DISCLAIMER: What you are about to read is a stream of consciousness. It reflects a culmination of empirical data during the middle weeks of August 2007. It is a juxtaposition of the endurance lifestyle with the rabid and urbane lifestyle of a twenty-something law student trying to seek existential truth on endurance sport and statutory law.

I am going to be perfectly honest. I love to work out. Foremost, I love to run. But the ability to run far and over many obstacles, both physical and metaphysical, has granted me the ability to transcend my greatest problems. For this, I am grateful.

Running in the woods, is a bit mischievous. Running in a wooded reservoir hidden within the streets of a metropolis borders civil disobedience. For to find of such an area presupposes a sense of thievery or the like. Consider C.S. Lewis.

Lewis once composed series of novels, entitled The Chronicles of Narnia, wherein, a band of young school children entered a magical wardrobe, only to find a magical and mystical land of permanent winter and hard frost, governed by a tyrannical queen. I have found Narnia in Boston.

This place did not have the innate beauty of Appleton, or Lake Masobisec, or Bradley Palmer. It was a different type of beauty. A beauty that is only experienced from within, and cannot be seen until one is manifest within the dangers and caverns of the most deeply wooded earth. It is an escape, but it is also a chance for organic inclusion.

The Fuel Belt system is arguably the finest piece of outdoor survival equipment invented since the Swiss Army Knife. It ensures the quintessential component of survival (hydration), with minimal obstruction of movement. I brought mine through the magical wardrobe, and scaled rock, fell down cliffs, slid through mud, and managed to stay optimally hydrated.

I dislike loud people. And loud noise. And more importantly, I don’t like to be with people whom are loud, obnoxious, or who congregate therein. I love to have fun. But I prefer not to socialize with people over a given topic. I prefer the spontaneity of conversation, dance, and laughter. I find no comedy in talking heads on the television. I prefer legitimate encounter, without commercial interruption.

I frequent bars with friends, which I often find myself wholly dissatisfied with. What possible sense of satisfaction can one receive from poisoning one’s sensory perceptions with liters of liquor, only to become ill, and ruin someone else’s night in the process.

We’ve all been there. The night when everything seems so jovial and fitting. And then it becomes too much, and before you know it you’re in too deep. It’s certainly a lesson that is not easily forgotten. It is an experience of truth. But when its over, if you’re wise, you realize it was temporary. This sensory illusion, is now only a flashbulb memory, and will unlikely serve a valid purpose because you can’t recollect any of the damned thing clarity or in scope.

Perhaps I’m just a hopeless optimist. I adore fun times, fun friends, and yes, I love a cold Guinness here and there. However, my particularity interrupts, where my pleasure ends.

For once I am lost among a sea of strangers, those whom fundamentally represent all that I loathe and cannot tolerate, I lose focus, and I lose my fun.

In sum, I know that life is made up of a great group of experiences. Moreover, I know that I want to experience all of them, and be my own arbiter. But I also have a solid understanding and empirical knowledge, of what makes me happy, and endurance sport is chief among them. I don’t give a damn what Plato’s earliest dialogues spoke of, and the truest definition of knowing the good. I know what is my personal happiness. And I guard it ferociously. I find it hard to understand how so many people can routinely ignore so many simple tenets, which make life so fun. So healthy. And so strong. Live Strong ©