Post-COVID

Apparently COVID affects everyone uniquely. For me, there were about three days that felt like hell, followed by a rapid recovery. My symptoms peaked from last Saturday to Monday, then eased through Tuesday and Wednesday. I tested negative on Thursday.

Getting the virus was a harsh reminder of life priorities. At the apex of my symptoms, most of my material possessions ceased to matter again. That, at least, was refreshing.

I guess we often fool ourselves into thinking that we can purchase our way into permanence. Maybe that’s part of the lure or a “high quality purchase.” If the item lasts forever, we’re more apt to feel like we will as well. A shirt that disintegrates in three washes is oddly a reminder of ones own vulnerability.

It just takes one brutal virus to eliminate the hope of eternal life. If we’re dust in the wind, then we’re truly on borrowed time, and our possessions should be considered rentals at best. What price it is to pay for a house full of nice things that eventually end up in a dumpster.

My phone often shows me photo memories of times spent in China. I poured through some of these old photos more closely today and realized that I really liked that version of myself. He was less willing to give a damn about the quality of clothes, for example, and more apt to focus on having memorable experiences. He didn’t give a damn about “fit”. Clothes kept you warm, or shielded you from the sun. That was it, and it was freeing.

I don’t think it’s too late to go back to that version of myself. It doesn’t mean going back to China, but rather rejecting the materialism inherent in corporate America. It means accepting that your time on earth is brief, so you might as well enjoy it rather than constantly seeking false means of insurance against its end.

Injuries and Setbacks

My plan was to began preparing for an October 1st marathon starting the first week of July. However, a few setbacks derailed those plans.

The first issue stemmed from a timed mile event in late June. I completed a timed mile (about 1600 meters) in 4 minutes and 44 seconds, which I was happy with because my goal was to break 5 minutes. However, I found myself limping after the finish. A tweak in my groin became a lingering pain that steadily worsened over the next week, and I naively attempted to run through it, which only exacerbated the pain. I went to an orthopedic and was informed that I strained my groin.

A few weeks of rest and physical therapy followed, and suddenly it was August. I resumed running. I told my marathon coach that it seemed practical to have a “Plan B.” Less than two months didn’t seem like long enough to prepare for a marathon, so I switched my goal event to a later date. I signed up for another marathon on October 28th, and switched my October 1st event to a half marathon, with the intention to use the event as a training exercise.

Then, a week after resuming running, COVID hit me for the first time. Three plus years after the onset of the pandemic, COVID was the last thing on my mind. I had returned from a vacation in Utah and was suddenly running a fever. I was inside when the fever hit me, resting under a cool A/C. An hour later I had the chills. Then I had a sinus headache, and a sore throat. Then my bones ached.

The next day, I tested positive for COVID.

That was all last weekend. Now I’m hoping that the worst of COVID is behind me and I can resume running. This running cycle has been a stark contrast from the last one. The last one went off without a hitch, whereas this one seems to abide by the saying, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

There is plenty of time left to develop fitness, however, so I don’t think I’m anywhere near the point of giving up.

Sunday Recap

Sunday morning I went for my weekly long run on the Katy Trail, starting at the Lewis & Clark Boathouse in Saint Charles and heading east. The skies were overcast and the temperature was mild for June. I felt much better than I had the previous few days. I ran for about 12 miles and felt fresh from beginning to end.

I had struggled with sleep for the better part of the last week. It’s an ongoing and maybe lifelong struggle. I finally slept decently Saturday night and was thankful for that. I’ve been trying a glass of kefir at night and it seems to be helping.

Sunday afternoon I watched The Flash, which I would describe as simple amusement. These superhero movies are difficult to justify a theater ticket price for, but I wanted to go to the cinema. Michael Keaton is very good in it. I’m a sucker for nostalgia and am a huge fan of the Tim Burton Batman movies. Having Keaton reprise his role as the dark knight was enough for me. Maybe that’s all a movie actually needs to be worth watching.

I’m digesting the new Avenged Sevenfold album, Life is but a Dream. So far my favorite song on the album is “Cosmic,” which seems to be about reincarnation and eternal love. A close second is probably “(O)rdinary.”

Five years ago I was in northeastern China and planning a beach trip to Dalian. Time is a subtle yet merciless adversary.

I finished the book Abdi’s World, which is an autobiography of one of my favorite athletes, Abdi Abdirahman. He’s the only marathon runner to qualify for five Olympics. There’s a key takeaway regarding his longevity: he’s capable of experiencing joy and fun.

I try to refrain from staring at my Garmin watch when I run for that reason. Fun should be the objective; it’s what will keep me going far after many of the young studs have hung up their shoes.

Some days we’re fast and other days we’re slow, but hopefully we’re smiling regardless.

The First 800 Meter Race!

Yeah, I actually participated in a track meet. A swammer, at age 37, entering himself in a track meet for a running race. Why not? Life is about trying new things, even if they’re a little uncomfortable. I don’t want to revisit the pool; I’ve chased the black line at the bottom enough times.

So I entered myself in the 800 meter run. I wanted to practice sprinting, and the 800 seemed like an intriguing distance. Compared to a marathon, at least, an 800 meter race is a sprint.

