The Taxes of Life

Taxes are due. There’s no circumventing them. People have been complaining about taxes for thousands of years, but they’ll still be due next year, and fifty years from now (if I’m still around to pay them, which is doubtful).

There’s a tax on everything in life and it’s probably futile trying to resist or stress over it. The tax of food delivery is an exorbitant cost for the driver. The tax of travel is a stressful time at the airport. The tax of running marathons is an undue amount of money spent on shoes, gels, and physical therapy. If you enjoy something, though, you just accept the tax that comes with it. Hated the tax is wasted energy. It’s there whether you like it or not.

I’m not sure if I’ll accept the tax that comes with running marathons after I finish Boston. The aches and lack of weekends are a price to pay, and I look forward to more leisure.

One marathon tax that is rarely discussed is the tax on your cardiovascular system. Even the heart can be overworked, and a number of heart maladies have been found in older endurance athletes.

These taxes don’t appear to exist in the shorter distances, or in pickup basketball, which I have thought of taking on again. I’d like to rediscover my fast twitch. I was actually a mid distance swimmer, after all. The 200 meter freestyle is probably closer to an 800 meter track event than a marathon.

Moderation simply demands less tax in most instances.

Thoughts Overdressed

It’s better to avoid overdressing both yourself and your thoughts. If you can communicate the message with a scowl, avoid the monologue.

What is the perfect length of a movie or book review? Generally, most video and blog reviews are too long. I rarely read or view a review that’s too short. It’s probably because we like to imprint as much of our own character in the reviews as we can. The review becomes a form of self-expression. That’s fine, I think, because the best critics show their quirks. You can show quirks while still be concise though.

You can easily draw out a joke at the dinner table until it dies, after all.

I’m looking forward to doing more this summer by virtue of doing less. Less exercise, but more effective use of the minutes spent exercising. Less stressing, and therefore more daydreaming. Less indecision, and therefore more creating. Less work hours, and therefore more sleep.

I’m running the Boston marathon next week. I’m looking forward to the event, which I think will be a celebration of being able to do something difficult. I’m also looking forward to not devoting so much energy and resources to such a long and painful burn. I’m glad to say that I’ve run marathons, and I’ll be honored to say I ran the Boston marathon, but at the end of the day, I can’t say running that many miles is “fun.”

I had a dream last night in which I was an NBA basketball player handling the ball at the end of a critical game. I sunk a 3 to the roar of the crowd and my team was up by 10.

Suddenly the coach decided to play the bench though, and a gang of diminutive nerds walked onto the court, singing the song “This is Halloween” from the movie Nightmare before Christmas. They paid no attention to the game at all. The other team made layup after layup and I watched our lead fade. Whatever great game I had lost all meaning.

That’s okay, I thought, because they’re my friends.

And maybe that’s the point. To be with people you genuinely like brings more success than any “win.”