The Diceman

Here's something dug up from a few years back....it was influenced by the book The Dice Man, a novel published in 1971 by George Cockcroft under the pen name Luke Rhinehart and tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice.

I thought I'd try this out for myself.

What follows is the Facebook post I posted years back....

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Have any of you read The Dice Man? It's a story about a man who surrenders his life to a throw of a dice. The legendary book created a flood of interest and spawned many 'Dice Followers'. They allow the dice to control everything they do, from simple daily choices about food, shopping etc, to career options, relationships, personalities and moods.

Anyway, I have decided to take up the ultimate challenge of doing what the dice man did... for real. 

I haven't used dice to do anything more dangerous than play Trivial Pursuit, but dice have some strange lure about them. Now, God, fate, life or the constellation of Pisces (pick your superstition) plays dice with everyone of us, that's their function, so I've decided to let the dice decide.
 
I'm setting myself some ground rules first

1) Don't include an option that I might be unwilling to fulfil.
2) Begin to fulfil that option without thought and without quibble.
3) Think big! Don't fuck around with poxy little choices like what colour socks to put on in the morning, let's have life changing suggestions!

Now, you're probably thinking why is that attention seeking twat Wezz publishing all this on Facebook? Well, apart from being an attention seeking twat, I reckon if I let pretty much everyone I know what I'm doing, then I'll have to go through with this, otherewise I'll look like I'm full of shit.

It took me a few days to come up with a suitably momentous and life-altering set of choices. Behind each lay reason and potential disaster....

1) Run the London marathon

2) Learn a language, fulently.

3) Sell my treasured American Fender Telecaster guitar and put all the money on one horse.

4) Take a fortnight off work and find one of the most secluded areas in Britain and survive without any human contact at all. In a tent. All by myself. Alone.

5) Give up alcohol. For six months! Half a fuckin year!

6) Parachute jump (without a doubt the most feared of all, I'm pooing my pants a little just thinking about it!)

....there, now I'll have to publish this on Facebook then roll a dice quickly before 

1) I bottle it. 

2) Someone stops me. 

3) I realise this is just a ridiculous idea and I'm some sort of weirdo.....

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....so, immediately after posting I rolled that dice....

I rolled 1.

This was my first introduction to the world of marathon running. 
Don't get me wrong, I was fairly adept at cross country at school. Even represented my school for a competitive race, but that was in the mid-eighties and I had since deteriorated and weathered myself with a more sedentary lifestyle. My only physical achievement at work was emitting enough body heat to keep the seat of my fork-lift truck warm with my big fat hairy butt. Hobbies consisted of smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and playing guitar.

So, after rolling that dice I tried in vain to get into the London Marathon, but to no avail.  Then someone suggested the 2010 Chester Marathon. 
The very first full Chester Marathon was to take place in ten weeks....
....I had only 10 weeks to prepare?
A daunting task to say the least!

I applied.

What followed was eight successive marathons.

One a year.

I've ran every subsequent Chester Marathon since its inception.
Always looking forward to the next one, collecting the medals on my way.

....that’s not to say I enjoy running...I hate it 

....or that I’m any good at it....I’m not....but it’s just something that I do now?

In short, running is very much woven into the tapestry of my life. At least once a fortnight I pound the pavement.

Frickin’ miles of it.

And it’s all due to that book and a roll of that dice.

Maybe you should try it?.....write down six life changing challenges.

Then let the dice decide.

Then dive headfirst into it’s oblivion.

Think big. Act bigger.

It might just change your life?

....go on....I dare ya.