We're all getting older: Sweat, stairs, and down and up

Friday 6/12/26

We're all getting older.

I don't think that's really true as people mean it. One is here, doing what one does, pursuing what one is pursuing, if that's relevant. The state you take as that is all happening is in many ways up to you. How you decide to be. What you want yourself to be. In your make-up, attitude, views, body. What you're aware of. Whether those are the things right outside your door or more and more often just the things that are part of your past.

How in the world do you wish to be?

Yesterday, someone I know told me it was ninety-five degrees where they live and that they were wearing a sweatshirt. This person thinks of themselves, at least to some degree, as a New Englander but I never thought of them that way. (For one thing, I wouldn't say you can be a New Englander by degrees; and being a New Englander isn't as much about geographical location as one might think.)

They wear a Red Sox hat and identify as a Patriots fan, but, again, I never thought of them that way. Once I brought up Stanley Morgan, for instance. They had no clue who he was. I have a different expectation than most, I grant, in actually being a given thing. Whether that's a writer, a fan of a team, a Beatles expert. A good person, for that matter.

I'm not someone who goes in for the mere slapping on of labels. The millions and millions of people who decide to call themselves a writer, who have never seriously written, never worked at it, never published, but sure, why the hell not, "I'm a writer, gonna say as much in my Instagram bio."

You're not a writer. You have no idea what that entails. What it really takes. Demands.

So, yes, for me, a person oriented towards legitimacy and actually being the thing you say/declare you are, there are thresholds that need to be crossed, regardless of what that thing is.

This is how legitimacy works. Rather than just saying whatever the hell you please. And this is in all things.

I asked this person why they were wearing a sweatshirt in ninety-five degree heat and they said that they like to sweat. I pointed out the many times this person had grumbled to me about the heat and they said that they like the heat now.

This is often a sign that you are becoming old because you are okay with it and not committed to going up and instead going down. People will say, "That's crazy!" but it isn't. The more that one is like the true New Englander--the person who doesn't mind the cold and, instead, likes it and looks forward to long walks in it--the healthier and younger one is.

This is a blood thing, too. A circulation thing. It's also a fight thing, a resistance thing, a strength thing. When you need heat and prefer it, you're on your way out. (I'm not talking about people outside with nowhere to go.) This can be a much extended process/journey that takes decades, but in your attitude and make-up? In your compete level? And, believe me, the life well and best lived requires a compete level. In that compete level, you're on your way out.

Tramp in snow. Enjoy the cold. Push yourself in heat, yes. Exercise vigorously as you can in it. When you are frustrated with how you performed in that heat, like it knocked you back, commit to pushing harder the next day and doing better. Tell yourself, "I will get accustomed to this heat and I'll make it so it's not a limiting factor" and then make good on this. Command the Heat Miser to "Hit me with what you got." That's the sweat you want. Puddles of it at your feet after you are done. As you also look forward to the cold and know how much better it is.

The cold is a measuring stick of where you are at in your life. Those who embrace cold are usually better off in body, heart, mind, and soul. To thrive in cold, one must be active in cold. To be active in cold, one must be active in life. It has to be the way that you are.

This same person once said to me that they wanted to do the Monument stairs with me, a reason being to give me "a little competition."

I think of this remark often, as you might imagine, when I am running stairs in the Monument. I very much question if a person, including a person who knows that I do this thing and has read and/or been told (and seen videos, for that matter) much about it has any real understanding of what it's like.

I'd say that it's an activity that sounds great in theory, but then when you're out there--or in there, as it were--doubled over, legs in pain, unable to breathe, you'll find yourself thinking, "This is horrible. I never want to do this again." Illusions are shattered quickly. Committing to doing more of something we weren't good at, which caused us discomfort and/or pain, that will take a while to improve at, isn't something people are wired to do. Especially with how humans, for lack of a better term, are programmed in 2026. And almost all humans are the product of the state of other humans however far removed that given human might think they are.

I've ran Monument stairs for ten years now, with time away from the Monument because of the COVID shutdown, but not time away from stairs, because I branched out to other stairs and ones I'd like to return to and should make a point of doing so. There was, of course, the City Hall stairs, which I ran this past Tuesday. But also the stairs out in Brookline and the stairs out at Boston College next to the football stadium.

In those ten years of stairs, there's never been an easy time up that Bunker Hill Monument for me. Not a single circuit. The first circuit of a ten circuit session isn't easy. Even now.

