How to Develop a Personality in 3 hours & 43 minutes.
Me:
Ah hello. If it isn’t yourself, it must be secondary school since I last saw you.
Friend:
Well, it’s been a while alright. How’s things with you?
Me:
I’m just eating the pavement for breakfast, lunch & dinner mate. Breakfast, lunch and God damn dinner. It must be two years now since I struck endogenous opioid gold. I was flummoxed in a state of disrepair, on a metaphysical level broken, you know? In the throes & torment of a severe dopamine deficit and suffering through an endorphin epidemic. Swear down to you now, my days had turned to in to a repetitious, monotonous, relentless rut – mid morning yirgacheffe brew, work, gut-friendly/probiotic-positive lunch, work, lean protein-based dinner, sleep. I realized I just couldn’t lean on my leaving cert results, my first-class honors degree or my shallow corporate career for chat anymore. I needed that certain raison d'etre. In truth, a last-ditch attempt to rebuild my own hierarchy of needs as defined by Maslow himself. So, listen to this: there I was at home in sunny South Dublin suburbia; my mind wandering in a fog of lament as I stirred the orb of floating cream into my fiery butternut squash soup. Go Tobann (we had a right laugh in honors Irish didn’t we) then as sure as God made gooseberries, the emulsification of cream formed a face in the hand-thrown ceramic bowl – quasi psychedelic I know, but I kid you not. The face mouthed to me ‘You can’t run from your problems, but you can cry try’. There it was - my one way ticket to chaffing eternity.
Friend:
I need to …
Me:
but you know; a vision without execution is just a hallucination, remember the career guidance counselor telling us that one, or was that just me. I’m now that guy, yeah, the one spouting Seamus Heaney quotes of hope and promise - nearly as bad as them tech recruiters posting ‘relatable content’ on Linkdin heh? It’s just sex, weights and protein shakes for yours truly. Pain is my paracetamol and suffering my solpadine. Any chance I get I’m loosen the legs, stretching the seams of my jocks and testing the tenable tog limit. Oh, and the best part man, the best part, the materialism; the outfits, the gadgets, the runners. You seem puzzled - Well, imagine Eliud Kipchoge, now imagine a certified disgraced jock sniffer with the physique of a soft-boiled egg stuffed into unforgiving muscle-fit gym shark attire bouncing around on two Nike Pegasus trampolines whilst drowning in his own hibiscus/ginseng infused perspiration that cascades uncontrollably from his abnormally large head. Don’t get me wrong, I’m shifting the timber alright but it’s coming at a sizable cost to the taxpayer – if you want the rainbow you must suffer the rain, you know? But in truth, my lower body is as tender as a chicken medallion submerged in a 24 hour buttermilk bath and let’s not get into the immoral amounts of chafing etching itself like hieroglyphics on my upper thighs - but we won’t let Instagram know that now, will we.
Friend:
Sorry but….
Me:
and it hasn’t been just a physical transformation. Granted my abdomen no longer swings like a suburban couple with a front garden full of pampas grass and my organs have been returned from their gout racked state but mentally & spiritually I’m awakened. My mind is at peace akin to a neoteric vegan on a bed of celery in a room full of overpriced house plants photosynthesizing the pungent aroma of bullshit as whale sounds reverberate periodically. My social ecosystem now consists of kudos, personal bests, 5km’s and run club coffees - per tenebras ad lucem, you know? I’ll tell you without fear of contradiction that I found my Gwen Stefani, I found my sweet escape. It’s a lot of hysteria, fanfare and all-round ballyhoo but the proof is in the pudding mate, not in the custard.
Friend:
Honestly, I really must be on ….
Me:
Well, I ran a marathon.
Yeah, a marathon, like 42.2 kilometers. Mad, I know.
Can you imagine? Me.
A sub 4 hour marathon.
3 hours & 43 minutes.