Nobody wants to run a marathon. Nobody.
The first guy to run a marathon was a Greek messenger named Pheidippides, who did it by accident and promptly died for his trouble. He’d no doubt be puzzled to learn that 2,500 years later people pay actual money to run the same distance across deserted downtowns on a completely voluntary basis and not as part of a prison sentence. Modern marathoners are an odd, tortured bunch.
Serious runners have appalling amounts of discipline and focus, but like our guy Pheidippides before them, not one of them wants to run a marathon, exactly. What they want is to have run a marathon.
That’s because running sucks.
Running makes you sore and sweaty and if you do it often enough your knees will punish you if your ankles don’t get to you first. A person only runs because he’s trying to accomplish something else, like delivering a message about a Greek battle, or stretching a single into a double, or not getting eaten by a bear. The running is just a means to an end, especially when a marathon is involved.
Don’t believe me? Next time your town throws its pointless annual marathon, go downtown and watch the band of merry morons who paid $230 for a numbered bib and the right to run 26.2 miles in a row on a Sunday morning. Hang out around Mile 22 and look at their miserable, suffering faces as they pass by — they may muster a tight grin when you shout their name while you sip Irish coffee from the sidewalk, but make no mistake, you are witnessing the lowest moment of their athletic lives.
They just want to be done and collapse across the finish line in a heap of glory, because that’s the point of a marathon: to get it over with, to be transformed into A Person Who Ran a Marathon.
Writing has always been like running for me. When I say I like to write, I mean I like to have written.
Publishing stuff can be uniquely satisfying, but the composing and editing process is a rock fight — my laptop and me on one side, my distractions1 and insecurities on the other. We slug it out for a few hours until a deadline forces my surrender and a column exists. It never really feels finished, but I do.
But getting to that end result — a combination of words that never existed before, that other people might read — can make the battle feel worthwhile.
Lately, though, I haven’t been doing much writing. There is always an infinite supply of excuses not to write — shows to watch, work to do, naps to take. But mostly I tell myself I’m simply too busy. I just don’t have time to write.
When I was a more regular contributor at The Athletic I got into a steady weekly routine, the closest I’ve come to actually enjoying the writing process. My Friday morning columns mostly contained musings about college football in general or Nebraska football in particular. Ultimately we settled into a weekly “Dear Faux” advice column where I would dispense life advice through my alter ego, Faux Pelini.
I went back and read a bunch of those advice columns over the holidays, and I was surprised how much I recall about writing them, even the older ones from 2017. I remember why I selected certain questions to answer and what was going on in my life at the time. I even have vivid recollections about where I was physically as I typed many of my replies (proximity to food and caffeine was a recurring theme).
But one of those old columns stood out from the rest last week and made me realize that I need to start writing again, because the reality is I don’t have time not to write. (You’ll see that one below in about 20 seconds.)
The old “Dear Faux” columns will be the reference point for this new weekly version of Mo’ Faux. Every Friday I’ll use one of those questions and answers as inspiration for writing something new about life or sports or Elon Musk (just kidding)(probably not kidding).
Thanks for reading.
(OK, that wasn't so bad. Easier than running, at least.)
The following appeared in The Athletic on May 1, 2020, six weeks into the pandemic. I remember banging this out at my kitchen table as I scrambled to get a lockdown-themed column posted before everything opened back up. Simpler times! Faux’s reply below hit uncomfortably close to home as I reread it last week. I should listen to him more often.
May 1, 2020
Dear Faux Pelini,
How do I snap out of a mid-life crisis? Please help me before it is too late.
Anthony T.
Dear Anthony,
I don’t know what triggered your mid-life crisis, but there’s usually a last straw. Maybe you suddenly got fed up with your television, or your car, or your spouse. Whatever it is I hope you figure it out, because a global pandemic is no time to start shopping for a newer model.
If you’re like most of us, your mid-life crisis originated with a case of the Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda Flu. Sometime in your forties you began to hear a clock ticking, you started to panic, and BOOM — your mid-life crisis had arrived.
When you were a younger man you believed that one day you would do a Big Thing. You’d write a book, become a standup comedian, run a company, something. And because you had plenty of time to do your Big Thing, you never really bothered getting started on it. You would get to it. Someday.
As the years rolled by you always intended to do your Big Thing, but time became a limited resource. There was always something else to do, somewhere else to be. Even during your mid-life crisis you believed you’d eventually get around to your Big Thing, you just needed to find the time. Someday.
And then out of nowhere you found yourself locked down in a quarantine. What a break! Finally, you had hours and days of extra time on your hands, more than you ever thought possible. Your Someday had arrived.
Except that for the past six weeks you’ve done nothing about your Big Thing.
The coronavirus has exposed an unfortunate reality: Any project that you haven’t started working on DURING A DAMN QUARANTINE is simply never going to happen.
Maybe you believed you wanted to write a book, Anthony, but what you really wanted was to have written a book. You never built a plan to actually accomplish your Big Thing, because your Big Thing was never part of who you are.
And that’s OK.
At your age you’re basically a finished product, and there are a lot of things you’re good at. You’ve accumulated half a lifetime of knowledge and experience and talents. When your New Normal arrives, I want you to focus on building on those strengths, not on transforming into imaginary versions of yourself.
If you’re convinced that I’m wrong and you’re truly meant to do your Big Thing, then go do it. Like, today. If you haven’t started on it by next week, let yourself off the hook and let your Big Thing go. Forever.
You have a lot of good years left on this planet, Anthony. When you leave this place, people will remember you not for the things you might have done, but for the things you actually did. So go do them.
Some of my best kitchen reorganizing has been done when I have a column to finish in a few hours. I once spent 45 minutes selecting a new location for the silverware drawer when I should have been writing about Scott Frost’s latest failure. My family was not amused the next morning.
I too have the same issues. I had a website I wrote about parenthood but eventually lost the desire to do it. But then people say “you are a good writer, you should keep going” and then the guilt/desire creep back in.
Brilliant writing! Thank you.
I studied journalism in college. I remember thinking I must be in the wrong major because I had to work so hard to produce good writing; I assumed it should come easily. Then I read a quote from a famous journalist who said, "I love thinking about the story I'm going to write, and I love sitting back with a drink and reading the finished piece; everything in between is just hard."
I've had my share of those "move the silverware moments" when I was up against a deadline. Why do we do that to ourselves?!
Last comment - your "Dear Faux" column reminded me of a column I wrote for a dog rescue newsletter. I called it "Ask a Dog" and featured corny questions about the mailman, etc.
Thanks for the laughs!