I have never feared the things other people most commonly fear. Spiders do not bother me and neither do needles. I am however very scared of mediocrity and complacency, comfort even. Sometimes I have this urgent need to just leave everything behind and go sleep on a hill for the night or howl into the nearest woodland river.
In modern society, we live in a cage with the door right open. Yet not many of us ever leave this place to explore our perceived limitations. We have become lazy. We have drained our existence from strain and toll by creating these heated castles we now occupy, and not many get to experience what their bodies and minds are truly capable of because we are so caught up in how we get our hands on that expensive car we think we need to be happy, but who are we to blame?
We are constantly bombarded with messages saying the path to happiness is lined with luxury, ease and comfort — none of which is perpetuating actual happiness and purpose but instead creates a mass epidemic of depression and disconnection.
Sadly our tendency to take the path of least resistance created a void and we have all these people who are incredibly discontented in their professional and personal lives and in a way that is unprecedented in human history.
Trail running was for me a way to step outside of this construct that we have created and tap into something primal and real. Running a half marathon made me curious. Running a marathon changed my life. Running 50 miles rewired my brain. Running 100 miles reshaped my mind and bent my reality, blasting away any past perceived limitations.
On the latter, common forms of measurements such as time and distance got morphed into an abstract delusion as the continuous movement transcended phycological boundaries, and the further I reached inward, the farther I could run outward.
Comfort is a lie. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
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