around the Tokyo Olympic oval as fast as his legs could carry him. Suffice it to say, it didn’t quite work out that way.
Fast forward eight months to March 11 2020, and the WHO declared a “global pandemic”. What struck me most in those first few days was the charged air. It was electric. I could feel the thick, hot anxiety saturated into the ether. And yet, oddly, I could also feel that this anxiety was not my own. “Aha!” I thought, “This is what I was spiraling about back in August! Some serious money is about to change hands… the city might get a little crazy… I should go home.” So, on the assumption that the racing season was toast, I made a few quick calls, packed some bags, hopped on the ferry, and went back to be with my family on the mainland in BC, Canada. So began my real-world experience of living through a turbulent time in history. What’s been so interesting is how much the experience in real time differs so fundamentally from the written accounts. On paper, with everything compressed into little matter-of-fact tidbits, what happens sounds terrifying. In real life however, despite everything that can read like a nightmare, the experience is expanded out into what can easily feel like just-another-day. Our lives, as always, prove themselves to be exactly what we make of them.
For me, the whole process was a blessing from the start. Like the anxious buildup to a race, it was a relief to finally hear the starter’s gun go off. Now we were just in it. And it turns out that my crazy ideas weren’t so crazy after all. With so many of my thoughts proven true, I felt validated; the world was a sensible place. After spending a week or two building raised garden beds and planting my first garden, I decided to sell a few boxes online. I had an opportunity to source lumber wholesale so I was able to keep great margins despite an accessible price point. The demand for these garden beds was wild. I could see the possibility for a real business in the future. But, having listened to the sensibilities of Vox Day, who recommends taking baby steps with new ventures, I decided to implement the process slowly. For this first season, I simply put out a few ads online for garden box pickups. Mostly standard sizes, no deliveries, and no other auxiliary services. Just basic boxes for pickup. It was the perfect start.
Besides my garden venture, I also began writing. My days became split down the middle. Half my time was dedicated to my business of helping people plant seeds. The other half was spent writing about why it’s such a good idea to do so. I was, as I often find myself to be, balanced for my extremes. Both the high ground esotericism and low ground grit were being directed in tandem towards the pursuit of honor. I was managing both the big and the small; the complex and the simple; the brash and the basic. I was in a flow state of pursuing the good, the true, and the beautiful. And when the garden season ended, I simply picked up my momentum and took it with me somewhere else.
Although close, my book wasn’t quite finished when garden box orders slowed to a halt. Throughout my writing I found that the original concept I had for How Dare You had adapted into something I wasn’t expecting. The whole process ended up being an exercise in catharsis and creation: joy for the reward of seeing my earnest diligence manifest into something real; something honest; something good. The rest of the summer was, like most of my summers, a time of decompression; preparation and planning for the work to come. Looking ahead, I bought a truck. Although I never stopped running, the concept of competition started becoming a focus again. With all the worldly shenanigans appearing to settle down, I began the process of returning to Vancouver Island. Although my commitment to the Olympic cycle no longer felt ironclad (with the world’s finances in tatters), I wanted to try again anyway. My instincts told me that giving professional guide running another shot was the right thing to do; I wanted to see if I could help David, my close friend, make Tokyo. After a few phone calls, I hopped back on the ferry, this time heading west, to once again work at the national training center.
Getting back to my previously abandoned apartment, I had a good chat with my landlords. They were grateful I had made good on my lease despite not living there for five months; as I left, they blessed me with parting gifts of fruit from their trees and tomatoes from their garden, as they had done many times before. Although it felt right upholding my word on the 12-month lease that I struggled to sign the year before, I decided against getting into another yearly lease. I found a trailer on a farmer’s land that was a five minute’s run from the training facility. We agreed to a deal: I paid a small amount of rent and, most days, worked a few quick hours around the property in exchange for a place to live. I packed up my things and drove across town, gnawing on one of the juiciest pears I’ve ever had.