So I’m at a 400 meter track on a Saturday afternoon, it’s blazing hot, and the track has a black-colored surface. In other words, I’m running in a sauna.

They called my heat up and my lack of attention span immediately got the best of me. A meet official was explaining where we had to line up. I was distracted and staring at the clouds, honestly, and thinking about how cool my new bandana was. I wore it over my head as a sweat bandana.

I had bought the bandana the week before. It has a nice assemblage of desert-themed colors dyed onto it. Since I wore a racing team singlet, the bandana provided some stylistic flair.

Then before I knew it, the other runners were walking to the starting position. Oh crap, I thought. Where am I supposed to go? Maybe I should’ve paid attention. What is the starting position?

Then the gun went off and I started running. Whoops.

I wasn’t sure what an 800 meter track sprint should feel like, so I was a little conservative on the first lap. After crossing 400 meters I realized I had plenty of energy and picked my pace up a notch. I caught some runners and gained on the lead runner.

I finished in second overall, just a half-second out of first. The winner was 10 years my minor though. Not bad for an old dude with his head somewhere in the clouds I guess.

Next time I’ll take it!

Birdemic

There’s always going to be a “first” I guess. This morning I was attacked by a small bird while on a jog by the Riverfront.

I was caught by surprise when I felt what seemed like a mass of feathers falling into my hair. That’s weird, I thought. I’m not wearing a feathered hat right now.

Then I heard a hostile “caw” directly above me and felt wings flap and hit my face.

I reached a hand up to try and swat the bird away. The bird flew up a few feet while agilely dodging my swats, then dive-bombed me again. I felt one of its claws brush my cheek, but it narrowly missed scraping me.

What in the actual hell. First you’re stabbed by a tree branch, then you’re attacked by a psychotic tiny bird.

It was definitely tiny. We aren’t talking about a hawk here. This thing was about the size of a budgie, but wow did it have a Napoleon complex.

I’m sure it looked hilarious as I swatted at it and ran as fast as I could, while the bird dive-bombed me again and again. Eventually the bird gave up. Or maybe it found something more interesting to do this morning. I escaped unscathed!

My guess is that I ran through its territory during mating season or something. Why males gotta be like that?

Whatever the cause, I’ve been looking up towards the sky more frequently today. I might be for awhile.

As far as running goes, I’ve felt consistently pretty sore over the last week. I’ve been doing more speed-oriented running, which is a drastic change from marathon training.

My soreness has had me thinking of the inevitability of all things ending. At some point I will not be able to run like this. There will be a last marathon, a last day outside, and a last bird fight. There will also be a last swim and a last trip. Thinking of such a future brings me an intense melancholy. The best we can do is try to delay our inevitable decline. Yet the decline will happen, and fearing it won’t push it any further away.

An Ode to Discomfort

Life does not provide a final finish line. There is no end to discomfort until the cessation of life itself. If a cool breeze braces your cheeks at the end of a competition, you should still anticipate the turbulent storm that is bound to follow.

I think most adults believe the act of growing up deserves them a lifetime of ease and painless sustenance. In the west particularly, adults tend to shun struggle, believing the rest of their years should be lived without pain. They “deserve” comfort, they seem to tell themselves. It’s somehow a reward for “struggling through youth.” So, they seek air conditioning, the drive-through, the chair, booze, television, gluttony, and phones. They adult bicycle collects dust if its owner fears the dirt outside. It is those who embrace the chaos outside who last the longest.

I try to avoid comfort as though it’s a disease I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I aim to thrive in chaos and live well in the maelstrom. Pain is a necessary part of living and the precursor to growth. Without pain there is no life.

How have I embraced pain lately?

Somehow I managed to bike ten miles home immediately after breaking my collarbone and hitting my head hard enough to not know what year it was.

I bike commuted 20 miles to work in sub-zero temperatures winter mornings over the past few years, while gusts of wind sometimes rocked me with sleet. I learned to change tires on the side of the road while my fingers numbed.

Tolerating pain helped me train for a marathon while my right arm was still broken and unable to swing naturally in stride.

I finished a long run after my face was stabbed by a tree branch (and drove myself to a nearby Urgent Care to have my face stitched afterwards). I laughed as the nurse stitched me up. I now embrace this scar, whereas many would be “distraught by the imperfection.”

It’s why my old teammates at the University of Texas called me “The Manimal.” They knew I can absorb higher loads of pain than most.

My tolerance for pain helped me learn to run after 36 years of just swimming and lifting, and it’s how I ran my first marathon at age 37. To get back in the pool and beat people my age at swim meets seemed too easy. I wanted more discomfort.

When a car hit me in 2021 and tore up my right foot, I shrugged it off and decided that I’d eventually return stronger than ever. I’d run faster than ever as a final revenge to that shitty driver.

I don’t believe a pain-free day will arrive, nor should it, and I try to embrace pain’s inevitable return. I can’t rest on my laurels.

Discomfort keeps me honest. It keeps me strong, alive, and fiery. It is the best friend I’ve ever had.

