Got back from Berlin recently. Was there for the marathon. I organized the travel and the participation of a Portuguese group, so I did not had the chance to run. Nevertheless I had the chance to watch.
I virtually lost count of the marathons I have been. Quite a few I may say. Nevertheless these events never cease to amaze me. The energy was absolutely overwhelming.
As I stood by the Brandenburg gates, waiting for my buddies I could not help noticing the immense heterogeneity of people crossing the finish line. Tall people, small people, fat people, skinny people, fast runners, slow runners, people laughing, people crying (yes crying), white, black, yellow people, in a small phrase, the United Nations, or at least what they should be anyway.
Despite of the fact of all these noticeable differences we could all experience a moving sense of brotherhood in the air. What miraculous happening gave all these people the power of mutual friendship? Of course, sports are by nature prone to excel these feelings of friendship, but go to a soccer game and you see clouds of rivalry on top of everybody’s head, you see anger in basketball when the lead player fails, you see frustration and disappointment in lots of other sports. Not here, not in the Marathon. It makes us wonder why people do not always relate like this between themselves. What’s the magic in the 42,195Km?
I have a theory. It may seem absurd to most of you, but if you have ever been in a marathon (running) may be this makes a little more sense.
I believe people are in essence equal. I do not mean physiologically equal because that we know. I mean emotionally equal. We love the same basic stuff and we value the same basic principles. The problem in everyday human relationship is the layers placed on top of our basic selves. These layers placed on top of us by our education, our social environment and other hexogen influences constitute what we call personality, character … whatever! The secret of the Marathon, the magic of the 42,195Km is the power it has to strip you down completely. Every piece of this gruelling effort will virtually rip off one more layer of your so called “personality”. You will end up “bare naked” of all prejudice and misconceptions, angers, bad judgements, everything that conditions your normal day by day relationships.
In the end you are just one pure, physically drained human being. And the guy next to you is just the same. No obstacle for friendship, so friends you become. Try it!
It’s a kind of magic!
I virtually lost count of the marathons I have been. Quite a few I may say. Nevertheless these events never cease to amaze me. The energy was absolutely overwhelming.
As I stood by the Brandenburg gates, waiting for my buddies I could not help noticing the immense heterogeneity of people crossing the finish line. Tall people, small people, fat people, skinny people, fast runners, slow runners, people laughing, people crying (yes crying), white, black, yellow people, in a small phrase, the United Nations, or at least what they should be anyway.
Despite of the fact of all these noticeable differences we could all experience a moving sense of brotherhood in the air. What miraculous happening gave all these people the power of mutual friendship? Of course, sports are by nature prone to excel these feelings of friendship, but go to a soccer game and you see clouds of rivalry on top of everybody’s head, you see anger in basketball when the lead player fails, you see frustration and disappointment in lots of other sports. Not here, not in the Marathon. It makes us wonder why people do not always relate like this between themselves. What’s the magic in the 42,195Km?
I have a theory. It may seem absurd to most of you, but if you have ever been in a marathon (running) may be this makes a little more sense.
I believe people are in essence equal. I do not mean physiologically equal because that we know. I mean emotionally equal. We love the same basic stuff and we value the same basic principles. The problem in everyday human relationship is the layers placed on top of our basic selves. These layers placed on top of us by our education, our social environment and other hexogen influences constitute what we call personality, character … whatever! The secret of the Marathon, the magic of the 42,195Km is the power it has to strip you down completely. Every piece of this gruelling effort will virtually rip off one more layer of your so called “personality”. You will end up “bare naked” of all prejudice and misconceptions, angers, bad judgements, everything that conditions your normal day by day relationships.
In the end you are just one pure, physically drained human being. And the guy next to you is just the same. No obstacle for friendship, so friends you become. Try it!
It’s a kind of magic!
