Month: February 2021

Potentially anything — notes on running and having potential

I’ve been getting into running in the past few weeks. I was starting to run a number of times since last fall, and either it was too cold, or I pushed myself too much, and got exhausted after a minute or two. About a week or so ago, I started running with my phone, and Nike Running Club app, and that’s when I was able to pick up my pace.

The following are my notes after completing the “first run” with NRC. This will not be strictly about running, although as you can see I’m pretty exhilarated by my new discoveries.

I did the “first run” with Nike Running Club app and the “built-in” coach Bennett. Wow, what can I say, it was unexpectedly fantastic. The fantastic part of it being that I could run for twenty minutes without getting out of breath. Although it’s technically not my first run, it still feels like level zero. I ran at the recommended too-easy pace, which ultimately increased my average pace from the one time before when I tracked my run. I didn’t, before. I didn’t want it to feel like a competition yet, I just wanted to enjoy the movement. However, the guidance actually led to better results, and hopefully a better technique in running.

My post-run thoughts, filled with excitement and a bit of pride, were around the word “potential.” How I haven’t felt like I had potential — in anything — in a while. I never thought of myself as someone who would be good at sports. Now, influenced by my morning run, I feel powerful. Able. With potential.

“Not my thing” is being replaced by “I’m actually enjoying it”. And the potential that I’m feeling right now is less about a specific kind of physical achievement, like being able to run a marathon, and much more about potential for enjoying the physical activity. Today’s run was pleasant. It was joyful. It was relaxed. It was — easy, and comfortable.

I missed having potential.

This last sentence stuck with me.

“Potential” is such a young word. The more time you have ahead of you, the less you developed and established yourself in one thing, the more potential you have. As you grow older and gain the eponymous life experience, the more you can feel potential fading away. It develops into skills, or talent, or both, in a few spheres — and drops, naturally, in the rest. You trade your potential for something more tangible, and you cut off some hypothetical roads to build a few real ones.

Whether you feel like you have fully or sufficiently realized your potential in something or not, the sense of having this storage of possibilities is diminishing. Being young, we naturally tap into new territories, because so much is new and so little has already been claimed as ours.

One of, and maybe the biggest appeal of traveling is uncovering fresh potential, venturing out of the constraints of our daily lives and into something else, that could have been ours, if we were born differently or if we wanted to make our home elsewhere. That’s why it’s difficult to endure lockdowns during the pandemic: because our daily activities are limited more than ever before. And even if you’re comfortable with your daily life, there’s less sense of potentiality.

We measure our capacity by seeing new horizons, often by pushing ourself out of the comfort zone, or by being curious about something that hasn’t got our attention before. When we start something new, or see a way to develop a skill or knowledge further, we get excited, it starts getting fun. And eventually, we can think about ourselves in new terms.

I have never thought of myself as “athletic”. Even less so a runner. But when I’m running, that’s what I am — a runner. Whether it’s my first or my fourth run (that I completed a few hours ago). Something that I thought of previously as “not my thing” is becoming a source of joy, energy and some kind of pride for me. This is one of the unexpected places for me where I feel I’m at the starting line (almost too literal to be a metaphor), and have a way ahead of me to look forward to.

Having only recently written about the need to build defences against social narratives, I am aware that I might be sounding now as if I’m preaching for running. In reality: I don’t think everyone should do it; I don’t think I’m even nearly “there yet”, to be talking from a point of view of someone who knows stuff or has achieved anything in running. The only thing that I can claim as an understanding (and hence, an achievement) is the power of potential, and the curiosity about either a completely new activity or interest, or a new cycle of something that you have already claimed as “yours”. It’s important. It’s what makes you feel young and, synonymously, alive.

Posted on by T

Playing with curiosity

I was playing chess today… So that you know, I’m a lousy chess player, I know the rules, but I never could play well, I never think through moves beyond the one I’m making, with its immediate implications. Being one of those people who never play consistently, only for a few months a long time ago as a kid, and then never again for years, I am far from considering myself even an amateur chess player. This is to give you a background into where I am in terms of chess.