Know Yourself

I run along a small section of the Riverfront Trail several mornings a week. It’s a one-and-a-half mile straight path, paved along the Mississippi River, spread directly in front of the St. Louis arch.

On this path, someone spraypainted “Know Yourself” in bold and colorful font on some raised cement barriers. It’s probably been there for years. I cross it on almost every run and on some days, if I’m feeling spry, I jump over it.

I think that knowing yourself is a challenge on two fronts. First, it takes courage to test your mental and physical limits. You have to pass a threshold to know where the threshold lies, and that involves pain. Significant, significant pain. Second, knowing yourself means confronting your dark side, and that takes courage. Just look to Luke Skywalker or Jung for reasons why. The dark side is an ugly place and a convenient one to turn a blind eye towards. I’m not sure most are willing to look at their demons with eyes wide open. The dark side of the human soul can reach horrifying depths, but overcoming one’s dark side first requires accepting its existence and seeing what lurks there.

Knowing yourself, the good and the bad, probably nurtures some self-confidence. It leaves you impervious to external remarks because you create your self-perception internally. Verbal attacks tend to hurt most if you accept them as reality, and you’re more likely to accept any opinion if you don’t know who you are. If what your attacker says is true, but you recognize it as true and have already confronted it within yourself, you can shrug off the attack. That’s essentially how Eminem’s character won the rap battle at the end of 8 Mile.

Recently I told someone that one of my goals with endurance running was longevity: that I want to keep running and cycling into my 80s and even 90s. That’s the truth, besides simply enjoying the exercise: I do it because I want to live. The races are just a fun bonus. I was laughed at for saying that. Well, what can ya do? Everyone has haters. “You run marathons for longevity!? Yeah right.” Later in the conversation I was sarcastically called “Longevity Matt.”

It would be easy to feel offended by the skepticism, but I shrugged it off. I know what I want well enough to discard external critics. Maybe five years ago I’d have taken it personally. Age has at least given the gift of “knowing myself” better, and knowing yourself begets wisdom.

I can only conclude that literally jumping over physical barriers, especially barriers with a message such as “Know Yourself,” is a healthy daily ritual.

Some Reflections on Free Will

I find the concept of free will to be an interesting one, and like any interesting topic, there are arguments both for and against its validity.

In the scope of human history “free will” is a relatively new concept. It seems to have propagated alongside capitalism and Protestantism. Its opponents may argue that it’s nothing more than a marketing scheme for an ideology. That scheme goes something like this: “you have complete control of your own destiny, so long as you work really, really hard.” This more or less keeps the wheels of private enterprise turning and the masses obedient.

It seems opposite to the Shakespearean plays that rose in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, in which the protagonist was often pushed by the turbulent and all-powerful current of the universe, with a fate predetermined and unavoidable. The act of “paving one’s own path” was seen as an obscenity and typically punished with a violent death. Macbeth is given his fate at the beginning of the play, and we only have to wait to find out how he meets it.

Even if one has some element of free will on a societal level, possessing the ability to switch economic classes or elevate from poverty, I find it questionable that one could have complete individualistic free will. Everyone is on their phones all day, after all, behaving just as technology companies program us to. We buy insurance at the consensus that it will protect us from harm, only for insurance companies to profit (and avoiding insurance is nearly unavoidable, and seen as sacrilegious). We are therefore, to an extent, slaves to our own compulsions and thought patterns. Said compulsions can be programmed by almost anyone with a mastery of the human mind. We can therefore be exploited for profit or other gains, and all of us are to some extent.

We tell ourselves we “choose” to look at our phones, unaware that we do so under the manipulation of technology. And maybe this how it is with all things. Free will, then, would be a consumerist ploy.

The question then is whether choice actually exists, and what evidence there is for its existence. If you believe that we are all pawns in a very large scheme, then our minds are simply reacting as expected at each move of exterior forces. We are “dust in the wind.” That does seem likely. Yet some people are unpredictable, and this is where I find the fun. I personally enjoy people capable of surprising me and defying expectations. They seem the most likely types to possess the ability to truly “choose.” If they are in the throes of a current they can’t control, it’s at least a unique one that doesn’t move straight.

Nicolas Cage, for example, is the only actor I can’t pigeonhole. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to his film choices or even his acting style. He seems hell-bent on swimming against the current that pushes everyone else in their expected direction. He follows a big-budget action film with a flop, and a cartoonish performance with a subdued one. The other actors who regularly attend events such as the Academy Awards seem manufactured by their own industry to “aim for awards.” I don’t find them interesting in the least. Cue ceremony to “see who won best actor” this year. Who cares? It’s the same self-indulgent faces every year.

Nicolas Cage’s unpredictability suggests he can’t be controlled, and an uncontrollable human being is most likely to have true “free will.”

I can only conclude that although our behaviors do seem controllable to an extent, we also maintain the ability to surprise, to break routine, to “create art,” and to argue against consensus. Free will seems closest to a real thing when we defy expectations and break routine, when we take risk and laugh in the face of herd mentality. We may have some individualism if we find the courage to express it, even in spite of a powerful current that we are all more or less drifting in.

How will we surprise ourselves today?

