Tag: feature

The Runner and the Creative Urge

I have said it before and will likely say it again, but I believe strongly that all humans are creative beings. This is not to say that all humans exercise their creativity or even recognize their creativity, but that the capacity to create is embedded inside each human self, not only a select few. It also goes without saying that such creativity, even if accessed according to its potential, would be lived out and expressed in a different way in every person, since no two people ever leave the same imprint on our earth.

What does all this have to do with running? In my opinion, the act of running is inextricably linked with the creative urge, the desire to create that dwells within the human soul. It may seem as though the two are on opposite ends of the spectrum. The former (the act of running) concerns the body: that is, the physical aspects of a person. The latter (creativity) instead revolves around the mind and the soul: the mental or spiritual domain. However, I think we enormously limit ourselves if we compel these different realms of self to abide in isolation. The diverse pieces of personhood (mind, body and spirit) were not intended to be self-contained, separated from one another in neat, compartmentalized boxes. Rather, they are blended and intertwined in surprising and unexplained ways, and only when they are permitted to fulfill their natural unity can the person truly experience a fullness of self. Thus, the way I see it, the physicality of running can lead very easily into the creative sphere.

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Of Pens and Pages

I always carry my notebook with me and I always bring my pen. There is something terrifying about the thought of leaving home without a pen. To venture into the unknown without this essential piece of self seems unwise and unsafe.

My pen is silver and cool; it has a nice weight to it as my hand glides across the page. We have been together for so long, my pen and I. I wrote my last two novels with it and other things since. I have many different pens, and yet I always write with this one when I want to access something real and true. I keep buying ink refills and when they run out, I feel slightly despairing until there is a new pack in my hand.

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Let it Be

In my first Advent reflection, I talked about my uncertainty over what the upcoming Advent season would bring. This uncertainty, to a certain extent, still holds true a week later, and I found myself searching yet again for an idea. However, after reflecting some more on preparations for Christmas, I was drawn back to the very beginning of the story and the person whom you might call the first to prepare for the coming king: Mary.

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The Martian

The Martian is not the type of movie in which I would normally be interested. I feel like a lot of my reviews are prefaced in this manner, with a full disclosure of my hesitant feelings towards a film before seeing it and having my expectations subverted (see my reflections on Inside Out). This is just another reminder that the realm of art calls for an open mind. Art- good art- should always involve an element of surprise. I want to be very careful here in using the word ‘surprise.’ There is an important distinction between ‘surprise’ and ‘shock.’ Even if the plot of a movie is entirely predictable, its aesthetic style and exploration of issues and themes can still surprise the viewer and suggest new truths. Similarly, a movie can surprise us without having to rely on shock tactics or shock value.

In this particular case, I was wary (and am still) of the genre of science fiction before walking into the theatre. This is not to say that the movie awakened in me an enduring passion for science fiction, but that art and beauty are capable of transcending the bounds of genre and holding truths for viewers of diverse predilections.

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Christmas Carol Day

Happy Christmas Carol Day!

You might be asking yourself, what is Christmas Carol Day? Well, it happens to be a holiday heralding in the Christmas season, a holiday that always falls upon December 1st. This holiday also happens to be completely made up by yours truly. But seeing as I invented the holiday several years ago, I feel as though it might be on its way to gaining some sort of traction, at least among a (very small) handful of people.

As the name suggests, Christmas Carol Day is all about listening and singing along to those familiar songs that mark this time of year. I must admit that I have broken my own rule and begun listening to such tunes before today, but I plan to spend a greater amount of time this afternoon and evening blasting my Christmassy music (apologies in advance to my neighbours). It has often been said that there is something magical about the Christmas season, and I think this is certainly true of Christmas carols as well. I think this “music magic” stems from several reasons.

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Advent and the River

I have been sitting here for some time trying to decide what to write for my first Advent reflection. Today is the first Sunday of Advent: the first of four Sundays preceding Christmas. A purple candle was lit upon the Advent wreath and a hymn was sung entitled “Come, O Long-Expected Jesus.” Outside frost was glazed across the grass and the mud was hard and cold, preparing for the coming of snow. Over the window frame of the front room in my apartment, coloured lights are strung, and the glow reflects in the open glass and out into the darkening sky of November.

Christmas is on its way; all the signs that accompany its coming have begun to arise. December is only a few days from our midst. Despite this, I don’t know what to write. Despite this, I am not quite in the spirit; the spirit of Christmas is still distant rather than intimate. It is far away and I am watching it descend while I think of Advent-related ideas upon which to reflect.

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The Lost Art of Listening to Music

I don’t think it is entirely inaccurate to say that we are living in a shuffle culture; we are a people that shuffles. When I use this word (to shuffle), I am not referring to a kind of movement. I don’t mean to conjure up images of a person shuffling along, walking down the street and dragging their feet on the ground. Such a use of the word ‘shuffle’ might be more applicable in my previous post on The Lost Art of Walking. In this post however, I am using shuffle in a very different sense (though there is certainly a connection between these two meanings of the word): ‘shuffle’ is an option we have the power to select when we listen to music.

Is listening to music an art that has been lost? Here I must distinguish between listening to music as an art, and music as an art in and of itself. Saying that to listen to music is an art implies two things. First, it implies that when we listen to music, we are not just passively receiving someone else’s art, but creating something ourselves through the process of listening. Secondly, it implies that there is more than one way of listening to music, and that perhaps some ways are better than others.

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War and Peace

What comes to mind when you think of “War and Peace?”

Maybe a word like “masterpiece” is springing forth, or perhaps even a grandiose claim calling it “the greatest novel ever written.” Then again, you might think of that famous quote from Henry James, who described Tolstoy’s tome as a “large loose baggy monster.”

So while there is no denying the value of War and Peace, or its place among the esteemed works of fiction, maybe it is more something to be feared than enjoyed. Admired from afar but not actually attempted, not when the idea of reading it is so daunting a prospect. War and Peace is certainly a gargantuan novel: in my edition, it surpasses 1200 pages (this edition is, by the way, the much-lauded translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky, the dynamic duo who have also translated works by Russian authors Dostoevsky and Chekhov). Is War and Peace really a monster?

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Thoughts: The Photograph

Upon reviewing a photograph, one never looks quite the same as one had hoped. This is because one is expecting something different from the inanimate image, which the form of the photograph is incapable of giving. One is forgetting that true beauty springs from life, and it is exactly this (life) that the photograph necessarily excludes.

The Runner and the Body

The runner and the body. In a certain sense, the two are one and the same: the runner has a body; he could also be described as being a body. The act of running and the body of the runner are inextricably linked. To explore this relationship would undoubtedly be a large task, one I could only hope to partially open within the confines of a blog post. That is why I want to discuss not the body as it is during the act of running but rather, the effects of running on the body and how these effects (or the anticipation of them) can spread their influence to the mind as well.

I don’t think anyone would deny that running is good for the body, though you could deny that it is many other things: namely, enjoyable or worthy of effort and time. I suppose I should also add a condition to the opening statement of this paragraph: running might be more destructive than good for the body that is already plagued with injury. But I see this as the exception rather than the rule. In its ideal and intended form, running brings much ‘good’ to the body. It increases fitness and health, reducing risk of illness through cardiovascular exercise. It also helps to trim and tone the runner’s physique. This last point is the one I want to flesh out a little (if I can be excused for my use of the pun).

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