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| My copy of Zen. If you look closely, you can see the shadow of my phone and hand taking the picture. |
Five years ago this spring, I read Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, which I highly recommend. The 1974 nonfiction book turns a long motorcycle journey undertaken by the author and his son into a meditation on philosophy. Pirsig disagrees with much of conventional Western philosophy, suggesting in its place a metaphysics of "Quality."
I may never have heard of this book were it not for one Larry Merkel, a former St.Xavier High School English teacher (and extremely successful track and cross country coach) who assigned it to my senior year AP English Language class in 2011. It affected me profoundly, and changed the way I look at the world.
But Mr. Merkel didn't just have us read it. After we finished the book, he gave us perhaps the most open-ended writing assignment I've ever received: To write a "response" to the book. He was very flexible--coy, even--about what he meant by that--by design, of course. He wanted us to reproduce in a paper what Zen meant to us. And since the book affects each of its readers differently, he could not possibly have provided the guidelines one would have expected for an ordinary academic paper.
I took this prompt and ran with it--literally. For on page 59 of the book, I scribbled in the margins: "ZEN AND RUNNING?" And when I received Mr. Merkel's prompt, it didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted to write about: Zen and the Art of Running, the eventual title of my essay. I got Merkel's tacit approval when I approached him with that very basic idea, but I still had to write the darn thing. My goal was to crystallize into essay form the way that running--which I had been doing seriously for four years by that point--interacted with and affected my body, my mind, my worldview, and, indeed, my very existence.
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| Pictured: The page from my copy of Zen where the idea where my essay was born. |
The result was the essay below, written mostly in one sitting, and originally posted here. Please read it, and keep reading after you finish (or just skip to when it's over), as I have posted my own thoughts about the thing I wrote 5 years after I wrote it.
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“DRIP DROP DRIP DROP DRIP DROP…”
A steady rain resonates infinitely in the cold midmorning hours. It neither rages itself upon the earth in immense volume, nor gently caresses the earth with appreciated nourishment. No, this particular instance of precipitation has decided to position itself at the terrible middle of these two tolerable extremes—not hard enough for a delightful feeling of accomplishment to be gained simply for having endured it, not light enough to be ignored. Synthesized with typical Cincinnati gray skies, low temperatures, and cold winds, it is enough to give me pause before I engage on my morning run, and so here I stand in my garage, staring intently at a puddle of water in my driveway as it absorbs drop after drop after drop after drop after drop…of water. Wishing to delay the task, I turn to my thoughts, constant and trustworthy allies in my perpetual war against boredom, and let them wander, seeking some respite.
Why do you run? It is on days such as these, especially, when I pose this question to myself, as I imagine all runners do from time to time. Some manage to suppress the interrogation better than I, some worse, but all are plagued by a need and engaged in a search for that sometimes elusive Motivation, from the shuffling walk-joggers to the fittest of marathoners, and everyone in between. Falling somewhere in that spectrum, I continue to ask myself: why do you run? I am rather perturbed and disturbed by the fact that I am unable to come quickly to an answer—my hesitation is a sign of weakness, of a lack of dedication. But who cares anyway? So what if you take a day off…you’ve been working hard lately. Harder than you’ve ever worked before, actually. Maybe you deserve a day off. It’s just one day! You haven’t missed a day in weeks! Surely I would appreciate it. Hey, maybe that’s why the rain and the wind and the temperature are all as they are—the weather gods are giving you a gift. If that’s the case, then who are you to offend the gods? Why not indulge in the honor they have bestowed upon you? Those wonderful meals which you always allow yourself after a run can, in fact, be eaten when you don’t run. They’ll taste just as good. And they’re a lot closer to you than is the completion of this run. All you have to do is tell me to turn around, walk about five steps, open the door, step into your house, the house which invites and beckons you inward with its warmth, comfort, heat, relaxation…and there they are. You can get the rewards of the run…without the run. Why not? Why not do that? It’s so much easier!
But I run for a team, and a damn good one at that. And not only do I run for this team. It also happens to count on me to be a model of accountability, dedication, persistence…all of those traits which separate average runners from the good, good from great, great from excellent, etc. I would not be able to live with myself were I to skip a day, nor would I be able to exhort my teammates to live up to the standards which I set for myself, after having failed to live them out. I can’t skip today. My team needs me. Yeah, but what are you going to do when you don’t run for a team? Sure, you’ve got a track season left with this one, and then four years in college with one…but then what? What will be your “Motivation” when you’re running the roads completely and utterly alone, your only impetus being selfish? Will you then defect to the ranks of the unmotivated, the lazy, and the uninspired? It seems so. After all, you can’t run forever…right? I sure won’t let you. I mean, you have to stop sometime, don’t you? Running is already painful for me, and once you and I get into your 30s, it sure won’t be getting any better, that’s for sure (I’ll make sure of it). What will keep you going through ever increasing amounts of pain, of suffering, of anguish? Through future volleys of snow, wind, and rain? Through days where it’s just, oh, too inconvenient to run, and, gosh, you just don’t have the time? An object at rest tends to stay at rest. Every object in the universe seeks a state of lower energy. It’s simple physics, the way of the universe. How long will you be able to defy the laws of physics? And the pain…over the past year, especially, there’s been pain in every part of me, especially the legs (not to mention our lungs, stomach, arms…)—hips, thighs, knees, shins, calves…I’ve had it all. It sucks. With each new pain, you feared injury. How long can you continue with that anxiety, the fear that, crap, maybe this one is it? It’s torment to you now, as a 17-year-old…what will you think when we’re 30? 40? 50?
