Of Contentment

It's been almost 2 weeks since my last run. So I had it in mind that I would run further than I'd ever ran before.

Around mile 5 a remarkable thing happened. A woman passed me. Instinctively, I quickened my pace to try an catch up, but I  caught myself: I was less than half the distance I intended to run. This was a rather fortunate diversion from the pain that was creeping up my calves and into my spleen as I wondered about the circumstances under which one finds contentment.

There is an objective standpoint. That #1 is #1. That there is an absolute yard stick spanning the universe and one can lay alongside to see how one measures. In this sense, I should have put all my might into out running the woman. Sort of like ascending the class rankings in the old school days...

But there is a subjective standpoint which sets conditions from the personal view. That perhaps this woman passing me was running a shorter distance and could thus afford a faster pace. That I had already run 5 miles whereas she might have been starting with fresh legs. That my genes, upbringing, and even cultural disposition had set me at a disadvantage.  Are not these valid qualifiers? That one starting from poverty, to ascend towards the middle classes outweighs the privileged person starting with wealth and debauchery who falls into middle class mediocrity.

To an objectivist, the subjectivist's reasoning sounds like excuses. That one can always rationalize how one's performance is always "not bad". But to the subjectivist, the objectivist is following an artificial standard that exists only in the imagination, or worse, flows in an unending circle with a goal that is always in sight, yet remains always unattainable.


As I came up upon the 7th mile, I passed a young man this time. As soon as I passed him, I noticed his pace quicken. Thump, thump, thump, his paces were never very far behind. And yet, I STILL had a long distance ahead of me...so I kept my pace (perhaps even slowed a little bit) and before I had even finished a lap, he had taken his former place ahead of me.

Thump, thump, thump, I trotted on. The water I had drunk before the start was wearing out and I could feel the air on my throat like chalk rubbing on a sidewalk.

Thump, thump thump. My fingers and arms started to feel the pricks of a thousand needles. Could this be the elusive runner's high? More likely, it was just dehydration.

Somehow, time managed to blink and, one power song later,  I suddenly found myself finished. The voice of Lance Armstrong exclaimed adulations over the headphones of my iPod as I finished my longest recorded run ever. Yes, I was beaten. Twice today. Yet I could still claim triumph.

And once I got home, I swear, you wouldn't believe how good the water tasted. Even if it was a little orange......