I spent some part of every waking hour, from our coach’s warning on Monday that the upcoming workout would kick our collective asses to the time on Tuesday when that workout came to pass, worrying about it. He wasn’t lying, and even now there’s a constant soreness clenching up my legs, but it didn’t kick my ass in the way I was scared it would. I was scared it would be another one of those times where I strained to put more power into each stride, but still saw the group I was supposed to run with draw further and further ahead of me as my time for each interval drifted from the mark. This time, even though the exhaustion had me stalled out and panting by the end of the second repetition, I stuck with the group and hit all the paces. Here’s the weird part, though: I don’t think I did better just because of better training or stretching or hydration or any of that. It was all in this psychological trick that I’d developed in middle school, used to great effect, stopped using because I deemed it sacrilegious, then became desperate enough to use again yesterday. I imagined that it wasn’t me running, that I was as inanimate as a little Hotwheels car on my own, but the finger of God was on my back, pushing me forward, so I had no say in the matter.
Now, to be clear, I don’t think I did well in that workout because of divine intervention. I doubt God cares all that much about NCAA Division III Cross Country and, if a heavenly miracle really did give me a boost, you’d expect it to more than a marginal improvement. It disturbs me that I went back to using that trick, because it seems almost like taking God’s name in vain and cheapening God’s power, if only in my own mind. But, really, I don’t think God has anything to do with it. It’s all about autonomy. Because, for whatever reason, I do better when I think I’ve lost control.
Losing control has been on my mind ever since. I was talking to a friend about the morality of self-driving cars earlier today, and an aspect of it occurred to me that I’d never thought about before: what would it be like to be in a crash in one? At first it seemed terrifying, to be speeding towards a wall or into a crowd, trapped in a doomed metal box with nothing to do to save yourself. But then it seemed almost freeing. Imagine if there was no one to blame, no one to bring to trial, just a one-in-a-million fluke that you had to accept. There’s something pleasant about giving up control, isn’t there? