Friday, February 02, 2007

what is possible

we live in a world where we think we know what is possible.

and we know, because we are told from the time that we are born to the time until we die, by family, friends, strangers, books, videos, music, government warnings, medical science, scholarly research, and banners and signs and labels and packages and everyone and everything in our waking conscious perception. we are told what it is that they believe is possible.

how far a person can run in a single given day. how much food and water we need to live. how much rest a person must take in order to survive. how long and how well we were really meant to live, and how high and how deep our spirit and soul were meant to go.

and because we are told these things by so many for so often for so long, we come to accept the limits that are set for us. 2.4 miles as a superhuman swim. 112 miles as the extreme limit to ride a bicycle. 26.2 miles as the furthest to possibly run. and we only hope to ever dare to do any one of them at a given time, and only with what we have been told: enough rest, with the prescribed shoes and the recommended clothes and the required food and the needed drink and the specialized equipment in the most favorable weather and on the easiest paths.

all this, because we are raised to think we know what is possible. from the words of others repeated so often that we have lost ourselves, and can no longer separate what they believe from what it is that we don't know, so that their world is made our own.

and when the day comes that somebody arises to tell us that the world is not the one we know and is more than what we believe, we scoff, we laugh, we dismiss, and then disbelieve.

and when somebody says that we don't know what is truly possible, we shake our heads, wave a hand in dismissal, and cast their words out to exaggeration, fabrication, distortion, falsehood, legend, or even myth, obscured by time and ossified by age, stories told by people who didn't--and still don't--know the world we know...and we know better.

and when they say that once the civilizations of the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas relied on couriers known to cover 200 miles in a single day, that the Iroquois nations had messengers who were recounted by European trappers as running 90 miles between the rising and setting of a single sun, and that the tribes of the Mojave desert were observed by U.S. soldiers as making 60 miles within a single night, with nothing more than cornmeal, water, and bare-soled feet, we tell ourselves that these are mere fables.

and when they say that Zen monks were renowned for engaging in 7-year pilgimages wherein they ran distances of 30 to 50 miles a day for as much as 300 days in a row, sustained only by a bag of rice and flask of water and sandals made of straw, we tell them that they are simply fools.

until another day comes, when the myth is found to be legend and the legend is seen to be made real:
the Zen monks of Mt. Hiei still do make pilgrimages of over 7 years where they run 30 to 50 miles per day for as much as 300 consecutive days. the Tarahumara tribes of North America still carry the traditions of running more than 100 miles in a single day. and they do it with less food and less water and less sleep and less rest and less clothes and no shoes and no equipment in all weather and on all paths.

and it is then we know that the fables are not fables nor the fools simply fools, and that the legends are more than just legends and the myths are more than just myths...and we do not know better.

and we can separate what others believe from what it is that we don't know.

and it is then we realize that the limits that have been set for us are not limits, but mere numbers, arbitrary and capricious, paltry and insignificant. 2.4 miles is not a superhuman swim. 112 miles is not an extreme limit to ride a bicycle. 26.2 miles is not the furthest a person can run.

and adding them together in a single race of 140.6 miles within a single day is not impossible.

and it is then that we leave a world where we think we know what is possible, and enter a world where we know what is possible.

like long and how well we were really meant to live, and how high and how deep our spirit and soul were really meant to go.

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