Just finished “Born to Run” by Chirstopher McDougall. I found it randomly in a friend’s car and I frantically finished it 10 minutes ago at 3:20 a.m. because I need to return it by this afternoon.
I was interested in reading the book since I started running longer and more consistently this summer. I wanted to learn how to run better and discover the secret behind running the way that the reclusive super running tribe called the Tarahumara in Mexico do it. McDougall discusses how well-equipped our bodies are made for running and how we learned to screw it up in the last few decades when we wore expensive sneakers that only increased our running injuries. He doesn’t go over technique or form in so much detail, although he does go over our anatomy and physique and how it’s evolved to help us run, even outrun, animals.
But the biggest lesson I learned from his book, other than that sneakers hinder your running, is that the key to running is really love and love for life. It sounds so stupid and cheesy but it’s true. I found this true in my own running although I didn’t quite realize it. When I run, it takes me a good ten minutes to calm my mind down. My mind starts to wander a lot and I get easily distracted when I think about how tired I am or the mundane things of life like jobs, dating, who I’m mad at and what not. But when I’m in the present, when I’m in the moment and I focus on how great it is for me to be running, how thankful I am to be healthy, how beautiful nature is when I take in my surroundings and my heart is full of gratitude for God’s blessing in my life, or if I’m praying for others, I feel like I can run forever. Sure nice weather or friendly competition helps, but it’s really just gratitude and love that can help me focus and continuing running.
There was this one time where I was running for almost two hours and although I was tired, I felt this incredible joy and I started laughing. I have never felt anything like that when I was running and thought it must be what it’s like to take drugs. Call it second wind or runner’s high, I feel like the secret to running is really love. When you run solely for pride, competition or to have a firmer butt, running is a chore. When you run for love and gratitude, you can really enjoy running for hours.
Dr. Joe Vigil, a long distance running coach with a Ph.D, two masters, made this discovery after figuring out the science end of it. Vigil has 26 national titles for Adams College’s cross-country program, won National Coach of the Year fourteen times and trained Olympians. McDougall writes, “…Vigil had become convinced that the next leap forward in human endurance would come from a dimension he dreaded getting into: character.Vigil’s notion of character wasn’t toughness. It was compassion. Kindness. Love. ”
To exemplify this point, McDougall recounts the life of a Czech soldier, Emil Zatopek, who “ran with such horrendous form that he looked “as if he’d just been stabbed through the heart.” In the late ’40s, he raced nearly every other week for three years and never lost, going 69-0. In the ‘52 Olympics, he won gold in the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and the marathon, which he ran for the first time in his life. When the Russian Red Army took over Prague, they gave Zatopek a choice to run for them or to clean toilets. Zatopek chose the latter and faded into history.
Zapotek’s accomplishments, humility, character and enthusiasm was unbridled. His competitor, Ron Clarke, had this to say about him: “There is not, and never was, a greater man than Emil Zapotek.” If your opponent can say that about you, then you’ve already won everything.
“At the end of the day sitting in your cubicle, after you’ve been done playing Solitaire and hanging out at Facebook all day, what have you really done? So they’re looking for an authentic work experience.”
The quote is hilarious because it’s true.
Crop Mob. “Trace Ramsey says its popularity is tied to a growing disillusionment among 30-somethings with white-collar careers. He and his peers were taught that manual labor is beneath them. But Ramsey says they’re no longer satisfied with office jobs either.”
Speaking of, I watched a Danish film called “After the Wedding,” which touched upon the question of what we live for. It dealt with quite a few themes such as our mortality, ideals, power, fidelity and love. It was a strangely powerful movie. Of course I cried because they played “untitled” by Sigur Ros in the moving scenes.
Mads Mikkelsen’s role as a manger of an orphanage in India reminded me of unsung heroes of those who quietly dedicate their lives serving the poor, such as the ten aid workers who were killed in Afghanistan.
