Reflections

I apologize to my friend, who always insists on running marathons although he is now in his mid-40s, and I acknowledge his extraordinary ability to endure long runs alone for hours until reaching the end of the race.  

My friend tried several times to get me involved in the game of long distances, but every time I tried to take this experience, I had that feeling of nostalgia to the game that I mastered and which became part of my psyche: The hurdles race.  

I did not receive any kind of education to master the hurdles race, and I have always developed special skills in jumping, maneuvering, and also smashing.  I never counted, as my friend does, how many hours a long distance would take me to traverse, but rather counted how much I was able in every second to jump over this hurdle and smash that.  I also never cared about a supposed end of race, and every time I smashed or jumped over a hurdle, I set up another so that the ecstasy of jumping and smashing would continue.     

I may have made a mistake by not stopping at some of those hurdles to converse with them or listen to what they wanted to say.  I always feared that if I stopped, I would be involved in waiting to understand the essence of a certain hurdle or the reason it existed in the first place.   

Some hurdles induce into you the spirit of challenge; others you jump over easily; others cause you to be afraid, and so you jump over them without understanding the secret behind that fear; others you jump over with anxiety and with some suspicion, even doubting their existence.  

I apologize to my friend, who has come third in the latest marathon while I am still in my room jumping over hurdles and smashing others.  Who reached the end first? Or did we reach it at all?