Being back into the grind of off-season training, the fall was uneventful… until it wasn’t. As the days, weeks, and months ticked by, we built our bodies and our minds, preparing to perform as best as possible at the Tokyo Olympic village. With winter creeping in, discussions of international travel for training camps and racing abroad began; which meant dealing with mask mandates. Uh oh. Up until this point, my freely breathing open face had not been a problem. As professional athletes in a temperate part of the world, we spent our time training either outside or in our own separate gym facilities; we had no mask issues to deal with. In less agreeable places, my stubbornness about all things related to refusing face coverings had prompted all kinds of craziness. I’ve done it all: I learned a few things about the law, I’ve gotten into my share of conflict, and I’ve done all the smarmy tricks (like slowly eating and drinking for entire 2-hour ferry trips to avoid hassles), when all I felt like doing was spending some time alone, thinking.
Before agreeing to come back and train, my hope was that the mask mandates would peter out and that I’d be able to travel without having to fight institutions for my biblical principles: I am made in the image of God and my breath is my spirit, so I will not cover my face just because Babylon feels that I should. I made the decision plain and simple for myself: I will not wear the mask. However, my hopes for an amicable relationship with my athletics administration was not realized. With masks in full force and what looked to be an impending vaccine mandate coming down the pipe before the 2021 Tokyo games, I was in a bind. My principles and my organization were opposed. I would not wear the mask, but my employer was insisting that I do. It was time to issue a statement of intent to my governing athletic organization. I had to clear the air and let them know where I stood. After talking with a lawyer friend of mine well versed in common law, I issued a statement, making it clear that my intent was to do my job and that I was going to take extra measures to ensure that I could travel without a mask and that I was well within my legal rights to not wear one at any time. It went over very smoothly. Just kidding. It was a trainwreck.
After a few weeks of turbulent back-and-forth emails and phone calls, we arrived at an impasse. Being a bit of a crazy person, I was preparing to “go to war” with these organizations. I wanted to go big and take the fight public with everything from lawsuits to a documentary. But my blind friend David, being much more sensible, didn’t want to invite a legal cataclysm upon himself. It was probably a good thing that cooler heads prevailed. Since David had 3% vision (enough to usually manage racing without me), we decided that the best option was for me to take a step back. Ultimately, our athletics institution wasn’t willing to officially fire me because it would have been an unlawful termination, but I wasn’t willing to escalate the situation and invite problems upon David by continuing to show up, prompting a legal war. So I walked away. They paid out the rest of my contract and in exchange, I didn’t ruffle any more feathers by doing anything as audacious as breathing clean air around other people. I became the black sheep of my country’s athletic organization. It wasn’t how I imagined my athletics career ending, but that’s exactly how it happened. For my principles of pursuing what I still believe is the truth, I became the bad man in circles I once respected. When I started running, it was with a single-minded, self-obsessed fanaticism, aimed entirely at making the Olympics. When I finished running, it was as an outward focused mentor to a blind man who earned a great deal of respect from me. In the two quick years we worked together, I noticed a monumental shift in David’s circumstance. When we started, he was suffering from substance abuse issues as a coping mechanism for dealing with all the colossal baggage that comes with having a degenerating eye condition. When we finished, David was an unbreakable leader of his family, friends, and community. It wasn’t me that did that, but I helped. The relationship isn’t what it was when we were training hard every day together, but we still catch up on the phone every few weeks. He often makes a point of thanking me for my time and it always brings up mixed feelings of brotherly comradery and flickered nostalgia. I still miss training with a purpose, but I know that it was my time to leave, so I am resigned to being content with my expiry from the world of professional athletics.
Yet again I found myself packing my things, taking the ferry, and going home. I had a few more months before garden season kicked off, so I tried to finish my second book as quickly as possible. By the end of February however, it was clear that Politics are Stupid was not going to be finished, so I put it down, focusing instead on my second season of my garden business, this time with longer days, more services, and a name: Backyard Eden.
