Type Three Fun

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about getting old, which is, of course, a consequence of being old. Specifically, I try to discern whether it is still possible to do hard things as you get older. In my mind, there are two types of hard things. Type One are the hard things that are endurance based and are a matter of suffering through. Into this category falls paddling 60 kilometres in a day, or running 19 kilometres with 1200 metres of elevation gain. I don’t do as many of these days as I did even a year or two ago. It takes me longer to recover and the mental gain of knowing I can suffer through a hard day can seem off-set by my inability to train again for a few days. Recovery just takes longer.

Type Two hard things are the things you do even if you are scared. Into this category falls much of Sketchy Kelly’s (Kelly Cordez) Type 2 and 3 fun. This is a different type of hard, but often also includesType One Hard. Theoretically, it is possible, therefore, to have the ultimate hard, which combines Type One Hard and Type Two Hard into one super hard endeavour, which we might call Type Three Hard. Stacking up multiple Type Three Hard days, weeks, even months, might be the supreme Hard Project.

Candice Burt just wrapped up her 200 ultra-marathons in 200 days project which might be the ultimate Type One hard thing. You can catch her on a podcast here and here. Burt touches on a lot of the mental strength required to stack up 200 Type One days in a row. Discerning listeners will be as frustrated with the interviewers as I was because the hosts let all kinds of interesting insights pass unremarked upon presumably to follow their pre-prepared line of questioning. Many times, it would pay to be more like Jordan Peterson and say “Well, let’s talk about that for a while,” instead of following script.

Mark Twight always writes something which I wish I had written but didn’t. In his latest essay Freedom Perhaps Twight muses on our increasing culture of safetyism. You should read this essay, especially if you are in favour of MsInman Grant’s desire to regulate free speech on social media platforms or cheered heartily for forced vaccination and lockdown. Freedom, as we should all recognise, is seldom free, and safety at all costs is the least safe option of all.

I’ll close this strange and meandering post with a quote from Freedom Perhaps, because I too, above much else, despise being told what to do:

I'm a late-Boomer, older, and also not fixed or firm, able to change ideas, careers, location and social circumstances but one thing I cannot change is my resistance to being told what to do.

Vive la résistance!

Photos from yesterdays trip, single track and bushwack, over and around Pollowombra Mountain.