I write now to better understand myself and the world.
And don’t write much for one who understands so little.
You can see the problem.
In the final analysis – which this might not be – understanding oneself is what all that running was about.
Smarter runners often recognize this phenomenon much earlier. – JDW
By Timothy M. Tays, Ph.D.
Even as long ago as 1983, the world of road racing was flat, meaning that anyone could join in almost any race and compete against the best distance runners in the world. The East Coast offered more important races and more often than the Midwest did, so I sold my motorcycle and crammed everything I owned into my 1978 Honda Civic.
Soon I ran through Fort Myer at Arlington National Cemetery on my way to what today is called Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Back then, I could still run beneath the flight path, the airliners loud enough to tear my eardrums and so low that it seemed as though I could hit them with a chunked rock. Of course, that was before the terrorists took that experience away from us. Then, I’d run onto the bike trails and towpaths of DC, out into Georgetown, and down The Exorcist steps, all while looping The Police’s “I’ll Be Watching You” in my head.
Who watched me? Aloneness was my Achilles’ heel. One of my solutions was to run faster so that I couldn’t be ignored, and I expected to draw people to me. Although I was a running machine, I was never as fast as I wanted to be. Looking back, I worried that if I didn’t run fast enough, people would remain indifferent to me, and I wouldn’t matter. Why did I need a witness to my performance, to my existence? Why did I need to gain others’ approbation to feel that I mattered?
Clearly, I’d simply sublimated this need into distance running, and my drive was unrelenting. When I didn’t run, I felt empty and sad. My life felt meaningless. I feared I’d leave no mark. So, I wanted to beat all the best runners currently alive on the planet and every person who had ever existed in recorded human history. Then, I assumed at twenty-three, people would pay attention and be attracted to me.
Running is so primal. I imagine an ancient ancestor running down a gazelle and dragging it back to the village. A crowd greets the returning hero; he will, of course, get the largest portion of meat and the most voluptuous female. The villagers will all obtain protein because of him and survive to create another generation. Humanity will continue on. Ancient skills are not as obviously necessary today, so we sublimate them into sports, but they still sometimes feel as important as meat. We fight over sports. People have died.
But as a very young man, I still wanted others to value me based on how fast I could run. The more others valued my speed, the more valuable I was, and the more secure I felt to meet my own needs. If I could only be the GOAT, Greatest of All Time, like Kenenisa Bekele arguably is, then I’d be good enough. And yeah, I understand most people have never even heard of Kenenisa Bekele. So now I get it: distance running was just my thing.
See, I viewed life as if through a toilet-paper tube, and what I saw through it were distance runners. I erroneously concluded that whatever I saw through that tube should be as important to everyone else as it was to me. Making it even worse was that I thought that what I saw through that tube was pretty much all there was to see, or at least all there was to see that actually mattered.
Jeez, I was so self-centered. Still am sometimes. In that way, at least, I’m normal. But I obviously didn’t know this at the time.
No, at the time, toilet-paper tubes were more meaningful to me as something I’d cut a small hole in, cover it with aluminum foil, punch tiny holes in the foil, and use it as a pipe for smoking weed because I was too cheap to buy a real pipe. I was merely a broke wannabe distance god who waited tables to pay the bills and took his best shot on the roads.
I don’t know if I should say this, but I don’t think that I regret any of it. In fact, I’m sure that I don’t.
Timothy M. Tays is a clinical psychologist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona, and author of Wannabe Distance God, and The Chameleon Complex, available at online booksellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
That is my plug, not the doctor’s.
And he had absolutely nothing to do with this musical accompaniment.
And another treat, this time from my childhood.