Given my recent return to two great traditions - watching the knockout rounds of the UEFA Champions League and running around the dirty river until my next injury - I thought I would check out this post from almost exactly three years ago. The post looks at a specific detail that applies to each of the above in its own way - the effect of starting in broad daylight, then finishing in the darkness of night. From a technical perspective, the post was far from my best work. The overall concept is fine, and I enjoyed rereading some of my own writing (that footnote!). However, I think the post should have been either half or twice its final length.
The point of the post, I suppose, was that winning is partly a function of confronting the darkness of a possible defeat, and that the path to victory means knowing how to carry the fear of failure throughout the journey. I could have explained that message in half the words. The undercurrent of the post is that in some ways this lesson is applicable to running, and possibly even life - to run well becomes possible only by embracing the reality of injury or decline, just as to live well is enabled in part by accepting the finite limits of a mortal life such that we can accept the suffering which eventually finds us all. The reason I raise doubling the length as an option is that in order to properly expose and explore that undercurrent, I would have needed to cover additional territory in the post.
Considering this notion that I should have either halved or doubled the original post, I suppose I must consider an all-too familiar question - what would have been the point? I guess at some level we should always keep in mind that the important thing is to make the best of it, whether it be in the context of a post or some other sense of the expression. But there is an issue in that making the best of the post likely wouldn't have accomplished much, for all I said was in some ways just restating the same old thing, this sentiment demonstrated by the endless clichés - life is short, embrace mindfulness, be bold, have a full heart, the circle of life, blah blah blah. So I guess the question is whether there was, or is, any value in adding to the bloated literature on the topic, even if framed within the relatively unusual combination of two mundane interests - soccer tournaments and jogging around like a pompous two-city slicker. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp once pointed out that soccer is "the most important, least important thing" and maybe I can reframe this for us runners - running is "the least important, most important thing".
But I've already said the important thing - maybe even "the most important, most important thing" - which is of course to make the best of it, to the fullest extent that anyone can do such a thing. You should always make the best of it, whether it be a post or a life. We don't need those clichés from above to know that this is an obvious point to almost everyone, but maybe those clichés suggest the necessity of regular reinforcement. After all, it does seem like most of our time is spent closer to the least important than the most important, and this observation suggests that we routinely fall somewhere short of making the best of it. I reveal the same problem when I talk or even write about my life, going on as I do about "the most important, least important things". There is truth in the matter - I look forward to soccer games involving players that have never heard of me, then I go out for a run after lunch so that I come home in time to miss dinner. If I write honestly then I don't dig too much into "the most important, most important things", for I've successfully distracted myself with so much other nonsense, which is another way of saying that I'm not much different from most people.
I guess I'm left to wonder if I'm missing something. If this approach is so commonplace then maybe it's actually the best way, or at least the most appropriate way, for people to approach the important things. Maybe this is what I tried to write about three years ago. When I watch Liverpool fall behind in a match, I know they must confront the grim reality of elimination, but what happens next might have more to say about my life than it does about a soccer game. When it comes to the topic of falling short, it's easier for most people to talk about it through a filter like a soccer tournament or a favorite movie or some pop song or whatever, anything but specifics from their own life - the time they lost that job, or were rejected by that program, or realized that the doctors had tried everything. Perhaps the drawback of using those specifics is that we are simply too close to the situation and therefore cannot step back to see the full picture. The advantage of seeing it through a filter is that we see why the way we carry ourselves matters even if it doesn't work out in the end. I know as a soccer fan that nothing is worse than watching a team give up before the end of the game, and who makes movies about a protagonist who won't try? I think there is always an option, however trivial it may seem in the moment, for how to carry ourselves in the face of terrible luck or in the aftermath of an unspeakable loss - in the reality of the most difficult moment, if we resolve to embrace the situation, then there is a new chance to make the best of it.
When the streetlights begin flickering along Mass Ave, I often recognize the first signs of fatigue in my mind and body. I remember certain evenings when I had run so far off the path that I could feel the panic start simmering, deep down in my gut, as the familiar ceded territory to the endless darkness. There is no such nonsense as a "runner's high" in these moments, just fear and tension and the fact that tripping at the wrong time could mean the end in so many senses of the word. I have to remind myself that making it home in these moments always comes down focus - if I can sharpen my senses so that each step moves me in the right direction, I give myself a chance to meet the challenge. I think the experience of these late, long runs has informed much of my approach to the other challenges of living that full life. It isn't so much about confronting or even accepting the reality of inevitable misfortunes, but more so about understanding the stakes when the reality is making itself comfortable on your couch. Do you hide in the closet or offer it a drink? There might not be a good answer, but I think the most important thing about life is to make the best of it, each situation ultimately demanding the same focus of putting one foot in front of the other, because I don't know any other way to make it home.