Return to the Riverfront

The aftermath of the marathon involved about three days of total rest and another two weeks without intensive exercise.

I think it’s important to fully heal both mind and body after a taxing event such as a marathon. I’d rather not return to running until every joint feels fresh and limber. I’d rather err on the side of too much rest than not enough.

This week I returned to cycling on the Riverfront trail. It was my first time on a bicycle since I broke my collarbone last November, nearly two full seasons ago. There was some anxiety in getting back on the bicycle, as expected. My pace was much slower than it was last year, as expected. I made it though, and it was nice to trigger the endorphins through the act of pedaling.

Mid-ride along the Mississippi River I saw the same family of turkeys loitering about that I often encountered last year. Upon seeing me they dashed to the nearby underbrush to hide, as they always did before. The foliage around me was a lush green and I was hit a by harsh wind that pushed from the south. My bike crawled forward where it once zoomed.

I think it’d odd that in the time it took for nature to decay and be reborn, my collarbone broke and self-repaired.

Lately I’ve had recurring dreams of a return to competitive swimming. In each dream I’m my current age and attempting to swim with programs from my youth. In each dream, my return is something of an intrusion. The swimmers and coaches don’t want me. Worse yet, they’re confused as to why I’d want to return. Didn’t I do all of this already? Why repeat the past? In the dreams, I am oblivious to the signs around me that life moves on and I am no longer physiologically the same. Age brings new priorities. I shouldn’t be ignorant to what they are.

I think that I am well aware that a downward physical slope is inevitable, and probably near. I also have no interest in returning to swimming. Maybe the dream is a reminder not to get caught up in my own obsession with performance. Life is short, after all, and time devoted to competition is time wasted not enjoying oneself.

It’s also a reminder that I’m given the option to have fun. I can take the opportunity or make exercise something burdensome. Why not take advantage of that opportunity and smile?

Pre-Marathon Day

Tomorrow is the marathon I’ve been training for through all of 2023: the Saint Louis GO! Marathon.

The training cycle was perfectly imperfect. I liken it to a work of art that has what appears to be a major flaw; ironically it is the flaw that renders it beautiful. The Sistine chapel draws attention because it’s bent. I realize that my own marathon is not comparable to the Sistine chapel. What I mean to say is that the flaws that initially appeared to be major detriments actually ended up helping the bigger picture.

The cycle began shortly after a collarbone break and ended with a face laceration that required stitches. Through the training plan, though, I somehow managed to complete every single run that was listed on my plan. I only missed a run the first week, when my collarbone was still in too much pain to jog. It almost seems ironic that my legs have never felt healthier and I’ve simultaneously never endured more random accidents.

Time showed that the setbacks helped spur motivation. I gained as much from the difficult moments as I did from the “good days.”

On my last group run, which was one week before the marathon, I found myself running uphill through a neighborhood, completely alone. It was shortly after dawn and the sun’s glare was nearly blinding.

I focused my eyes for an instant on the sidewalk beneath me, which was often crooked, broken, and holed. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t roll an ankle. And in that instant I felt something stab me beneath my left eye. I knew immediately the stab wasn’t good.

A few seconds later I realized that I’d been stabbed by a low-hanging and jagged tree-branch. I knew it was bad, but was unsure how bad.

I completed the run, sat in the car, and removed my sunglasses. As I did so, a river of blood poured down my left eye. The stab cut me open just beneath the eye. I knew immediately that the cut would require stitches.

I drove to a nearby Total Access Urgent Care, where a nurse cleaned the wound with saline and stitched it up. The cut ran deep; I could tell that both from the saline’s burn and from my own reflection.

How on earth does one get stabbed by a hanging tree branch? I don’t know, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

It’s important to remember that it could always be worse. I was told that if the tree branch managed to hit the eye, just half an inch higher, I’d likely have lost the eye entirely.

It almost seemed like a fitting closure that my first long run began immediately after healing a collarbone break that resulted from a fallen tree stump, and my last run ended immediately after getting stabbed in the face by a tree.

It seems tree branches and stumps are something to be conscious of going forward.

I’m fine, and this week’s runs felt as I wanted them to. Tomorrow is the marathon. I had my stitches removed this morning, just in time. My legs are fresh and the wound on my face is closed.

Tomorrow I’ll embark on a 26.2 mile run for the first time. To be honest, I’m not nervous: I think it’ll be a good experience.

If there’s one thing my life has prepared me for, it’s to embrace imperfection. I think it’s in an endurance athlete’s nature, or at least the nature of most endurance athletes, to want control over every variable. I learned a long time ago that this is impossible. We aren’t robots, though we want to install ourselves with perfect programming. Our minds are fallible and our bodies are asymmetrical. It’s only through the embrace of the imperfect that we can attain some semblance of peace of mind.

Though this training cycle began and ended with some rare injuries, I believe my run tomorrow will begin and end with a smile.

Revisiting a Stream

Yesterday evening I found myself revisiting a random assemblage of childhood memories. They arrived with no real theme or anything to tie them together. They had no reason to present themselves at all, really. I must have unwittingly removed a filter that hid them.

