On losing interest in the chase

and the relief that comes with walking.

I’ve been thinking about the obsessions and how they materialize. Things we want, achievements we need, people we admire, attention we crave. I only just realized that a fixation is almost always a sign that the call is coming from inside the house. It’s never actually about the thing. Or maybe sometimes it is, but not entirely. Here’s what I mean: Pining for a certain accolade is likely less about the accolade and more about a gaping hole inside that an achievement would supposedly fill. A salve for a scar. An ointment for an insecurity. Maybe it helps, maybe it’s worth it, but it will never satiate without acknowledging of the real thing that’s screaming. The one that’s urging the running and chasing.

On a few occasions in recent years, I’ve felt the relief of walking. I know chasing. I’ve felt the high of it and I know what the withdrawal feels like. I’ve latched onto ideas and people and spun narratives around how I would feel if I were only better, prettier, faster, etc. I don’t know walking nearly as well. And yet, I’m catching myself shrug off the temptation to run straight into a mirage of things that would supposedly make me feel better. Instead I’ve been faced with an unfamiliar sense of indifference. It’s not the depressing kind, but instead a sense of, eh, that’s not it. Sprint ahead, I already went there, or tried to go there, or got really close and didn’t like it at all. I already ran out of breath trying to get that thing only to feel brief exuberance and then find that the trophy was completely irrelevant to what I actually needed, or what I was trying to feel. So I’m just going to walk a little.

If I had to guess where this aforementioned sense of relief comes from, I would say it’s time and getting to the front of the line a few times and seeing the way the metaphorical sausage is made, and then realizing it’s not even that good. The sausage being the job, the person, the invitation. That maybe I can make the sausage at home or skip it all together. I also think the newfound urge to walk comes from doing something harder than chasing, which is sitting and thinking. Asking what the hell I’m running from. Or running for. I guess it’s easier to sprint toward an external thing, an object or person or byline or compliment or applause, to ease what is actually a long-held and deeply-rooted pain, one that sends signals to charge ahead, to avoid it in any way possible. It’s much harder to to look at that internal thing in the face and realize it doesn’t need an external thing, it needs you.

It needs you to sit with it. To think on it. To stop racing and to instead step to the side of the track and dig into the dirt, into the roots of that pain. It needs you to untangle it and to find a way to feel whatever it is you want to feel all on your own.

I still want and dream and chase. But I have to do it differently now, or at least I try to. I have to think myself into running from an entirely different place. It’s not out of panic, that doesn’t work anymore. It’s not to feel better, I don’t believe in that story as much these days. It’s not ignoring my deeper fears, I try to bring those with me or sort them out before starting any race. It’s something else. Why do I want this thing or what is it solving or why does it matter? Do I even like this race? This work? This person? This feeling?

Nothing is more motivating than chasing for the sake of proving someone wrong. I’ve done that and I know the satisfaction and victory of living well and doing well just to show them. I guess I’m asking what happens when you feel like you’ve already showed them? Maybe there are seasons for walking and seasons for running. Maybe it’s okay to chase an external thing for an internal salve. I just never want to run with a blindfold on ever again.