“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to co-operate with the good, that it may prevail,” wrote Helen Keller. Frederick Nietzche wrote, “Become who you are.” He had a fundamental belief that our confrontation with suffering could be the key to a different kind of attitude toward life; “a hammer and instrument with which one can make oneself a new pair of wings”, thus enabling one to become oneself.
Through a variety of life events recently, not least of which is the looming completion of my 50th year on Earth, I’ve had to confront some trauma which I’d accepted as just normal stuff that people experience. In that confrontation, I’ve also had to analyze my relationship with suffering. I know that I’ve not always chosen the easy path in life. It probably started with my choice of parents! But there has definitely been a desire to connect with suffering in my life at conscious and unconscious levels. And mostly, I’ve had a pretty decent life without too much non self-imposed suffering. In an attempt, then to connect with my suffering, I decided to run The Comrades Marathon. It was in that journey that I grew myself a new pair of wings.
Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to discover trail running which has introduced me to levels of suffering I couldn’t have fathomed back in the day when I chose my parents! But all of this suffering has been fun. It’s been fun going to remote and unusual places in South Africa and climbing the highest mountains and enjoying time away with friends. I’ve seen some incredible views and fascinating geomorphological sights. I’ve run close to and in amongst wild animals and I’ve suffered. When you look up and cannot imagine a way up or forward and you’re just terrified of the options and yet you take action and do what is necessary to grow new wings. Those wings take you to places no other people venture. Few other people will ever see. There is a sacredness to some of these places. You are completely aware of the Divine and Eternalness in these places. And most of the time, I am completely alone, confronting my suffering and receiving the almost immediate return on investment. It really is something.
I had begun to believe that I needed the suffering in order to be happy. To exorcise demons that were causing the suffering. But no matter how hard the race was, nor the magnitude of suffering experienced, the suffering just stayed. I reveled in the suffering on races because that suffering momentarily dwarfed the suffering which I seemed to carry around in my head all the time. This all sounds very dramatic. I don’t feel like I’m suffering all the time. I have great joy in my life, I’m just plagued by varying degrees of anxiety and depression which sometimes hang over me like a cloud. And I think I’m close to cracking the code by unpacking these traumas which I spoke about earlier.
I discovered over the past month of trail running that the suffering must contain meaning. I must grow new wings. I’ve also realised that suffering is not an inevitability. One can spend one’s life avoiding the discomfort of suffering. One can choose to never grow new wings. I know people like this and they’re just fine.
It was on a trail run very close to my home that I discovered that the suffering in my head is suffering which needs addressing in order for the wings to grow, but the suffering on my runs is not an inevitability. Running suffering must still be fun. Iron Throne trail run was very fucking hard! And had there been only uphills to views and vultures, it would probably have been really fun. But the downhills were steep, slippery, dangerous and terrifying. And really, I’ve lived these traumas which have made me afraid of failure in so many ways, I really didn’t need my running to also paralyze me with so much fear that I almost longed for death. It just wasn’t worth it. Wings I just didn’t fucking need. So what did I do? I gave up. Not in a suicidal kind of way. In a way that gave me the fun I wanted in my running. I caught the cable car back to the start!! Yes, I had run up to where a cable car had gone! I felt a bit like I’d given up before the suffering was over, but I just wasn’t having fun and really, that’s all I want from running. Fun!
This weekend I had fun. I had fun running a trail run. I had fun with friends. I had fun making new friends like Lisa and Sharon. I saw The Augrabies Falls and the Orange River and quiver trees and many other wonderful things. The suffering was provided by the toe I broke on the Monday leading up to the race and I’m sure I grew wings I needed from that, but truly, Klipspringer 2023 will go down as one of my most fun races. I did Klipspringer 2022 after a bout of COVID, and because I needed the suffering back then, I had entered the Challenge version of the race. I suffered and had a highly mediocre experience, notwithstanding the most spectacular views in the race. It’s so beautiful, however, that I returned this year, initially fully determined to enter the Challenge and do my suffering thing again. But closer to the race and after Iron Throne, I decided to “downgrade” to the Lite version. Any hankerings for suffering were then quelled by my broken toe in the week of the race. The race is challenging and the return on suffering investment immediate, with beautiful views of ancient gorges and boulders and rivers. It really is a most spectacular race, which I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone looking for a little suffering with lots of fun and a hint of the Divine.
It is on the trip home from Klipspringer that I am writing this, completely aware of the work that lies ahead for me to exorcise the demons in my head and there’s a lot of healing required, mainly in my toe and I’m excited for it. A little nervous, but excited to see the new wings that will grow from the suffering, self-imposed as it might be.
Life really is full of suffering and of the overcoming of it.
Yours in the love of running and new wings.
SlowCoach
Slow Coach 