One such memory was of lounging at a neighborhood swimming pool on a peak summer day and eating pizza (I was about 12), while swatting away the North Carolina horseflies. Another was of a final high school trip to a comedy club with my classmates after graduation. It was the last time I ever saw many of them.

I often think that as years pass, there becomes less and less to tie me to my own memories. Cells change, die, and are replaced. I am less of who I was yesterday than who I was ten minutes ago, never mind ten years ago. And the person 20 years ago who experienced these events now seems to exist only in these fragmented scenes that sometimes play, in kaleidoscopic fashion, in my mind.

I think that as nostalgic as I can be for the naivety of adolescence, even returning to these places I once lived would not elicit the same feelings. Rick Rubin describes it in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being like this: you cannot really cross the same stream twice because the water is always different. Similarly, the place is different, the people are different, and I am different.

These thoughts lead me to believe that it would be nice if our minds could absorb every minute of every scene we experience, and maintain that memory permanently. But the mind has limited RAM; it lets go of things that it arguably shouldn’t. As the mind ages, it does the opposite of what we wish: it loses much of the past when we wish to maintain all of it. And the older the memory, the weaker the circuitry in the program that is the self. We need photos or videos to evoke the feelings we had, and even then we can only experience some diluted version of the memory.

It is tragic, and yet it also heightens the importance of fully absorbing the present moment. Now can only be experienced once.

Monday Idling

I took a morning walk to a nearby Starbucks early Monday morning. Outside was a nice idyllic atmosphere; the sun gilded everything, a few cats were on the hunt, and there was little noise except the chirping of some birds.

There was a surprisingly tranquil vibe inside the Starbucks. Two men were quietly reading their books beside an artificial fireplace with no distractions on their tables. It seemed like a reminder of what used to be, the world before smartphones and white collar cubicle jobs. Or maybe it was a reminder of what Monday could potentially be: a world without hustle culture and the “quest for the best.” What a nice way to start a Monday, I thought. In fact if everyone started their Monday by reading in a coffee shop, I’d bet we’d have far fewer issues.

I sat, sipped an espresso, and reflected on my dreams the night before. All seemed still for awhile.

There was no stress in the coffee shop. Stress is very visible and its presence is like a powerful electromagnetic field; you just know when it’s in the air. It’s written on every line, on every face, of the hustlers and botherers of the world: those politicians, pushers, managers, and marketers who never seem to stop prescribing things for you. Yet chronic stress is prescribed in their anti-anxiety meds. Ironically, stress is the harbinger of death. Yet hustle culture says it’s okay to be chronically stressed, because you have to “work for performance.” The only way to espouse this message convincingly is to convince the employee that he or she may somehow live forever. This hoodwink comes in the form of false promises of “security” and “retirement packages.” Indeed, “life security” seems to be the modern world’s version of promises “eternity in heaven.”

No rush hour, no drive-through, no engorging crappy processed food on the way to the office, no 7 am emails. Yes, this Starbucks trip was a glimpse of a better world. Ironic that it occurred in a corporate chain, but still a nice experience.

I approve the routine of these two men who took the time to read their books on Monday morning.

I felt some of the fatigue in my own legs on the walk back. This fatigue was from the 30 miles of running I did over Saturday and Sunday, finally settling in.

The experience made me decide that after this marathon, I’ll do a lot of idling before starting my runs and bike rides again. As far as hustling goes… “I’d rather not.”

The Great Keynesian Error

In 1930, famous economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we would eventually have a 15-hour work week. Technology would become so efficient at generating GDP and wealth, he believed, that we simply would no longer need to do much. Our machines would do most tasks for us.

What a horrible miscalculation that proved to be!

Fast forward to 2023. One recent study found that 41% of Americans in “white collar” professions reported feeling extreme stress and burnout.

It’s estimated that more than half of American workers do not have the time to take a proper lunch.

Another estimated 31% of American workers are working on weekends.

Americans are leaving millions of unused vacation hours behind every year.

Indeed, Americans self-report being overworked, overstressed, and underslept. And these are all contributors to obesity, anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular disease. A lack of sleep is believed to play an especially significant factor in cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

There’s a recent award-winning film titled Everything Everwhere All At Once. I can’t help but think that this aptly describes the mindset of our modern hustle culture. “I have to do everything and be everywhere, all at once, in order to be successful.”

That is a chase that ends with a decrepit body, a cabinet of meds, and a retirement package to pay for your nurses during your final years spent in inertia.

True bravery means going against the grain. I don’t applaud those who “work overtime” for the sake of a good performance review. That’s just running with the herd. I respect the person willing to slow things down and prioritize himself or herself in spite of the nagging botherers of the world who call this “slacking.”

It seems too often, in my opinion, that the quest for self-optimization is a quest to be what is essentially a soulless machine. It is why we surround ourselves with increasingly more machines: we yearn to be them. The chase for the best nutritional supplements and skincare products, the constant seeking of better pay and better fitness via gyms and watches… one would think we’d have evolved into an entirely new species from all of this chasing. And yet we’re arguably less healthy than ever, thanks to this modern religion that is “hustle culture.”