Why is it so hard for people to handle the truth? I would always rather know the truth than to live in deception and I dislike having to compromise truth to prevent hurting people’s feelings or egos.
For example, I hate vanity sizing because you’re living under the false pretense that your waist is smaller than it actually is. It’s ridiculous that a size 2 is falling off my hips. Just tell me that I’m a size 4 or 6 or 8…I don’t even know what’s right anymore.
What a fascinating movie from the NYAFF. It’s left such a lasting impression on me even though the director himself introduced the movie by saying it got negative reviews in Korea and the sponsors also introduced the film by saying that it almost didn’t make the cut. I went to see it on the fourth of July and it was a packed house that was pretty diverse. Judging by the round of applause at the end of the film, I think a lot of people enjoyed it.
There are many themes which the movie touches upon but the most memorable is its exploration of relationships and intimacy in an overwhelmingly crowded world like Seoul. The main protagonist survives an attempted suicide jump from a bridge over the Han river and ends up on an isolated little island. (It actually exists unbeknown even to most Koreans.)
It inevitably conjures up memories from Tom Hanks’ Castaway but the director, Lee Hey-June, has a knack for creating such poignant or comical moments that keeps the storyline on a deserted island from dragging. He also has a knack for finding humor in sad things and overwhelming joy in the most mundane things. It felt weird to laugh hysterically when the protagonist was crying in anguish, snot dripping and all, over his failures in the real world. Since he has to start from scratch to feed himself, the movie touches upon the theme of work and the satisfaction we get out of it.
But I wouldn’t say this is the main point of the movie; at least for me it wasn’t. While on the island, an internet-addicted woman who holes herself up in the room, observes him through her camera. The two isolated individuals, outcasts from society, make contact. It’s scary, it’s joyous, it’s heart-wrenching and it’s like high school all over again as these two learn to communicate with each other. You laugh so easily and feel so deeply through the most simple words and interactions.
Society, especially in a city like Seoul, can be burdensome and cruel with its expectations. He drowns in them; she floats up when the streets are emptied of people during a civilian defense drill. But can you really be your own island? Perhaps, but you would be robbed of the riches and intimacy of connecting with others when all you have is a virtual world or a volleyball named Wilson.
You should go to http://fuckyeahworldcup.tumblr.com/ for great WC 2010 photos. USA’s last goal that was disallowed in today’s game against Slovenia was the greatest robbery of all time.
I met up with a friend whom I haven’t seen for awhile. She’s a lawyer in the city and lives in a decent high rise in Manhattan. So it depressed me to hear that she’s not happy with her job, which she really worked hard for many years to get. She completely took me by surprise when she told me she would rather make creative stuff like stationery and sell it on Etsy…
Is something different with my generation? (Somewhere between what the media calls the X and Y generation) My friend seemed to think that we’re just itching to do so much more. I wonder if we were given these high expectations that make us so restless until we fulfill another accomplishment on our checklists. Maybe we’re just all spoiled and should suck it up and keep the jobs that make us unhappy.
I went to graduate school to change careers from finance. After every job, I would always hit a plateau where I would feel completely bored and unchallenged by my work. I couldn’t see myself waking up every morning to go to a job I hated. I hated pretending to look busy and getting paid for it. I hated looking at the clock. I hated feeling depressed Sunday nights because the weekend was over. And I hated hearing people complain about their work and I don’t want to be one of those people. I wanted to be happy and do something I love that is meaningful or creative so I jumped into grad school.
Even though I don’t have a job, I can’t regret my decision to go to grad school. At least I had to give myself that chance. I know so many bright people from top schools who are unemployed now and I know it’s more an indication of the economy and about having luck and connections.
But even if I reach the mountaintop, I wonder if it would still be a matter of time before I get disillusioned and unhappy. Over and over again, I hear some of my most successful friends feeling unhappy with their jobs even though they get to help people and travel all over the world on their company’s dime. If they can’t be happy with their dream jobs, what is work exactly supposed to mean for us?
