Unicorns-1.5
Introductory Comments:
http://go.liverfoundation.org/goto/cyktrussell
Hello and welcome my friends. This is Chris and this is the fourth in my series of personal podcasts that I am doing, to air out my brain and deal with my father’s cancer and gear up to run for the Liver Foundation at the Boston Marathon this year.
Note: Even though this is on the RunRunLive Podcast feed, this is NOT the RunRunLive podcast. You have fair warning to skip now because I’m not talking about running. Standard RunRunLive episodes will be labeled as such.
As part of this project, whatever this project is, I’m collecting donations for the American Liver Foundation for my running of the Boston Marathon this year. I wanted to layer on some purpose for the event and make it more personal.
The donation links are in the show notes and at http://go.liverfoundation.org/goto/cyktrussell
My story is that I already had a number for this year’s race. I Didn’t need to fundraise, but with my Dad’s health declining I thought it would be a decent thing to do to dedicate this to him and my family.
…
Life is an adventure and adventures are not planned. They start early in the morning when you have had very little sleep. They are not planned. They are flowed into, organically. They build experiences like a bubbling pot on the stove.
I told my Dad the story of the Persian king who asked his wise men to come up with an answer that could be used to answer any question. (This was one of those rare occasions where I actually got a story out before he interrupted me to tell me he already knew it or to correct my version of it!) The wise men, after much deliberation, came back with the answer that could be used for any question.
The answer was: “This too shall pass.”
My Dad said something like, “I suppose it will.”
Maybe it’s just a symptom of old age but I find the solution to most things is perseverance. In long distance running we have the concept of continuous forward motion. If you just keep moving you’ll eventually get to the finish line. That’s life.
You have had times in your life when you think that you can’t go on. You have been beset upon by difficulties and challenges and burdens that weigh you down to such an extent that you feel crushed. We all have.
In these situations you just have to keep moving. It doesn’t take strength to keep moving. It sometimes takes more strength to stop. But it’s all we can do. And those of us who get good at it realize that there is a certain joy in the movement itself.
It is one of the defining aspects of humanity that we hope. We always think that there is a better place and we keep moving. We move forward on hope and faith, because that’s all we have sometimes, right?
I posted a copy of the classic Robert Crumb cartoon ‘Keep on Truckin’. You youngsters can think of it as a counter-cultural internet meme from 1967. The cartoon was born of a blues song and show’s four happy bums marching in a line into the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_on_Truckin’_(comics)
That’s us my friends. Happy bums marching into the future. We have faith and hope in our pockets.
Today I’m going to let my sister Mary Lou interview me. I warned you it would get personal.
Cheers,
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Featured Interview:
Summary Article:
Thank you for joining me in my Journey. I achieved my, rather arbitrary, donation goal but will leave the donation page open until after the marathon if the spirit move you.
I haven’t been able to train as much as I wanted to for the marathon this year. But this year’s marathon isn’t really about time and I’ll just get out there and keep on truckin through the finish. It will be a nice bookend for my year.
Hopefully these off-center forays into my personal life haven’t skewed (or skewered) anyone’s impression of me. I would much rather be a likeable avatar than a real person. Real people, like you and me have spaghetti strands of chaos in our lives and it’s messy.
You and I are and are not the smiling picture displayed on the shelf in the den. We are the sweaty mess that we wake up to every day too. But that’s ok. We are what we are. We are made of clay. But that clay can be molded as well as broken.
Life is what it is. You and I can’t control it. Enjoy it while you can, because as the wise men will tell you ‘this too shall pass’.
Go to:
http://go.liverfoundation.org/goto/cyktrussell
Thank you for joining me on my journey with purpose.
Chris,
Music by Bridge Underwater – “sad song”