The baby step strategy advocated by Vox turned out to be a good one. Having a full season under my belt, it was much easier to competently manage expanding my services. I began delivering garden boxes and installing soil. With the extra income and low cost of living (being in my family home), I was blessed to be able to quickly pay off a large student debt that I had accumulated when I was obsessed with running, scraping by financially, and rarely working. Becoming debt free for the first time in ten years is a feeling I won’t forget. And the experience has cemented a principle in me: no debt, for any reason, ever again. I will stay a free man.
Overall, the spring was a whirlwind. Long days of managing orders, building boxes, and delivering installations for customers. In my limited downtime, when I wasn’t playing music or going on a quick blitz of a run (often sprinting by the time I hit the end of the street), I felt myself drawn to videos about alternative construction projects. Like most things, I obsessed. I watched every video I could find about earthships, falling in love with some of the design principles like high thermal mass passive solar design, water harvesting/recycling, and green house incorporation. The idea that a house should be built to actively interact with the environment was tantalizing to me. I told all my friends about how incredible alternative construction options could be; especially compared to the modern careless junk. One day, I got a message from Dreadnaught bear. He sent me a screenshot of Warrior Rising Bear’s post in the Beartaria Times app about a few (paid) Builder Buddy positions available for a rammed earth house build. I reached out that night, making it clear how interested I was in the project. By June I was in Prince George, learning how to build a house out of the earth.
Early on in the project, two cowboys from Alberta showed up, totally decked out with hats, weapons, and the distinct kind of charm that’s gifted only to those with an honest sense of what it means to really be alive. One of them, a musician who not so infrequently goes by the name of Maverick Music bear, stayed on for the whole project, working the skid steer. Every day he showed up, speaker at the ready, playing everything from juicy tunes to Big Bear’s live stream. Every week we’d have a jam session, often with one of the students from the revolving door of week-long workshops. It was a good time. Maverick insisted I should start a band. Maybe one day. The other cowboy, Tim Bear, headed back to Alberta soon after arrival to take care of his painting business. Not long afterwards, we got word that Tim Bear went on a date, which allegedly started with a “Hi, how-do-ya-do” and ended with a “you’re a bear?!”. Another week or two later we got word that Tim Bear and Sudsy Bear were planning to get hitched in mid October. Perfect timing; my last day on the rammed earth house build was scheduled for October 2nd.
With sore shoulders, muddy everything, and a new appreciation for clay, diligent planning, and robust clamps, it was time to leave. I said my good-byes to all the legends on the crew. Over the course of the project, the epic foreman and goofball extraordinaire known as Walker Bear and I became close friends. We had a chat around my packed-up truck in the driveway; it was one of those awkward farewells that takes a few tries, not quite knowing which hug or handshake is the last. I managed to convince Walker Bear to come out to Tim Bear’s wedding despite how busy he was planning on being in mid October. Two weeks evaporated. My mind was on building and being closer to nature, so I spent most of my fleeting time accumulating high quality camping gear and cleaning up my grandfather’s old shop in the basement, taking stock of what tools were available to me. Then it was back on the road, headed east. I bombed the thirteen-hour drive in a straight shot, stopping once for gas. Soon after meeting up with Walker Bear at the hotel I booked in Alberta, Tim Bear invited both of us over to his place for dinner the night before the wedding. We ate some food, had some laughs and made some plans for the next day. We even talked about homesteading plans for the future. Tim Bear also introduced me to his sister, “This is my sister, Emma, she is single”. Interesting.
The next morning, Walker Bear and I left the hotel parking lot. It took all of about thirty seconds to get from street lights and concrete squalor to open fields and generous skylines. We found the ranch six minutes later. A huge flat-deck trailer was parked on the front lawn, looking suspiciously like a stage. Walker Bear and I introduced ourselves to two men around a dark bed of hot coals. We helped the jolly duo get a pig acquainted with a rotisserie. Fold up tables were set up in an arrangement meandering from the house to the giant fire pit. I retaped the flapping table covers, securing them so they wouldn’t detach a second time. The grass, in its shoulder-season, speckled green and beige. Tim Bear sashayed out of the house. “Time for firewood!” he called; door clacking shut behind him. Walker bear, always packing his chainsaw, took care of the big-boy part of the sourcing while Tim and I loaded the various cuts up into his old red Dodge. After dumping everything near the pit, Walker Bear and I spent a few hours enthusiastically thwacking the hefty wooden rounds with a dull little ax and an even duller heavy maul. Beady sweat defied the brisk Alberta air. A giant pile of lumber built up, eager for the fire. Eventually, guests started arriving, so we put our air-dried shirts back on and scuttled off to the hotel to get our things.