Which is one reason those stairs are so great and demand as much respect as they do. I measure myself against them. I can change but they cannot. There are possibilities in this truth in both directions. The same as one can experience stairs in two directions.

I find this remark about challenging me interesting in that this person either vastly, even comically, overestimates their capabilities, or I vastly underestimate them.

My sense regarding people who've never ran stairs in the Monument is that it's a lot harder than they would think. I don't mean going the once, taking one's time, taking some breaks, as the tourist or one-off partaker does. I mean, "Okay, I am here to do this as this other endeavor."

Consistently, the people who go up with the greatest ease are thin, light-on-their-feet boys of a sporty nature about my nephew's age. These boys don't need to play sports that get the heart rate up through running. They can be baseball players (you piece stuff together based on, say, a shirt the lad is wearing).

What does matter, though, is that they're athletic movement is customary for them. This is a somewhat surprising distinction. It speaks to how important it is to be using one's body in non-prosaic ways. That is, not just the walk to the car, etc. but even just walks for the purpose of walking in and of itself. It's a matter of usage and how we decide to use our bodies.

My would-be competition is in good shape to look at them, but good shape to look can be a very different proposition than stair-running shape. Or who knows--perhaps they'd get in there and zip up and down repeatedly.

Being able to run stairs well, though, is, in addition to a physical thing, a constitution thing, a circulation thing, an attitude thing, a faith thing, a dedication thing, a mental discipline thing, a vision thing, a heart thing, a mind thing, a soul thing. It's what I would also call a Zulu warrior thing.

I wouldn't be so flippant to say that anyone can run on flat ground, but very few can run stairs, but there's some truth in such a remark. Running stairs sounds nice on paper. Certainly beneficial. Even admirable and impressive, and people like to do things that they think others--and themselves--will find admirable and impressive.

But the doing? The getting out there and getting after it? That's different. And you know what's much different still? Doing it the next day. And into the next week. The next month. The next year.

Because what's apt to happen is one gets in there and starts out, and before too long, one thinks, "I do not want to be doing this anymore." I think that shine comes off the stair-running shoe, so to speak, awfully quick.

It's also a character thing. Can't leave that out. I think you'd have to be a very good person, an honorable person, the type of person who is always true to their word, to be a regular runner of stairs. I think if you rounded up the stair runners of the world, you'd find that they had these certain things in common, for whatever differences they might otherwise have.

I think you'd also see that those people welcomed winter and enjoyed and respected the need to get the blood flowing through their own vigor and spirit and attitude and reps--life reps--and looked forward to those days. When you lose that, allowing that you truly had it, you've lost something else as well.

To me, that's what getting old is. It isn't this Father Time thing; it's a you thing. But, then again, that's maybe just me. How I feel and think, or how I see these matters in relation to myself, which is to say, in this personal way. My personal way could be irrelevant to anyone else but me. Or it could just be irrelevant. It could be wrong.

Just as I could be wrong that it'd be exceedingly difficult for anyone to come to the Monument with me--say, later today, on what will be a very hot day--and provide competition. Even for so much as a single circuit. But I'm also open to a dogfight or to learning something new or being surprised. And if I were humbled by your performance, you can bet your life I'd work that much harder to get better so that would be less likely to happen again.

Life reps. I think that's a valuable concept. Did you get your reps in today?

We should also be realistic and say that I'd be looking to crush the competition and, having crushed them, crush them some more. Often the competition is myself. Like with writing especially. How good can you be, boyo? What level can you get to? And with stairs, the physical extension/mirroring of my internal self, as per what I was saying regarding faith, strength, vision, dedication, heart, mind, soul, character.

People love to say, We're all getting older. But you know what they never ask? Are you getting better? Or, Am I getting better?

If that's your daily concern and goal, what you consciously work towards in all the aspects of your life, then there isn't age as people think of age. Not internally, and not, I daresay, in terms of body necessarily. It's remarkable how much of life and living is the grip you're committed to having on the rope. Let up a little, and there's slippage. Sure, you might not fall for a long, long time, into the chasm below, but slippage is still slippage. The hands are further apart. And it becomes harder to climb upwards.

You must be vigilant about your grip. That means aware. Everything starts with awareness. It is only when we are aware that we can be proactive and, for that matter, active in the best ways. This means mentally, morally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually.