ENDURANCE
A note written today to those from around our global village who are participating in our lockdown marathon! : https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/Regenerate-Lockdown-Marathon
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis
In my thinking on what it means to be human I’ve learned that we humans use our intelligence to become great tool makers and gifted team workers, through language to come together to overcome challenges much bigger than our individual selves could handle.
Something I had missed (due to my own biased lack of connection to my own body) was that our ability to sweat has allowed us a capacity for endurance that has made us outrageously terrifying hunters, running marathons for days on end , hunting animals who were bigger and faster than us until they overheated and collapsed from exhaustion.
When we enter into covering long distances under our own power we tap into this original part of our hominid story, it connects us to a fundamental strength that lies deep inside all of us, part of the core of what it means to be human.
These days, we don’t often need to kill animals to survive but we do need our gift of incredible endurance and formidable persistence to sweat our way, along with our tools and language to undo our systems of injustice.
When we move over long distances we build this muscle inside us, and even more deeply, tapping into this can unblock the hurt that prevents us from acting as our authentic selves, which then creates space so that we can co-create a beautiful world together, grown from moments of original creativity and wound together in love.
Man made systems can’t sweat like we can, they can’t do the distance like the human spirit can.
When we leave our front doors on this lockdown marathon brought together across our Global village in the spirit of friendship, supported by our running apps and zoom calls we are stepping into our roles as purveyors of the human spirit, to endure longer than the other animals can, to find connection in the pain and unlock our unlimited futures together.
This is what it means to be human NOW, and I for one am extremely proud to be entangled with all of you in this.