The wedding was a beautiful affair; no stress, no strain, no debt. Not a soul turned a worldly nose up at the honest venue. Emma showed up with her sister and the bride; all three radiating with the demeanor that always seems to effortlessly float and flow around women who just spent the entire day fully immersed in their feminine. The event flourished organically. After an hour or so of bumping shoulders with men and women more interested in living honorably than listening to the television, it was time to start the ceremony. Tim asked me if I would walk his sister down the aisle, handing me a green sweater to better match the theme. I affirmed. In a pair of work boots, jeans, and borrowed green wool, I walked Emma down the aisle behind Tim Bear and his wife, Sudsy bear. The married couple said their vows, but they weren’t the only ones with a flutter or two in the chest.
Fast forward through the music and the musings of the rest of the wedding, the weeks of chatting with Emma over the phone every night, and four friendly Albertan’s visiting my home in BC to watch me play a live underground show in Vancouver, and we get to where we are now: I’m sitting in a rented room in Alberta, writing this article, reflecting on what’s come to pass. I moved here to be close to Emma for the winter. I’m happy to report on our joy: we laugh together, we ponder the world together, and we play music together. Soon I’ll be driving over for dinner. Most importantly, we’ve decided to get married.
After all that’s happened, looking back, I can’t help but shake this feeling that everything culminated together in a way that is beyond the realm of what I can see. It feels too connected by an ethos of a fundamental good to be mere random happenstance. My whole adult life I’ve pursued strength as an athlete. But only more recently have I had the pleasure of experiencing well beyond the trials of voluntary pain. Right down to my soul, I’ve found myself in pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful. I suppose at the end of it all, what I’m really trying to say is that the origin of my story can be traced back to a single, solitary node: the simple decision to live more honorably. Owen played a big part here. Listening to his stream encouraged me to seek this cultural ethic; not to live vicariously through a screen, but to actually do it. Captivated, I chose to stand up for the truth as best as I could discern it, even when it meant giving up what I treasured my entire life: a real chance to go to the Olympic village. I went on to write a novel about honor culture and how a comedian has reinvigorated the movement towards upholding it. I built Backyard Eden, a company with a mission statement of bringing gardens back to the cities and the suburbs. And then my love for moral living drove me even further, to seek the ability to build a home out of the earth rather than out of debt. With the Beartaria community, I was delivered to a project that taught me how. Amongst this crew of good men, bears who share much of my vision, one even introduced me to his sister in a stunning display of trust and approval that I will never forget. Now she is the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with, building a homestead and a thriving family. All together, this process feels divinely connected. Like a seed, our origins begin small, with little to show for the intent that exists within. With the right conditions, what burgeons forward is a fractal manifestation of the original source code that binds the whole pattern together. This is a hallmark of the truly living. In the deepest part of me, I wanted a better life, so that’s exactly what happened; the Beartaria community helped me grow something good, exactly as it needed to be. My internal world resonated with the external one surrounding it. Now, for my good fortune, I am able to tell this honest story, perhaps even in a way that has helped validate the whispered feeling of goodness that we share. After everything, what we find is a simple truth: we are blessed to appreciate the rich context that helps manifest the stories of our origins.
Like seeds in a fertile field, it is to greener pastures we go. Onward.
Thanks for reading.
With love,
Jacob Telling (Runner Bear)
Author of How Dare You (audiobook coming soon!)
Website: JacobTelling.com
Social Media: Instagram.com/jacob.telling
Email: TellingJacob33@gmail.com
