PAIN - a note from 2023
I found this in an old notebook. Something I wrote after my first half marathon.
At the time, I had about 3 months of beginner training, enough to get me to the starting line, but compared to seasoned runners, almost negligible.
Looking back, I can feel how raw my thoughts were.
Here's the entry I wrote then:
PAIN.
Pain is physical and emotional. Emotional pain is enough to make you suffer. But physical pain is different from suffering.
When you cover 21km with beginner training, as your first half marathon, pain is inevitable. But suffering is not.
So how do you avoid it?
A part of you helps you overcome it. It runs with you and pushes you till the end. It overtakes the other part which might suffer.
I pray this part keeps pushing me throughout my life.
-- Notebook entry Oct 2023
Reflection - Aug 2025
Reading this two years later, I notice two things.
I had already stumbled onto an old truth: pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
But instead of quoting philosophy, I was trying to feel it in my own body.When I wrote, "a part of me keeps pushing me", I wasn't only speaking about myself. Sometimes that part takes a shape outside you.
It becomes a voice, a presence, a rhythm beside you.
In my first half marathon, that 'part', wasn't abstract at all.
It was real, running with me, carrying me to the finishing line. Two years later, I no longer see a division between the inner push and outer hand that steadies you.
They are not separate forces. They are one.
-- Abhi