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I find this disquieting in exactly the same way that I find any description of intense religious mania disquieting. On the one hand, live and let live. But on

I find this disquieting in exactly the same way that I find any description of intense religious mania disquieting. On the one hand, live and let live. But on the other. I've _never_ met a person interested in this kind of ascetic practice that wasn't desperately running from some profound dislike of themselves or the world. Despite the triumphal and positive rhetoric in this writing, I can't help but feel that underneath it all is a deep hatred from the ordinary experience of being alive. What else could explain such an enormous desire for what is surely a self destructive drive towards ecstatic experience?

TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
Agreed. Conventionally happy people don't push themselves to this kind of extreme. But its not just long distance endurance running of this extremity ... also highly driven entrepreneurs, or people in nearly any kind of career that requires sacrifice of body or time with family, etc. To sacrifice the part of you that is devoted to ordinary human life is to usually not value such ordinary human experience much to begin with. But our culture also makes heroes out of such sacrifice. Just enjoying a normal, family-oriented life is considered mediocrity in many (most?) circles.
intrepidhero 5y ago
That is a really interesting thought. To me, this: > desperately running from some profound dislike of themselves sounds awfully close to a human universal. The folks in the article are literally running from the ordinary and I think part of what author is getting at here: > To see someone, anyone, in this world is to witness someone engaged in a feat of endurance. are the similarities they saw in the outlandish act of running around a city block for 52 days, 18 hours a day, and the ordinary experience of being alive and how the one illumines our understanding of the other.
- nathan_compton 5y ago
  My point is that most of us (I'm tempted to say those of us which are psychologically normal) endure the frustrations and alienations of ordinary life without embracing intense practices which are almost certainly harmful, if not out and out a form of self harm.

TheMagicHorsey 5y ago

Agreed. Conventionally happy people don't push themselves to this kind of extreme. But its not just long distance endurance running of this extremity ... also highly driven entrepreneurs, or people in nearly any kind of career that requires sacrifice of body or time with family, etc. To sacrifice the part of you that is devoted to ordinary human life is to usually not value such ordinary human experience much to begin with. But our culture also makes heroes out of such sacrifice. Just enjoying a normal, family-oriented life is considered mediocrity in many (most?) circles.

intrepidhero 5y ago

That is a really interesting thought. To me, this: > desperately running from some profound dislike of themselves sounds awfully close to a human universal. The folks in the article are literally running from the ordinary and I think part of what author is getting at here: > To see someone, anyone, in this world is to witness someone engaged in a feat of endurance. are the similarities they saw in the outlandish act of running around a city block for 52 days, 18 hours a day, and the ordinary experience of being alive and how the one illumines our understanding of the other.

nathan_compton 5y ago
My point is that most of us (I'm tempted to say those of us which are psychologically normal) endure the frustrations and alienations of ordinary life without embracing intense practices which are almost certainly harmful, if not out and out a form of self harm.