So I've been thinking... I used to run for the purpose of being healthy (not a very obvious benefit, perhaps a long-term "goal" to be seen, which may not even happen since being healthy depends on other things than just physical exercise), then also for the purpose of losing weight and looking better naked (a definitely more obvious benefit), and then at some point recently I thought maybe I shouldn't bother running. For a week I let it go with intention. I forgot exactly what my reasoning was behind this choice but at some point I decided to go for one jog and found this other purpose... which appears to be stronger than the previous ones mentioned. I think running is sort of self-torture. It hurts, it feels painful breathing when I'm tired, all I start thinking about is how much I would love to collapse and drink water cuz my throat is getting dry as hell. Muscles ache, I stink a lot, have so much sweat pouring down on me, and all that fun stuff... but then I went to the park and let myself collapse in the grass after the jog... and it was a really awesome feeling. There were little thoughts in my head, my body appreciated basically everything about the environment at the moment... didn't even mind the bugs that were definitely under and around me. I've done this before, but I only thought about how delicious the moment was then and there. So I've been thinking about further self-torture, or torture in general... well I hate goriness so those movies when someone's getting mutilated while alive is not what I'm talking about here, I can barely watch that shit. But like, when you got exams coming up, and papers (I talked to A.Lin about this) and you got all this pressure on you and it feels like there's not even time to properly breathe, or shower even, well, when all that is done... I think the feeling is kinda the same. It's this awesome feeling that I'm free from that previous torture and the environment feels just right. Life feels so freeing. I would think that a prisoner who is let out of jail must feel this feeling in exponential amounts. Also, people who come back from the death, many of them seem to just have a change of life and be able to appreciate it so much more. What has changed really? I mean, the environment isn't really that much different. It's just that after all that torture, we are able to appreciate life without it. Without the torture itself, it just kinda goes by, same as with torture, but more like, unnoticed. The wind doesn't strike me as so important day to day as after a jog. The ground doesn't seem so comfortable. The shade of a tree. All that stuff I barely even notice throughout my days, but that's ALL I notice after the self-torture moments of jogging. Life just tastes good. Even meditation, it's torture to have to just pay attention to my breath and not do anything else for a while. But it helps me appreciate the time when I'm not meditating more. Well it could be a little different with meditation... though I did kinda get this idea from the buddhist book "The Joy of Living", where the author talks about how what we seek to gain from meditation is the feeling of bliss one would get from finishing a difficult job...
But yea, basically I think self-torture is good. I think now I need it a lot more, in terms of jogging at least... knowing that that feeling can be brought about by me... now that's enough of a motivation to get me to do horrible things haha. That feeling of weightlessness and appreciation seems to be pretty close to happiness.
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