The obvious just occurred to me, as it likes to do.
If you do stuff, or like to push it a bit, it’s gonna hurt.
Pain isn’t an accident or a mistake.
If you try to avoid pain, soreness, injury — if you try to take it easy, or do what you’re already used to, jellyfish-like decline is on your all-too-immediate horizon. Pretty soon you’ll be in your easy-chair. Most of the time. Then all of the time. Then you won’t be able to get out of it. That kind of thing.
The only alternative is pain. Injury, scratches, soreness, aches.
I’m not talking about injury from doing bad things wrongly. I’m talking about doing it right. Life takes its toll while we’re living. But this “toll” isn’t exactly a loss and it’s not bad. Living good and large takes effort and suffering in all sorts of ways. They’re up to us. We can be surprised by the suffering or we can choose to accept the kind that comes from living right. I mean, we can live in ways that bring us bad suffering or cause suffering to others. Or, we can be heads-up about it, choosing our poison because we know its benefits. Living as we evolved to live, are meant to live. Most such injuries will heal up quick, leaving us better off than before. But, of course, eventually we do start losing our faculties and our parts. Ha ha. Yes, the joke in the end is on us, but say la vee!
(They say that if you live for pleasure you’ll get the surprise kind of pain. In, at least, equal amounts to the pleasure, and often in heaps more. –“Hey, I didn’t agree to THAT!” According to the Texts, living right doesn’t invoke the automatic pain side effect, but instead yields everyone their own special blend of both pleasure and pain, among other things, but then feelings aren’t really why we’re doing it right in the first place.)
Occasionally you might run into a bigger glitch, where an injury means something serious. But it’ll happen far less often to someone who’s pushing, leaning into the wind, staying active, staying familiar with a few of the harder, more abrasive interfaces of life.
It’s a bit like being in shape. I’m thinking that fit folks are often a bit tired and achy. They might not feel “ready” to go for a run, or to go hike all day, or canoe for a week. …But they are.
It’s a matter of expectations. I remember when I was young and bouncy and in the best shape of my life. I might’ve quibbled at age 29 that I was in better shape at 28 or maybe 30 put them both to shame. It’s all laughably relative. At the time, I passed up various events because I wasn’t “ready” — like a running marathon. I was running half-marathon trail distances once a month for fun, fast’n’easy. I figured I could do a 3:00 hr marathon readily once I was ready, but kept putting it off. Never did one. Never bothered. But for 5 years there I probably could’ve done one without blinking and been fine. …Oh, the silliness of thinking you’re not ready. You may be tired and sore, but if you’re already out there regularly you might be readier than you think. Then again, knowledge is the biggest part of anything, the doing is pretty much the frosting. You do need to know what you’re doing. No need to be unsafe. No need to get lost. Skills, people!
But once you’re ready, you’re going to get sore and achy along the way. Don’t forget the dirt and the smell! Sweet shiny sweat. Which over a couple days just might turn to ripeness. OK, maybe that’s TMI. But when you do go far afield, that’s what happens. Get used to it.
You’ll always be getting over something.
Each season you’re switching to new activities — from mowing to hoeing to raking to shoveling. You cover your bases steady as she goes; you work your core — all good prep. But at each of these transitions, you’ll hurt. After a winter of skiing, your first spring runs will leave you stiff’n’sore. You might lay on the couch awhile after that first push of lawn-mowing. I recently went on my first hike of the summer: it left me sore in new places for days after — and since it involved bushwacking, there was a fair bit of blood. I’ve been running, but I recently tried a half mile of easy barefooting on a soft trail — sore for days. Heck, I just thinned my raspberry patch, bending over and snipping gently for an hour — my hamstrings have been burning for days. …Once I get used to doing all these new things all over again, I’ll be fine.
As regards Equipment, well, of course you’ll wear out and break a fair bit of it along the way. That’s not pain but it can come close. But, oddly, I haven’t really hurt much in that regard. I’m still using much of my same stuff after 20+ years. Friends might say it’s trashed, but it still works. My boats keep the water out, mostly. The bikes all stop and go. My carbon ski poles and canoe paddle are like new. (Knock knock!) But everyone’s mileage varies there. Anyway, for this Essay, let’s stick to blood and sinew.