I was playing chess today, as something interesting happened. I realized that somewhere along the road my paradigm shifted. Before, I would want to win; even when I thought I wouldn’t be able to, I still would have my mind set on the concept of playing to win. Now, the way I was making my moves, was to see what would come out. How far I can get, how risky I can play it. After all, not every game needs to be won. The one I played today (I lost), was about research and investigation. And — it was a far better game (by “better” I mean more interesting for me) than most of the games I play.

When you approach something with a mindset other than winning/failing, there is less stress, no pressure to win. It’s not your ultimate game of chess. It’s not your ultimate move that defines your life (I’m not talking about chess anymore, but almost anything in life). In a safe environment, it’s better to be grounded in exploration rather than winning. Curiosity is a far interesting field to play.

Posted on by T

Defences against social narratives

There are too many conflicting social narratives that we have to deal with today. We are faced with them, and we have to figure out how not to keep our own head and not get too anxious.

Like, body positivity vs healthy lifestyle. Yes, right, don’t even start telling me they are not opposed. They are, yet they aren’t, and then they still are. I’m a little too tired of how everyone all of a sudden starts parading plus-size models just as a means to get “plus points” in their own image. And right alongside, the pressure from the images of “fitness models”, about how gluten-free, or intuitive eating, or intermittent fasting, is something that you absolutely should do. And of course, written or not, under “this is healthy for you” is also a narrative about “losing the weight”. Until you hit anorexia or bulimia, then it’s bad, and then “keep a positive image of your body”. I think that this starts to be an issue of mental health much earlier than the eating disorders glimpse through. It’s mental health from the very beginning. It’s mental that we have to put extra stress on the plus-size models. It’s mental that we obsess over eating, or not eating. Alarms, news, and a newly sprouted cohort of dieticians. Obesity soars worldwide (and in the U.S., of course). The things we eat now vs the things “we” ate in the Paleolithic age. Oh come on! Ketosis for everyone!

I want to un-read, un-hear and un-know so many things about food, and health, and dieting right now, before my head explodes. Isn’t this the only way to actual health? To not know any of this, but the simple basics: eat everything in moderation, veggies and fruit are good for you; and also, keep active. That’s it. Exercise and a variety of food, most of it plant-based.

How do we stay away from all the news buzz, though? How do we teach ourself not to care about the latest narrative in the media? Or, considering that exposure is inevitable, how do we not let ourselves be impacted by it so much? I want to exercise for the fun of it, or for my own competitive interest, and not out of anxiety of gaining weight. I realized that only when I exercise and get sufficient sleep, I am not sluggish and tired by midday. So here, that’s my only motivation.

Do you want to know what my narrative and agenda is at this time?

  • Nourishing my bonsai tree to health. It shed almost all its leaves in an accident about a month ago, and it‘s infested. I‘m trying to get it back to health, to survive until it gets repotted later this year. It gets a lot of my attention. I like watching it sprout new leaves, and now even some early bloom.
  • Learning languages. There is some external pressure mixed with anxiety and guilt about not speaking the language of the country I live in fluently. But I‘m getting there, I‘m learning.
  • Writing. Writing as a pleasure. As a meditation of sorts. But also, as getting something out and completed. Writing in the blog format has not gotten traction yet. Maybe I should set myself of a schedule, or do another challenge devoted to blog writing. We‘ll see.

A bunch of other things, too. Anyway, I realized, that I don‘t want to be too involved in the narrative of weight and health and body images — positive or negative. Eating — I‘m very interested in eating. But in the delicious side of it, and in making sure that I don‘t overeat because I believe that food should make me happy while I‘m making it, while I‘m eating it, and after I have eaten, too. Politics, I simply just don‘t want to talk about it. Not interested. Not my agenda.

Because we as a generation are getting so much exposed to media in so many forms, I feel we need to build “defence mechanisms”, otherwise we’ll drown in anxiety. And that’s all, folks. My best defence mechanism so far is a notebook and a pen, or keyboard and a simple writing app. Everyone needs their own nook of sanity.

Posted on by T