Life’s So Fun
photo by arantxa villa
Life’s So Fun
graduate student jake head
Last week, I ran my first and only marathon. To say I ran is an exaggeration, but I crossed the finish line nonetheless. Around mile 14, I thought I reached enlightenment; around mile 17, the ethereal endorphin rush had ended, and I started thinking about the sweet sweet taste of death, and that after this I would not only retire from running, but I would also spend the rest of my waking days scooting around the world like an ensemble member of Wall-e the musical.
Running is miserable. A lot of people will deny this. A lot of people will make you think that it’s virtuous or necessary; that it gets you high: “it’s a free way to get high!” (I prefer traditional methods of intoxication now). I can tell you for certain that running 26 miles and slurping down 6 packets of GU gel does not get you high. It merely makes you feel like you’ve done something that most people cannot.
I think I make myself do these sorts of things because they force me out of my comfortable and dormant life. Every day is monotonous, neither good nor bad. Yet every day there doesn't seem to be a moment to think or rest. I’m a teacher, so my job consists of speaking to 70 17-year-olds a day. I come home and speak to my 3 roommates (who act like 17 year olds) after that. Solitude comes at the price of going for a run; reflection comes at the price of slow and steady pain.
Boo hoo, bitch! So your life is boring, well people are dying everywhere. People are sick. Harbors, bays, and oceans are rising; you dare complain about being bored when suffering is omnipresent and inescapable for others? Pathetic! Run a few laps as punishment.
Yes conscience, you have a point. It is infuriating to hear someone bicker about how bored they are when their life is full of blessings and joy, but I don’t think I’m the only one who deigns to complain about peace. Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors, runs about an hour a day. After he retired from owning a successful bar, he had to find some sort of way to keep himself in-shape and stimulated physically. He’s not the only person I know who puts himself through great physical strain as a way to create peace and meditation. Many of the most centered people I know have an incredibly mundane and miserable hobby. Why is it that we find so much virtue in strife? Murakami makes enough from his writing career to relax all day every day, yet he elects to pound the pavement daily instead of doing something more fun with his time. I imagine all that physical exertion allows him to keep in touch with his creative wells. Out of exhaustion, he can tap into the stores of creative energy that lie dormant within every person. Some people are able to tap into this daily; many enviable people are able to access this ethereal source without much energy, but some of us must swim a mile for it. If cardio is a “cheap high” such as runtok (running Tik Tok) would suggest, and getting high makes you creative, then subsequently it is a cheap and easy way to access creativity, to access that part of humanity which lies under a deep layer of permafrost within our unconscious mind. Pain is the key to knowledge, and in our privileged existences, we must fabricate our own strife in order to create.
MY MAIN POINT (which I always struggle to make concisely) is that running is miserable. Meditation is miserable. Most things that Gwyneth Paltrow deems essential are miserable. But sometimes self-induced misery is the only way people can begin to comprehend themselves and the world they inhabit.
Personally, I am done making myself miserable. Maybe instead I will write or draw or read more. Maybe I will stop consuming so many electrolytes. Instead, I’ll go for a pleasant stroll. Maybe I will pick up tennis. Or perhaps I could sign up for a triathlon (just a small one), or maybe an ultra marathon. Or maybe I can try rucking or maybe I could run another mara… Wait! that would not be very fun Jacob…