Keynes was wrong primarily because he didn’t account for the human tendency to always want more. Coupled with the Protestant work ethic espoused by corporate white collar management, this means that self-improvement can only mean finding the capability of doing more in what little time you have. What place does self-satisfaction have in hustle culture? The answer is none.

The ultimate irony is that the more you try to do, the more life you lose. Time ironically slows dramatically, and therefore becomes more favorable, when every hour isn’t spent cranking out standard operating procedures while frantically checking emails. One of the worst sins of all is ubiquitous: coffee is slurped but not tasted.

In this quest for more, there is a nightmarish eternal ladder climb in which every attempt at the top rung finds one lower than he or she was at the start.

Get some good sleep and enjoy the taste of your coffee, I say.

Navigation

I was at the bus stop at North Hanley station, where I saw an older blind man navigate a narrow and inclined walkway. The walkway had a sharp 90 degree turn and cement sides. He had nothing but his cane for help.

Yet the blind man somehow managed to navigate this walkway unscathed. At the bottom of the walkway, a woman whom I assumed was his wife waited for him. They hugged, and she led him to their vehicle.

I thought in that moment that regardless of any hardships I’d faced before, they still pale in comparison to the battles that millions of others face. I also thought that life’s too short to engage in these sorts of battles alone.

In the blind man’s walk from the metro station, I saw not only the value of companionship, but also the benefit of continuing on for someone else, and the potential added boost of motivation that provides. This sort of benefit clearly makes navigating something that would be seemingly impossible, possible.

Speaking of navigation, it’s common in the post-COVID era to see cars roar through red lights, swerve into oncoming traffic to bypass a slower car, or drive recklessly in various other ways. It’s easy to be upset by this sort of behavior, and indeed these sorts of drivers reek of anxiety and manic depression, which probably permeates to other drivers on the road.

However, the universe is playing a cruel joke on them. By attempting to cut corners, they save no time. They risk life and limb, sure, but they are still bound to a system of traffic flows and employment start times. They still sit in a car motionless, and they lose life from the anxiety of their haste. Their work begins and ends at the same hour, and the tasks completed will be the same. Worse yet, nothing kills a body quite like stress. Their intense accelerations further waste higher amounts of fuel, which they must pay.

They are not gaining time, they’re losing it.

They are still white rabbits in the end, rushing for a date, and still therefore slaves to the red queen.

One of the ultimately ironies in life is that those who rush tend to waste the largest amounts of life.

Footprints in the Snow

It has snowed twice in Saint Louis over the past ten days.

The first time, five inches were expected, but the clouds only delivered a light powdering over the streets coupled with some ice. I ordered some Yaktrax that were delivered the day before the storm and wore them for a morning run. The Yaktrax allowed good traction and I was never close to slipping.

As I darted back and forth along the Riverfront Greenway, I noted the tracks that my footprints left behind in the snow. These markers signify that someone ran through the inclement weather, though they’ll also melt and disappear in a day’s time.

Time will eventually erase my footprints, as it does all things.

I had abandoned most, if not all, of the athletic footprints I’ve left behind. As an elite level swimmer I won hundreds of medals and trophies, some of them at the NCAA, national, and international level. I also lost most of them, if not all of them. My reasoning for tossing them is that I never felt it’s healthy to cling to something in the past. I want to constantly be forging ahead, and I aim to direct my thoughts more on what’s next than on archived text.

I’m actually keeping some of my latest running medals though. Last weekend I ran a personal best 15k, and within the race I had a personal best 5k and 10k. Improvement is fun at any age; it’s also possible at any age, though not in any activity.

Now that I’m more than 15 years removed from swimming, I see how memories and times steadily fade. I found myself Googling some of my past accomplishments that I had forgotten. How did I forget that I was voted most valuable swimmer after my freshman year of college? I think I forgot about that within a year of finishing school. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but it’s interesting that it happened. I see now that having a visible signifier of some of these things may keep them in my memory longer, and without memory we have no identity.

I recall visiting my old college coach in 2015. My final record (for an 800 yard freestyle relay) had just been broken; it had stood on a wall of my old collegiate swimming pool for more than seven years. At the time it was an American and NCAA record. He had the record in his office, a long strip of cardboard that was previously affixed to the pool record board. He gave the cardboard strip to me. I’ve since lost it and wish I hadn’t.

The cynic in me may say that a medal is nothing but a chunk of material to be ultimately tossed by someone else when I’m permanently gone. Everything that remains after I’m gone, in fact, would be a heap of donations and disposal for those who are left behind. There is some truth to this.

However, the optimist says that a medal is a footprint left in the snow, and by maintaining it the snow may melt a bit slower. It’s true that the footprint will fade, but I might as well cherish it while it remains. One doesn’t need to obsess over something to cherish it. The trash heap can wait a few more decades.

Our footprints in the snow are nice reminders of great adventures.

Welcome to the Hustle

PC powered on immediately upon returning from a morning run. VPN connected. An onslaught of unanswered emails. Microsoft Teams messages requesting answers to urgent questions. Everything is pressing, everything is dire. The careerists will rest when they’re dead, and if their sleep is any indication, that may sadly happen sooner than they’d like.

