Marching Again, like Sisyphus up the Mountain

Finally, today I started marching again, stepping out briskly on my “long loop” neighborhood walking route by the river.  (Of course, I still wear a facemask, a more comfortable surgical one now, out of politeness for my neighbors.)  There is another more direct walking route – which I always take when despicably lazy – straight down the street a klick-and-a-half to my pharmacy, to Yanhee Hospital, and my English-speaking Thai friend who makes key copies on the sidewalk nearby.  The long river loop adds about two kilometers to the walk, but it is more scenic and is much more conducive to exercise. 

It’s been weeks and weeks – months actually – since I last strode these long-loop sidewalks.  First off, in January and February the winter toxic smog (which I’ve written of earlier) made it necessary to wear N95 facemasks to filter out the PM-2.5 particles, and it is extremely hard to breathe through those when exercising rigorously.  Exhausting and hot, discouraging activity of any kind.  Then the Covid-19 lockdown started, coinciding with the intense Hot Season.  I even stopped my weight training routine with dumbbells two months ago (until re-starting it again just three days ago), and it’s long been far too hot to use my home treadmill. 

In the early stretches of my long river loop march today, I saw old neighbors I hadn’t seen in so long, and we happily waved and smiled as I cruised on by.  Good folks.  Arriving at the Chao Phraya River, I had forgotten how cool it is under the broad Rama 7 Bridge with the shade and constant breeze.  (Blessed coolness, Zen delight!)  The river is quite low at the end of the long dry season, but it will fill up in coming months. 

About one klick into my long-loop march, I started to feel stresses and soreness in various leg muscles.  I realized that walking this loop uses different muscles in different ways, and I’m not used to that.  All my walking in the last couple of months has been just short saunters to stores in my immediate area, and it involves stopping frequently to wait for traffic to clear and slowly weaving through crowded sidewalks with vendors set up, and at no time have I been able to really step out in full uninterrupted stride.  But today, I was again on terrain where I am psychologically accustomed to full-out marching – Ooh Rah! – long rapid strides at as fast a pace as possible – no traffic crossings or obstacles to slow my progress. 

I stretched my legs; I ain’t used to it; and I’m going to be terribly sore for days and days.  As one gets older (and I’m 70), it is harder to recover from inactivity, and it seems like an ever-steeper uphill climb to win back that fitness.  Sisyphus would understand, as he shoulders his rock up the mountain in his eternal task.  Another ancient said in another context, “The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.”  The Buddha said that life is Dukkha, recommended that it’s best we embrace that fact while letting go of negative reactions to it, but that joy is possible.  More modern sages, The Rolling Stones, sang, “What a drag it is getting old...”.  Others, “What a long strange trip it’s been!” 

Although the tendency of ageing’s physical weakening and deterioration goes inexorably in one downward direction, the opportunities for intellectual, emotional, and spiritual ripening and fulfillment can go in another direction altogether.  The pinnacles of a lifetime of learning and of drawing on rich deep experience can coalesce into a profound joy – much like the portrayal of Sisyphus (that Camus gives us), at the moment when he turns around on the summit to walk back down the mountain to retrieve his rock again in his never-ending agonizing task.  Sisyphus, momentarily relieved of his upward struggle yet knowing that he will have to continue it soon, can look at the world below him at this moment and take in the complete view (which is also, perhaps coincidently, the first step on the Eightfold Path). 

I’ve read a bit – yet never as much as I’d like – and there are a few distinct pinnacles I’ve glimpsed, many of them being perennial stuff from my youth.  Emerson’s essay, Self-Reliance, said, “Trust thyself.  Every heart vibrates to that iron string.”  When hitchhiking in 1968 after liberation from that grueling 12-year-sentence of public schooling, I carried a small copy of this essay in my pocket everywhere I roamed that entire summer. 

But one quote from an immigrant refugee from totalitarianism who found the promise of a better life in America sums it all up better than others for me:

“To hold an unchanging youth is to reach, at the end, the vision with which one started.” 

I first read that over half a century ago, and I was awed at the time by the notion of steadfast idealism and personal achievement it expressed.  It rings truer as I age. 

I always find it hard to believe that I am an “old man”, even if my body is no longer strong.  The spirit of youth has never left me, and my unchanging vision – Personal Freedom – is right here now.  At this stage, it is doubtful if I’ll ever “grow up”.  What’s the point? 

-Zenwind. 

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