Dispatches from the middle

“What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
— Hunter S. Thompson

Part of the thrill of running, I think, and no small part of it either, is the rediscovery of “thrill” itself. Of emotion and instinct, of intensity, of recognizing and expressing yourself.

There is so much of life that we very simply don’t touch on a day-to-day basis – we work too hard or too much, we’re distracted, we’re far too comfortable, we’re scared, we focus on acquiring things instead of experiences, whatever the case may be – and so much of the important stuff that we actively avoid, thinking we’re doing ourselves a favour. Running opens a window to the visceral experience of being human, of being in one’s body, and of being in the world. Yes, sometimes it hurts. But that’s good! It’s a righteous pain! It’s good to hurt, it’s good to be bored, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. It’s good to push yourself to the point where you simply CANNOT anymore. It’s good to fail. I need to readjust my take on failure, do away with nagging negative connotations. And to always risk a little more than is comfortable, to run a little faster than I think I can sustain.