A fictive character of mine, newspaperman Ben Starwick, weighs in on some human costs of “18.3,” (http://www.economist.com/node/17957107). Overheard in conversation with a pal, our narrator Luke DeSoto:
“You don’t know the half of it, pal.” His dark brown eyes locked on to me.
“Guys in this shop, you just got to sort them out. My advice to you is to not be bamboozled. Not to say that this is easy, particularly when you’re working for what’s seen as God’s gift to the public good.” He jabbed his fork toward an Upfront a few tables away, a tall drink of water of a Page One editor, who’d helped make the careers of a half-dozen Ivys, even the overnight star, Foster V. Boston, the environmental reporter, who was sitting next to him. Across from the Upfront was Boston’s girlfriend, a slim brunette from Making Markets.
“I know what you see on the page, the work that this guy does,” he said, pointing to Boston. “One look and I can tell ya, size them up. He’s got that girl, see, the figure of a damp log. For all his talent, she’s a waste, a frightful drag on him. Still, he holds out such hope for her. Meanwhile, he’s working, but also frantically pulling at strings, trying to keep himself in the air above the land that holds him down, so much of what is wrong about his life touched by a frantic need to make contact while making no contact. A man who gives but resents each moment, in the end a tireless gossip, the people he holds in ill-regard nothing but shadows in his uncertain mirror. Don’t be fooled by these people, bye. It’s too great a temptation to wish more for them. They could be so much larger, wiser. But don’t do it. Let it be. Don’t train the telescope outside but inside. I’m a big believer in mindfulness, bubba. The whole know-thyself business. You gotta check out this psychologist Ellen Langer, who’s been hammering away for years on the idea that acceptance of stereotypes leads to premature aging. I mean it’s not like we’re all not getting up there. It’s not selfishness but self-perception, which is as different as night and day. Here’s a good one: These veteran hotel maids are in this study group, and they’re doing what maids do the world over, marking time in a job that offers low pay and even lower mortality, and no wonder they tell the study leaders that they have neither the time nor energy to exercise during their long days. Instead, though, they’re informed that the work they do is exercise. And, sure enough, just being told that by an expert and they lose an average of two pounds over the next four weeks. They actually thought, or, to use the active term which in this case is more accurate, were mindful about what they were doing, so rather than daydream through their tasks as people tend to do in menial but physical roles, they pushed the vacuum harder, started, for the first time since their early years on the job, getting to those pesky bits under the bed and in the corners, under the drapes, and as their fitness developed, so did their self-esteem. By being mindful at work, they are doing what Foster V. Boston and his ilk will never be capable of: leading both a richer and a longer life. That is if they can as well as exercise the body, exercise the mind, keep in their head that link between being healthy and mindful, and I don’t mean in the million-seller self-help kind of way but in a way that notices even the smallest changes in themselves and the world around them. Think of it as the beauty that lies at the heart of the simple life. Right?”
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Finally the muscle is less tight. I'm legging it out, at least downhill. Foot-raises under the office desk might have been the trick. Or ramped-up leg stretches, core work that I've never done before. But, like so many guys I know, I'm really no help to myself medically, so secure am I in the belief of this running machine that is my body, as are all bodies, visit http://borntorun.org/ The thaw, I'm certain, is helping. Temperatures in the teens and twenties and my muscles never got the chance to warm as they should, and Feb. 3, when pushed it, tried an eight-miler only days after running ten miles in Washington, ill-advised. Now, I'm in "Thurb"-mode, loping sixes and fours, the occasional threes. Think big run, third-week of March, build to that, in the meantime, it's fifty-nine days and counting.
Next: Running for Your Life: Resolutions
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