Of course it was painful, and there are times when, emotionally, I just want to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren’t involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the marathon or triathlon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It’s precisely because of the pain, because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive- or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awaking to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.

Haruki Murakami

It’s actually more to it than this, but Murakami’s line is a good place to start. I don’t run because it is painful. But I do run because it is painful. I do it to transcend the pain. To experience something richer, more robust than the pain. Pain is just the barrier between me and that experience, which is amazing. Sometimes. And sometimes it just kicks you in the ass, no matter how much you try to shape it.  

But yes. The fluidity within action itself is almost always present.

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  1. amandarust posted this

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