Imagine 10,000 years in the future. Two archaeologists are digging a site, and they find the remains of human bones. They take those remains to the lab, perform tests on them, and try to reconstruct the habits and lifestyle of that human. Say those bones belong to me. They are trying to find out my story, how I lived, what I ate, where I traveled, etc. Once they find all the info they need, they toss it into a museum where they store all other such ancient human remains they find. I was essentially one data point to them in trying to understand how humanity evolved over time. Or I can also call myself a “datum”, the singular form of data, literally one piece of information to solve a bigger puzzle. Honestly, I don’t need 10,000 years to become a datum. I am already a part of several datasets people use these days to study many things. So for that objective learner, I am already a datum. Now let me get to how I got the dumb part of it. I have had an interesting and eventful life so far...
When people get to know I run regularly in mornings, they start saying things like “wow, that’s insane dedication to fitness.” But truth couldn’t be any far from that. Calling me a fitness junkie is like calling me an actual junkie. I never touched substances in my life, and I never really thought of myself as someone who is disciplined enough to exercise every day. When I try to explain this in my trademark mumbling, people get confused and just divert the topic to stuff like weather. This annoys me, and I am internally always like “at least pick a different interesting topic, like formula one”. Sometimes I genuinely wish someone takes interest in me and says “okay, you don’t run for fitness, then why do you run?”. Then I will start explaining the wonderful reason behind why I run by bringing up the story of formula one legend, Niki Lauda.
Niki suffered a horrible crash in the 1976 formula one
season, which saw him almost flirt with death. To say he had a long list of
injuries and scars from that crash was an understatement. His face was
completely disfigured, and the entire incident was just horrific. It would’ve
been completely okay for Niki to call it a day and just spend rest of his life
writing tragic books about how his glorious formula one career ended. Or he could
have made it his life’s aim to ‘hunt’ down all the other drivers who didn’t
agree when he initially proposed cancelling that race, as the conditions were
almost undrivable. He could have chosen either of the paths – one is filled
with sympathy, and the other is filled with revenge. And important fact is that
Niki also didn’t have anything to prove to the world at that point, he was already
the reigning world champion. But when I think about the actual choice he took,
it sends shivers down my spine. 46 days after that terrible race, Niki Lauda
returned to race in Monza grand prix. He was still in pain, all his doctors and
well-wishers advised him against racing, but Niki did what he had to do. He had
to quieten the inner demons in his head, and the only way for him to do that is
by experiencing the wind hit his face while moving at an insanely fast speed in
a four-wheeled automobile designed to test limits of both the machine and human
driving it.
See, I am no Niki Lauda. I probably have like at most 10% of
his mental resilience. But I know a thing or two about those demons inside his
head. They don’t let me stay still, and they don’t let me sleep peacefully. So,
what I do is put on my running shoes every morning in the hopes that I outrun
my demons that day. I am not a masochist to romanticize the pain and suffering
involved in it. Most days when I am struggling on my runs, I hate everything
and everyone. But I still need to get it done.
If I give this explanation to people, they would think I am
insane. Maybe I am, or maybe you don’t get the point, or maybe it’s a little
bit of both. It will only make sense when you stop looking at who I am at this
instant, and think about my life as a whole, since I was a little kid. I grew up
as someone who’s average (and also below average sometimes) across all
dimensions of human life. And I also grew up in an environment filled with
pressure, expectations and hopes. I have experienced the conditional acceptance
one gets when they achieve something nice. I know how lonely and crushing a
failure feels. I know how hunger, rejection and heart break feel like. But I
don’t want to just blame all these, I did have trouble accepting myself in past
unless I was doing something productive that puts me on the path of what this
world defines as success.
So, I have a lot of demons that perform a well-orchestrated
dance of terror in my head each day. There are not many people in this world
who are even remotely interested in watching that dance, and lying to me that
it is beautiful, despite it being horrific, like the crash Niki suffered. There
is also this thing about getting addicted to other people’s acceptance and
validation of me, like I am some form of a junkie. I sometimes suspect it is
just part of what makes someone a normal human, but I am not sure, I wish
someone were there to tell me the truth. But there’s no one, so I just run
instead. Now tell me what kind of a junkie am I?
It’s comforting for me to remember that Niki finished fourth
in that comeback race. It is a huge deal, considering the pain he had to endure
to drive that day. We can confidently say that this is a man who outdrove his
demons. Similarly, I outrun my demons on each and every run, regardless of
pace, distance, weather, and location. People rarely ask me what I’d do if I
can’t run anymore. But when they ask, I will tell them I will just outwalk my
demons. Say that response annoys someone, so they break my legs, and ask me “what
will ya do now?”, I will be like “aight, lemme just outcrawl my demons.” Heck, there
is no shortage of these verbs in my dictionary
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