Above all, I cannot get over the weather in the Siberian taiga: 20 hours of darkness in winters, “warm” weather being -30 degrees Fahrenheit, and saliva solidifying before hitting the ground.  The studied inhabitants of this region, the Eveny people, often sing songs on themes of mondji, or the quality of being self-reliant, able to survive in extreme situations, and never giving up.  It was really inspiring to get insight on a people that have so few possessions and so few societal concerns, but seem to focus largely on bare survival in the face of many neighbors succumbing to violent and premature deaths due to the terrain.  

I think it would be harder for me to understand how this lifestyle carries joy (aside from being brought up in it and not knowing other lifestyles) IF, while reading this, I had not coincidentally watched a video on ‘happiness’ musings by a Christian/Buddhist.  In the video, among other things included in the 4 hour youtube vid, Anthony de Mello emphasizes that we can’t place happiness on the acquisition of things/people/jobs/statuses because we will become attached, and then be too anxious we’ll lose the object to enjoy it OR when we lose it suffer a feeling of never being happy again (like when you were a child and didn’t get a specific Barbie and thought you’d never be happy again – but that period of depression was hollow because you did become happy again, silly child).  De Mello has a simple philosophy, but it helped me understand that Eveny may be happy in part due to this lack of attachment.  Inspirational!

Author Piers Vitebsky is clearly in love with these people, as he followed them for decades, and it shows in his writings.  It was a little hard to follow the twisting directions of the book, and I often had no idea chronologically what was happening – although chron was not the point here, it usually makes non-fic reading easier.  The end was a bit heartbreaking because Vitebsky paints a picture of an inevitable demise (“At the 2002 spring festival…., where 30,000 reindeer – more than have ever existed in Sebyan – had been reduced to a mere 6,000, the younger people danced away the night in a disco, while the older herders sat and wept.”).  I need to visit Russia.

Well, Lance Armstrong is apparently pretty conceited and bratty… 

”The things that were important to people in [my hometown] were becoming less and less important to me. School and socializing were second to me now; developing into a world-class athlete was first.  My life’s ambition wasn’t to own a tract home near a strip mall.  I had a fast car and money in my wallet, but that was because I was winning races…”—>conceited

OR

“When you’re 17 and a man takes a Camaro IROC Z away from you, he’s on your hit list.”—>bratty

BUT this bravado makes sense: he’s intense and aggressive and confident, and that is why he has been able to do the absolutely amazing things he has done in his life (e.g. beating cancer & winning the Tour 7x).

I also can’t help but feel a little incredulous due to all the controversy with Lance’s possible drug usage, which was being federally investigated for 2 entire years.  Isn’t EPO/whatever he’s allegedly using traceable in blood/urine? Is the only basis for investigation the statements made against him by other disgraced cyclist?  Unclear.

The book was mildly interesting on cancer survival techniques and cycling experience.  “Once, someone asked me what pleasure I took in riding for so long.  ‘Pleasure?’ [Lance] said.  ‘I don’t understand the question.’  I didn’t do it for pleasure. I did it for pain.’”  It’s interesting that this totally common theme runs among super athletes: pain is temporary, and the only opponent you have is yourself and how you will respond to pain in the current round.

I just feel happy to be alive and (relatively) healthy after reading Born to Run.

This is the first time I learned of ultrarunners and physical activity freaks like the Divine Madness (a group that seeks nirvana through extreme trail running, sex parties, and housecleaning).  They seem like a magical people because they are not particularly athletic or perhaps started these activities late in life, which makes it seem so approachable.  Like maybe when I’m 30 I will compete at the Leadville 100?

 I love the idea that people run more when times are tough (i.e. in wars, depressions), yet to run well McDougall says you need to be happy…Running is such an historical and an emotional pursuit – it “unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure.  We run when we’re scared, we run when we’re ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.”  I was absolutely romanticized by the exuberance of Jenn Shelton, a young ultrarunner who competed in the “Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen” – what is she doing now?? Hopefully something amazing…I wish there was a 2013 ‘where are they now’ for all characters.  I heard that Caballo may have died..?

