Zen and the Art of running
If you're a regular runner, you must have read a thousand of books about running. More or less as cooking, since every cook has their personal innermost secrets and believes to be some kind of dogma guardian.
Not all books dealing with running come equal. You have self-help ones, which display lists of tips to run successfully - without keeping their promises- and those which can actually hold surprise. Zen and the Art of running by author Larry Shapiro is one of these, that stick to your skin and pave the way.
Running ( sooner or later even the less regular runners grasp that) is just a metaphor of life.
Sometimes you find the easy path, you forge ahead and feel kind of Master of Universe; sometimes you find it hard to go on, you struggle to climb that hill you didn't want to face and that destiny put you in front of your shoes. Sometimes it's even harder too, since you feel inadequate, forceless and think " Why? What for?" And you face obstacles; there are days you can tackle them, days (most of the time) when they seem too big, disposed in a row like a candid-camera. Such is everyday life. A daily routine made of dedication, tenacity, self awareness. Along with the self-esteem, engagement and reaching our goals. Whether they are big or small ones, they are figments of a personal hard work. No luck, no help, no alibi admitted.
Zen route
No need to dig deep into the roots of the Zen philosophy to recognize this is a "corpus" of a thousand-year-old teaching still valid to face the present times, a key to understand these days. And there's no need to run to understand - in the path we pave for ourselves -that everything is variable as every glitch is natural. Meaning everything belongs to Nature, to the existing and is part of a flow.
Shapiro notes:
1) Difficult times are useful to get stronger and boost self-awareness
2) We are not what we were before; we are what we do in every precise moment
3) Failing can be the most precious teaching
4) We cannot control events; we can only go along with the flow, learning how to be resilient.
Living or rushing?
If you don't run but you've been given the book, do not think it comes by chance from the dusty shelves of a new age book-shop. Zen and the Art of running is about life, not only about running. As you can manage miles with your fit muscles and your breath, you can do the same with the route you draw for yourself: concentrated, joyful, shifting your limits a little more everyday. You might discover perspective can change significantly, obstacles may turn into incentives applying the runners' vision to daily life.
Head in your shoes
If you run regularly and think there's nothing new in the market, well..you might be wrong here. Perhaps you didn't know one can run differently, legs and harmstrings aside. To run successfully in heavy conditions, under blazing sun or iced winter rain, to prepare a marathon o to start again after an injury, you need your head and an extraordinary sparring partner: the other you, that voice inside that encourages you but sometimes you silent, when self indulgence prevails.
Photo Credit: Mr Lee