I prepare a smoothie and a coffee. In those minutes spent preparing breakfast, the emails continue piling. Performance is on the line. Schedules must be finalized. People must have answers.

I sip my coffee slowly and read a little Orwell. I mute the abrasive Microsoft Teams sounds. Peace is my preference.

The screens glow, but it is nothing like the soft and soothing incandescence of a firefly at night. It is an intrusive glow, a glow that disrupts rest and shortens breath, a glow that sends the blood pressure steadily up. It is an artificial light from an artificial app, rife with artificial messages that are plagued with artificial pleasantries.

There is no empathy for my own personal interests in this screen-plagued environment. I am a cog in the wheel. Should I break, another cog will quickly replace me. I am one bullet point in a list, somewhere in a section within a procedure. My replacement would likely be bought at a cheaper price. If I exercise routinely or eat well, the other cogs scoff; they are content to just sit, log in, turn the wheel, and be careerists. They don’t prioritize movement, long meals, sunshine, or conversation. They prioritize work.

Health is nothing in the eyes of the false idol that is careerism. This false idol demands you sit, obey, and devote yourself at the altar of the corporate ladder. If you are not a team member, by golly you must be selfish.

The adherents to careerism answer emails well into the evening hours. They do not read a bible before bed; they check emails. They do not take a walk through the park unless they can multitask it with conference calls. They do not see meals as festivities; they seem them as necessary acts of binging that could potentially impede productivity.

I ignore my messages for a few minutes and take a walk outside; it’s 9:00 am. Patience is not a virtue in this place; it’s an interference. You need goals, I’m told. I have a goal though: to enjoy my day. The sun still shines outside. Microsoft Teams will be obsoleted long before the sun collapses. A mere hundred years from now, most career roles will be obsoleted and their participants likely buried. Yet trees will still grow at that time. Birds will still lay nests. The earth will continue its revolutions around the sun, and careerism will have not even managed a blip on the radar of the universe.

I salute you, quiet quitters.

Healing Bones

I had my followup visit to the Orthopedic this week. I’m in what I would consider the “later stages” of healing a broken collarbone.

I was told that the bone is about 80% healed. The x-rays still show some hairline fractures that need to close, but the actual break is callused and together. There is some pain, and still some range of motion to restore, but the trajectory is positive.

I’m continuing with another six weeks of physical therapy (two times per week, one hour per session). I’ll also continue with my at-home exercises. I anticipate feeling near 100% within a few weeks.

I’ve realized over the past two months one brutality of civilization: it doesn’t wait for a broken bone to heal. The work doesn’t stop, nor do the chores or daily obligations. The journey towards reclaiming your health can be a lonely one: no one fully understands your battle as you do.

I may participate in a group run, for example, but no one else would realize that a cold gust of wind can penetrate my bone and cause deep pain. Nor would they know that I spent the previous 8 weeks just trying to make my right arm operational.

It is the same with the little struggles I’ve had. It was more than a month before I could physically tie my own shoes, drive a car, and lift an object over my head. Putting on clothes was a struggle, as was showering. It’s amazing just how much you can lose when just one bone breaks.

That’s how it should be though. That’s life. We have things to shoulder and always will. If everyone and everything around me stopped because I was in pain, there would be no obstacle to overcome, and therefore no triumphant feeling when the journey out of pain is finally complete.

Sometimes the only option is to embrace the maelstrom.

Die to Live

Yesterday evening I cleaned one of my two bicycles. The endeavor was painful because one of my arms is both weak and injured. I live in an apartment and use Muc-Off products to make the bike shine and glisten. I then topped off the tires with sealant (I ride tubeless) and oiled the chain with dry lube.

I am preparing myself mentally to ride the bike again, though I am still far from fully healing after my collarbone break.

I woke early this morning and ran for about an hour and fifteen minutes at an easy pace. I then did an hour of strength training with resistance bands (mostly lower body excercises such as banded squats) and foam rolled to promote mobility.

By the end of all these activities I found myself pretty languished, and my work day hadn’t started. Dawn barely broke. I find myself pushing forward regardless. I am preparing for a marathon.

Why do we endurance athlete types push ourselves to such long distances, day in and day out? Well, I have a theory: over the course of our lives, we accumulate a hefty weight of baggage, which we have to carry around with us in our daily affairs. The added weight worsens the already-debilitating effects of gravity. Some of us have accumulated so much baggage that we barely know what resides beneath the layers.

So we find a challenging activity like running or cycling, and in the back of our mind we want to see “just how far we can go.” Fatigue accumulates, mile by mile, and the layers of baggage seem to fall off, chunk by chunk. And maybe what’s left on the long run is who we truly are. Or maybe what lies beneath is the answer to a question we didn’t realize needed asking.

The question is, “What do I need to do?”

And the answer is, “Live.”

And in a nutshell, it’s our way of dying a little to live a little.

Happiness, Pain, and Destruction

We’re on the cusp of the curtain call for 2022.

I spent last night reading some of George Orwell’s old journals and letters (he was a prolific writer even outside of his novels). In one entry he wrote of the inevitability of experiencing happiness, pain, and destruction in one’s life.