The writing style was almost overwhelmingly similar to Into the Wild (Krakauer), another fave of mine – including the underlying true story of the ‘greatest race the world has never seen’ (v. the engrossing wanderer tale of Christopher McCandless) + lightly extraneous historical facts along the way about running (v. lightly extraneous historical facts about other people escaping into nature).  This combo is likely attributable to the investigative journalism genre as a whole, but whatever it is, it works.

This book was beautiful, and actually made me breathless.  It shocks me that no one I mentioned it to had heard of it (including myself, who read it on a cold recommendation).  In an epic tale where we follow one man’s life from approximately age 9 to 30, we’re privy to Phillip’s thoughts and squirm because we have thought those thoughts, and they’re almost uncomfortable to view from an outside perspective.  Phil does some lovely things, and he does some ugly things, and by constantly redefining himself (via careers, loves, life philosophies/religion), he tries to understand the point of life.

In Phil’s quest to find meaning in mediocrity, one of his obstacles consisted of a love affair with a prostitute.  Maugham has said in other writings: “the love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned,” which has particularly moved me due to my current state of confusion on relationships.  Just today I was talking to a friend about a married couple she knows in which the husband’s sex addiction is ruining them.  Just YESTERDAY I was talking to a friend that started dating someone who has treated her terribly in the past and is a terrible person, but she can’t help but swoon when the person comes back to her.  My parents have been faithfully married for 35 years, with probably more downs than ups. I recently heard of a girl whose parents had an open relationship while she grew up, and now her mom lives with a woman and her dad lives with a man.  One of my friends has a long-distance girlfriend but drunkenly cheats on her locally.  One friend is polyamorous.  I have (many) friends who completely dissociate physical v. mental connection and have never closely dated someone.  Phil, crippled with a clubfoot, suffers an absolute obsession with Mildred, a prostitute, and often “thought of taking her in his arms, the thin, fragile body, and kissing her pale mouth; he wanted to pass his fingers down the slightly greenish cheeks.”  Though Phil suffered from insanely loving someone he didn’t even like, and who didn’t love him in return, he also made other women suffer, such as Miss Wilkinson, an older woman he encouraged to fall in love with him and then abandoned.  The point is…love is isolating, and I don’t know how to place all these mishap lovers I mentioned except to say that in every relationship, there is one person who loves & one person who is loved, and things may be smoother if we know which we are.

The characters were just well done. Most notably, Mr. Athelny grabbed my heart – the comically grandiose father of 9 “bastard kids,” he dumped his elegant life and frigid wife for a simple farm lady lover in an impoverished life.  He is obsessed with Spain, speaks in a lavishly verbose way, and named his daughters Maria del Sol, Maria de los Mercedes, Maria del Pilar, Maria de la Concepcion, and Maria del Rosario.  His family, the embodiment of goodness, loves each other in a very pure way and quickly embraces Phillip as a family member.  Athelny is always making his family ‘giggle’, like when a young chap courting his daughter was going to visit the house for the first time:

“It was an occasion that thoroughly appealed to Athelny.  He rehearsed all the afternoon how he should play the heavy father for the young man’s edification till he reduced his children to helpless giggling.  Just before he was due, Athelny routed out an Egyptian tarboosh and insisted on putting it on. ‘Go on with you, Athelny,’ said his wife, who was in her best, which was of black velvet, and, since she was growing stouter every year, very tight for her.  ‘You’ll spoil the girl’s chances.’ She tried to pull it off, but the little man skipped nimbly out of her way. ‘Unhand me, woman.  Nothing will induce me to take it off.  This young man must be shown at once that it is no ordinary family he is preparing to enter.’”

The thing is…read this book, and pass it on, so that more people I talk to will know it in the future.