"When you look at it, life's a piece of shit." What is that lyric if not dukkha, the first noble truth? There is suffering in life. Or, as the Dread Pirate Roberts might put it, "Life IS pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
The Python song above started playing in my head a few days ago after I discovered a fortune fragment. Just before finding it, I had been feeling stressed about how long it's taking my legs to heal and myself to work back up to the level of fitness I had last summer and fall. The shift of perspective that came with the discovered scrap of paper and the resulting song in my head led me here:
I jog-walked one 14-minute mile and one 12-minute mile, for an average of 13 minutes per mile. That is no worse than I was when just starting to work out, and my endurance is much better. Running 2 miles would not have happened two years ago. Now I'm not terribly tired, and only my healing legs are holding me back.
The fact that I even want to run, much less that I go out and do it, is still a very new and nearly miraculous change for me.
I don't hurt after I run, which is very, very good. Last November, my shins ached all the time, I hurt after just 1/4 mile, and I was in excruciating pain and barely able to hobble after a mile.
Plus? Lovely cold sprinkle of raindrops on my face. A mourning dove on a telephone wire. Winter-blooming shrubs sending out their scent. Life is good.
There is suffering in life. But there is a path out of suffering, if we care to find it.
Always look on the bright side of life. Always.
