Stories of a Runner (1/2)

The thought of being a runner had never once crossed my mind, and so I still find it surprising that I ended up on a cross country team.  I kind of wanted to play tennis, or maybe basketball, but, running?...
I have to wonder how my life would have changed, if I had joined the tennis team instead of the cross country team.  In many ways I think I would have enjoyed tennis much more than running.  Even now, if you were to ask me if I'd rather run a 5K or hang out on a tennis court, despite not really knowing how to serve, hit the ball, or even hold the racket, I'd rather play tennis.  Yes, in some ways I believe I made the wrong choice.  But when I think back on all my memories as a runner, everything I took from the sport, and how it changed my life, maybe running was the best possible sport I could have chosen.

It all began during my sophomore year after a timed mile in P.E.  I was one of the first done and I felt pretty good about it.  And so it happened that the P.E. teacher told the coach of the cross country team that I might be someone who would be interested in running.  And when the coach asked me about joining the team, I figured, "Sure, why not?"  I didn't know then that I wasn't born to be a runner.
I found out though.  Really quickly.

The Outstanding Senior Award

There were 3 valedictorians of my high school class.  I wasn't one of them.

At senior awards night, they gave out the awards for the outstanding senior.  Or, seniors.  There were 3 given out and, unsurprisingly, they went to the 3 valedictorians.  "But!" they said, they had decided to give out one more outstanding senior award, to someone who, while not a valedictorian, had worked just as hard by taking so many difficult classes, along with doing many extracurricular activities...
I sighed.  I already knew what was going to happen.

An Introduction, of sorts.

I'm just a college student, halfway through a Master's program.  I like video games and math and I do a little game design, just for fun.  I used to be a runner.  Oh I enjoy playing sports too.  Anything competitive, you know.  That's how I would describe myself.  Only, it feels like something's missing...

I'm generally pretty humble about things, but I'm a smart person you know.  I mean, I'd go so far as to call myself a genius.  And it is that intelligence that has been the key factor in driving my life.  It allowed me to make it through school with enough time and ability to pursue just about any goal in between.  But there was no point in chasing easy goals.  No, I lived my life going after much more.  We're talking world records.  Unmatched skills.  Stuff like that.  It's just who I am.  But, I don't think that's everything...

I'm someone who probably always sounds uncertain.  I mean, I guess I am.  You could say that uncertainty defined my life.  If nothing else, I was pretty certain in it.  And it drove me towards proofs.  If you want to make a statement, you have to prove that it's true.  Like, if I was going to say that I was a smart person, I would request irrefutable proof from myself.  Which ran into problems like defining intelligence and the fact that supporting evidence was not the same as a guarantee, etc, etc.  So, in the end, I figured I couldn't prove that I was a smart person, and so I wouldn't say something like that unless it was for someone else's sake, or it was for the irony or something like that.  It's just how I live my life.  Well, that might not be absolutely true...

I'm a nice person.  In a way, it's something that really shapes my life.  Making an effort to be constantly aware of the feelings of others, and things like that.  But I didn't want to be the person who did it to show off though.  Like, I didn't want it to be something I was really well known for, because if that happened, inevitably, someone would feel jealous or insulted.  It was something better left in such a way that the people who knew it knew it and everyone else was unaffected.
And then I would say, well, that's actually saying too much, whether it's true or not.  People are going to think too much of me and want to support me and all that.  And so I would go back and do things like change the "I try to be" to "I'm" and add in some extra sentences.  The "I'm" gives it a different feel, because now it's more likely that the reader's will look more for reasons why it isn't true so they can say "No you're not."  But, it balances out, because hopefully there's enough there at the end that people will say, "Well, I guess you are."  See if it was still "I try to be" then some people would say "Aw you really are a nice person" and other people would say "You're just doing it to gain people's sympathy" and I wouldn't want that.  Still, it's who I was, and I couldn't really deny that.  At least, it was part of who I was...

Challenges are what I live for.  The impossible.  The losing battles.  I mean, what was the point of playing a game you expected to win?  You either win as expected or lose disappointingly.  I'd much rather play a game which I'd lose almost every time.  It wasn't that I liked to lose; it was that losing when I felt I had a chance to win motivated me to play more and try harder and harder until it looked like I was mad with determination.  That was the life I lived. ...

I don't have a solid goal, a set direction.  Essentially, I spend my life wandering aimlessly.  I just go with the flow.  But without a target to shoot for, I'm in danger of being another person who could be described as a jack of all trades but a master of none.  That is where my life is threatening to end up...

My life is dominated my a desire to change.  I wouldn't blindly follow my past ideas if I found a reason to change them.  Still, I suppose most of the time I just stayed the same...

I live a life under rules of formality and and politeness that few other people seem to care about.  But they are obvious!  For example, you don't force people to do things, or put unnecessary pressure on them, just as you don't force your opinion onto other people.  Basically, it was all about respect.  You respect others' opinions, you respect others' choices, and you respect others' ways of life.  Why wouldn't I live like that? ...

I can't understand what people enjoy so much about talking with others, which is why my life is not one that's so concerned with hanging out with others or going to parties and such.  But really, what is there to say?  Nothing really crazy has happened to me in the past week/month...  Was there something to be learned?  To be taught?  Because I wasn't overly curious about other people's opinions on most things, and if you wanted an opinion from me, you most likely weren't going to get a very interesting one.

I'm not an opinionated person at all.  And, as such, I have a pretty apathetic view of my life.  I mean, if you don't care either way, then nothing really matters to you, right.

I'm just one person, among billions of other people.  One person, tiny compared to the size of the earth, which was tiny compared to the size of the sun, which was tiny compared to the size of the galaxy, which was tiny compared to the size of the universe...  Why would any of it matter?  Why would life matter?  And how can I live like this? ...

I'm just a human being.  Just someone who's going on living.  Striving for happiness and creating my own reasons.  I can't be that much different than you.


It's all true, it really is.  At worst, there are over exaggerations and understatements.  But, I like to believe that one can describe oneself in so many different ways, all completely valid, all true.  Just as a scene changes when viewed from a different angle, so too, can the interpretations of one's life change, when viewed from a different perspective.  It's not much different than choosing a point of view, choosing the important details, and telling a story.
So, I am a story teller.  Just like everyone else, I have a story to tell.  And this is how I will tell it.

Untitled

You know, I was going to write something here.  I simultaneously wanted to write stuff and didn’t want to write stuff and the part of me that didn’t want to was winning.  At that rate, this blog would have been another thing that I started but kind of just left off and then I’d feel bad about having ever started it at all…  But I wasn’t going to let that happen here.  I was going to force myself to write something, even if the only thing I could possibly convince myself to write was some pointless stuff thrown together in 3 minutes!

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that.