My body makes a rather convincing case. It is, after all, the one who must bear the brunt of my masochistic insanities, day in and day out, during runs, after runs…maybe I should listen to it, just for once? The door is right there, closer to me, as it said, than the completion of this run. Should I give in just this once, just this once? What harm could it do? Sure, I’ll miss one day, but I won’t tell anyone, I know that. It will be a secret between myself and my body, and of those two, the latter will certainly be happy about it, so why shouldn’t the former? It’s just one day…and that one day might help me feel better for whatever I run tomorrow. It’s a win-win, right? Right? You’ve got it. Now just turn around, and give me a break, just for once. Just for once. Come on, you know you want to. Please, for both of our sakes. I look toward the door, discern the yellow light leaking from its faintly unhinged perimeter, then the rest of my body, as if on its own, begins to turn itself toward the door…yes, come on, please, just this once…
“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
My wandering thoughts suddenly recall that verse from Scripture. It’s one of my personal favorites. Why, though? Why that particular verse, a mere sentence long in a book full of wisdom? Perhaps it’s the elegant simplicity…the shortness….no, I know why—it’s the context: it was spoken by Jesus while He was praying in the Garden for “this cup to pass from His lips” or something like that. He asked some of the disciples to keep watch, and admonishes them with that line when they fall asleep on the job. Jesus, as Christians are supposed to understand Him, was the only human who was able to bridge that eternal chasm between body and spirit, between who we are and who we want to be, between ambition and perfection….yet even He wanted some relief from the task before Him. He was both God, and man…in the Garden, He showed the man. And we are called to be like Him, who bridged that gap, even though we can never mimic the feat.
Oh come on now, you think you’re Jesus? I’d call that blasphemy if it weren’t so stupid. Come on, the house is warm, and it’s starting to rain harder. All the food you want to eat is in there, so just go in and eat it, okay? I think there’s an unread Wall Street Journal in there also…you can read it. It will be great! I stare at the door, then look back at my driveway, at that puddle to which I had earlier directed my gaze. I could tell by the frequency of the drops in that puddle that my body was right; it was, indeed, raining harder. Yet it had still not reached that ridiculous threshold in which it would become a matter of pride just to be out in that sort of weather. Thus, I am caught between the door and the driveway. One leads to immediate comfort, relaxation, warmth…but also to guilt, imperfection, and indulgence. The other leads to pain, suffering, anguish, wetness…but also to gradual improvement, a feeling of accomplishment, and a profound sense of satisfaction. I can’t get any of those things without the pain, without putting in the miles. If there is a secret to running that is it: there is no secret. The only way to improve is through consistency—and the beautiful simplicity of that truth is too much for some people to handle. They want to believe that there is some magic that keeps us all going every day…but there isn’t. Well, then, what does?
My body is launching a desperate campaign to convince me to turn back. I must defeat its wishes, but first I must answer its question, because, well, I can’t run without it. We have to run as one. What keeps me going every day? It’s the gap between flesh and spirit, between who I am and who I want to be, and my desire to bridge it. But you never will! So why bother? I know I’ll never bridge that gap. But to try is the essence of the human experience, and not just according to Christianity—just look at any religion, philosophy, or even some of our best poetry:
“Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!”
and music:
“I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for”
Running, in my life, is simultaneously one of the best ways to and one of the clearest examples of how I can bridge the gap, to unite my two disparate selves. Limited as I am by the trappings of my humanity—I must experience pain, weather, injury, etc—I can achieve, not despite all of that, but because of it; I can improve, I can satisfy, even if, in the case of the latter, that satisfaction is fleeting. That’s why I have to run every day. Running is a perpetual quest for self-improvement, and it’s only through my interaction between by feet and whatever surface on which they happen to tread that day that I can improve. And since both pain and success are produced by that interaction, pain is a good thing—pain is Quality. Improvement does not exist without suffering; there is no progress without cost. These are truths that transcend running, that speak at once to our greatest hopes and our worst fears—through ambition, I am my own best friend; through limitation, my own worst enemy.
But the faster, the harder I go, the better I become: To discover my limits, to test them, and to burst through them (or “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”)—a process to be repeated ad infinitum. It may not be easy, but, “we do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” as Kennedy put it. An object at rest may indeed tend to remain at rest, but an object in motion tends to stay in motion. That is the half of Newton which my body chooses to ignore, but it is just as—no, it’s more important. I run because I need to, because I have to, and because I want to. What truly makes those post-running meals so delicious is that I have earned them. The best achievements in life are not deserved, but earned.