2022 was, personally, a great year that certainly included a plethora of happiness, a cocktail of pain, and glimpses of destruction.

Happiness:

1. Hiking through Yellowstone and exploring mountain ranges outside Bozeman, Montana.

2. Attending weddings in Ohio and North Caroline, for a cousin and a friend, respectively.

3. Bikepacking along the east coast of the United States for hundreds of miles and camping in nature.

4. Exploring the San Diego, California beaches and city.

5. Completing my first (and second) half-marathon.

6. Visiting family in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and observing the insanely large numbers of iguanas in the area.

7. Exploring Northern California, particularly Sonoma County and San Francisco, seeing the various geographies including valleys, forests, and beaches, and drinking some of the best wines I’ve ever tasted.

8. Hiking through Shawnee National Forest and lodging in a cabin nicely tucked away from civilization.

9. Celebrating three years of a relationship.

Whew! All that in one year!?

I had one pain that was more obvious than all others, and it was physical. I began 2022 the same way I ended it: in physical therapy. In January I was finishing physical therapy for a damaged foot after being hit by a car in 2021.

Then, in early November I broke my collarbone in a cycling crash. I’m therefore closing 2022 in physical therapy as well (but this time I have already returned to running and most activities). I do not want this to be an annual December activity!

It’s a shame that both injuries occurred on a bicycle, but it’s a reality that I must accept. Your pain is a lonely endeavor, and the relationship between you and your pain is perfectly monogamous. Pain devotes itself solely to you, and like any relationship, only you can grasp the entirety of its severity.

I’d write that the good thing about pain is that it inevitably goes away, but this would be a lie. Various pains linger on, and some pains only gradually worsen. Orwell, for example, contracted tuberculosis, and his final years alive were spent in gradually worsening pain.

My point from writing this is not to horrify, but to note that pain shouldn’t be feared, but rather accepted as inevitable.

And what about destruction? One of my uncles passed away, which was another reminder of my own mortality. We tend to put the “ass” in “assume” by assuming that our lives will be long, but the sad fact is that many of us go too soon. What awaits on the other side I won’t delve into here. I will only note that we have no choice but to pass eventually.

If we fear the future it breeds anxiety. We should just accept it so that we can focus on today.

And that quick summary of some happiness, pain, and destruction closes 2022, dear reader. I’ve kept my online journal going for more than two years and intend to continue in 2023.

Hopefully next year brings a plethora of happiness and a minimal amount of pain and destruction for the both of us! On to the next adventure…

Loss Aversion

We hate what we lose more than we love what we win.

This generalization of the human mind has been proven on a neurological level. Through evolution, our neurotransmitters have become wired so that the hatred of losing outweighs the love of winning. This was pivotal thousands of years ago in preserving our species. If dwelling in a cave, you must protect your very finite resources, which is far more important than risking limbs for another banana.

I find myself spending upwards of one hour each day rehabilitating my broken collarbone. I have physical therapy twice each week. Whatever exercises are assigned to me to complete at home are completed both in the morning and at night. I find myself obsessed with getting something back that I once had. The thought of losing complete mobility is unacceptable.

I do not think it’s the thought of winning anything that motivates me. I think it’s the fear of losing the complete mobility I once had in my right arm. I do feel confident that at some point, the mobility will return.

On my first day of physical therapy, my arm could not rise to a 90 degree angle. Currently it is comfortably rising to 145 degrees. So, it’s getting better. The difference isn’t tangible in days, but it is in weeks.

In truth, “100%” is a constantly changing target, which makes it difficult to gauge in the first place. Regardless of how well things heal, my 100% at age 37 will be different from my 100% at age 16. Biologically, I am different. My 100% at age 60 will likewise be different. It may not be better or worse: it will just yield different results.

A blizzard is creeping towards Saint Louis. With it, the temperature will be 0 F (-17 C). Winds will lash city concrete, brick, mortar, and metal at upwards of 30 mph (48 mph). With the windchill, it will be as cold as -25 F (-32 C).

My logical brain tells me to stay inside and avoid frostbite. My risk appetite makes me want to brave the streets and to take the risk, in order to prevent a loss of running fitness. The solution, maybe, is somewhere in the middle of two extremes.

Losing hurts, and I’ve lost many times in 37 years. I think of those losses still, though I don’t obsess over them. The past is already written after all, whereas the future is a blank page. For example, I almost won the NCAAs in 2008 in the 200 yard freestyle, but I was passed in the final yards. For many it was my defining race, something to cherish; after all, I was faster than American-record pace at the halfway mark. When my mind replays this race, though, it doesn’t think back on it as fondly: it searches for ways that I could have won. Loss aversion even affects memories. The blessing here is that I have always had a motivating memory to keep me moving.

I will continue to lose: it is a part of life. Losing is not dying though, as my continued existence has proven. Maybe it’s just a lesson to value what we still have and enjoy it. Maybe it’s a motivational tool to just keep going after a difficult loss. Losing often propels us forward.

If we don’t finish our first attempt at a marathon, for example, we’ll need something to get back up and reattempt the run. The hatred of having failed must be enough to make us want to try again.

And it’s always worthwhile to get back up.