Of course there are those who are completely happy with what they’re doing. I just wonder why some people still can’t be happy with their ideal jobs and if their unhappiness comes from something else.
In the end I realize that work doesn’t define us. Personally, I feel like I have to be great in some way; I think we all do. But it’s not about that at all. I believe we’re all just given different roles and none are better or worse than the other.
I found some quote on a friend’s blog that resonated with me:
I don’t think God said, ‘I have something greater for you to do.’ This life is not greater than the other, but it is different. That is all. For some our Father chooses one, for some He chooses the other, all that matters is that we should be obedient ‘unto all meeting of His wishes.’”
This doesn’t answer anything about getting a job that can make me happy, but just allows myself to be… happy.
As of late, Italians are invading my life in books, food, movies, music and video games. Not sure why this Italian renaissance is coming into my life now but here’s some stuff discovering and rediscovering as of late:
This film was released in 1988 but just watched it this past weekend. It’s an endearing film about …life. When Salvatore’s mom calls him to tell him that a close family friend named Alfredo died, he has a flashback of growing up with this father figure who had introduced him to the world of Italian cinema. It is a delightful film that comes with as many laughs as tearjerkers. Alfredo was a wonderful actor and the boy who played Salvatore was adorable. And it was such a sweet surprise to find that the music was by my favorite movie composer, Ennio Morricone.
Morricone is a musical god to me. I first learned of his music through one of my favorite films, The Mission. The music is absolutely beautiful. One of the scores in that film, Gabriel’s Oboe, was so moving. I felt it perfectly reflected the scene where Gabriel, the Jesuit priest, plays his oboe at the top of the waterfall; the music was heavenly. I also loved how Morricone incorporated local instruments for this movie since it was about the Jesuit priests mission with the Guarani Indians. I posted the video of Gabriel’s Oboe before and will post again; it continues to mesmerize people and elicit so much praise:
After watching some other movies in which Morricone composed the music, I can definitely sense his style. Sometimes I find that the scores in “The Mission”, “Once Upon a Time in the West,” “The Untouchables,” and “El Cinema Paradiso” sound similar to each other.
I loved this book. I chanced upon it while looking at a bookshelf in my boyfriend’s apartment. (It’s his roommate’s, but he’s reading it now.) I felt like I could identify with what the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, was going through when she was having what appeared to be a mid-life crisis. Somehow the stars align and everything falls into place for her to take a year-long journey to Italy, India and Indonesia to detox or find herself.
I have to say her experience in Italy was my favorite part. She made me want to go to Italy again, eat pasta, go to a football game, speak Italian with my hands and eat tons of gelato in between.
Another book that is making me want to eat Italian is “Heat”. I bought it because it was on sale for $6 at The St. Marks Bookshop. (I picked up “Rogue Regime” for the same reason but reading it at the same time is kind of depressing since it’s about the lack of food in North Korea and Heat is all about food.) I’m only about 70 pages into “Heat” but so far it’s been a hilarious account of a cook working at Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo. Of course it’s making me want to visit the restaurant and eat some pasta….despite the account where Batali searched around in the garbage to see if he could find any scraps to cook. Tasty!
Awesome video game about a young Italian nobleman who avenges the death of his father and two brothers. I haven’t actually played it yet but I’ve watched my bf play it and it’s beautiful. It’s set in Florence in the 1600s and the details of the city are nice – from the Duomo to people’s clothes. Your character also gets to scale walls and ride a horse so the viewpoints are nice from those angles as well. I may buy it for my PSP…and I don’t even like role playing games.
Any other favorite Italian restaurants, artists or books I should look at, let me know. Capisci?
Male driver just gets back into the car and drives off as light turns green.
I was pretty pissed. Don’t understand why people can’t take responsibility for their actions and try to blame others for things that were blatantly committed by them. I really wished I could’ve smacked her but I guess it’s not what Jesus would’ve done.