And so I take one last look at the door, and then step out into the cold, the wind, the rain. It’s terrible…and wonderful. I take a few steps, and then, upon leaving my driveway, I begin. Stride begets stride, pump begets pump, and, soon enough, I am running. Today is probably one of those days where drivers and passersby will look at me and think I’m crazy. Good. I am. I’m also a masochist. But we all are, or, at least, we should be, and I hope I inspire them to join me someday. Struggles should be embraced, not avoided; for it is through these interactions between subject and object that the paths to self-improvement can be found. Through that quest to fuse our actual selves and our ideal selves, we can come ever closer to a dimension of the infinite manifest in the human experience, seeking unity with the rest of mankind, and even the universe at large—the pinnacle of selflessness.
As I run, pain shoots through my body, as if with a vengeance—a vestige of my body’s resistance. It will always be there. So I do not ignore it. I embrace it, bringing it into my being. Throughout this run, I must and do endure often rigorous levels of it to finish. But with each step, I come closer to that ideal self, that better me out there, running somewhere. Maybe he and I will run together someday…someday. But for now, with each bit of anguish, I grimace, and then smile.
Ouch…that’s Quality.
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5 years later, this essay is, most prominently, a time capsule. It takes me back to exactly how I felt when I was a 17-year-old soon-to-graduate high school senior who had spent four years running for a team he grew to love. It well summarizes my experience as a runner up to that point--not so much the pleasures, but more so many of the pains, struggles, and the disappointments of my past. It also points toward some of the anxieties I was having then about the future. I think I had just recently decided where I was going to college (and for whom I would run in college) after many months of typical indecisive agony, but I had no idea what that was going to be like (and could not possibly have predicted the things that I would experience).
It also encapsulates many of the other things I was obsessing over during that time in my life: Tennyson's poem "Ulysses," U2's song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," the "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" passage from Scripture, etc. All of it pointed to a vast existential longing I had at this time, informed by the struggles of my then-recent past and my worries about my future. Caught between both in the present, I had no idea what I wanted to do or to be, and was, as a result, searching for something I didn't quite know. At least, that's how I remember my 17-year-old self.
As for running in the essay: I'm amazed how well my description of the experience of running holds up--for me, anyway. 5 years later, after spending four years running with an entirely different group of people, I still often agonize internally about running when I don't feel like doing it, feel pain in every part of my body, and still sometimes want just to be at the end of a run rather than have to experience the run itself. And, more important, I am still running, though I haven't exactly covered myself in glory lately.
Which brings me to the part of the essay that I found most haunting:
Yeah, but what are you going to do when you don’t run for a team? Sure, you’ve got a track season left with this one, and then four years in college with one…but then what? What will be your “Motivation” when you’re running the roads completely and utterly alone, your only impetus being selfish? Will you then defect to the ranks of the unmotivated, the lazy, and the uninspired? It seems so.
The italics in the essay represent the part of me, my body, that doesn't want to run. And boy did my body have a point here. If anything, these words feel more real to me than when I wrote them; they reach out from the past and mock me in the present. For years, I was telling myself that it wouldn't be harder to run when I was finally team-less, as I am today. It might even be easier! Alas, that was a lie. I am coming up on my first year of coach-free, team-less running, and it has definitely been harder. I've had to design my own workouts, listen to my own body, create my own mileage progressions, and a host of other things that a coach or a team used to do for or with me. To say it has been easy would be to lie.
So how, then does the Motivation I expressed in the story ("To discover my limits, to test them, and to burst through them (or “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”)—a process to be repeated ad infinitum.") hold up? Pretty well, I think. This idea, complemented by my own unique brand of masochism, does indeed form much of the reason I am still running. But here, I would take issue with my past self. For I don't think I tell the whole story.
My essay makes running seem like a transcendent, quasi-religious phenomenon. And yes, it sometimes is that for me (I think, for example, of how much I once perversely enjoyed an 18-mile run in -10 degree-temperatures). But to run just to achieve that often-elusive state is to set oneself up for disappointment. Or at least, it has set me up for disappointment when I have run for it alone. The major flaw of my own essay is to treat running solely as a means to unify with the abstract, the heavenly. But running is at least as important for me as a way to get in touch with the concrete, the earthly. Running makes me sweat, spit, and chafe. It makes me sore and tired. And it reminds me that accomplishing anything requires patience, discipline, and fortitude. As the quote below this poster, which has hung over my bed now in four different bedrooms, reads: "The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it."
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| Some of you may recognize this poster from the Snapchat in which I drew a UFO over the runner. |
Running is too much a part of my being now to give up, which is at least as much part of my motivation now as what I wrote about 5 years ago. Yet my past self still impresses me, and I think my essay retains much capacity to inspire. Perhaps when I become famous, it will achieve a timelessness equal to that of Pirsig's novel. For in my own completely objective, unbiased opinion, one line already has:
"Ouch…that’s Quality."
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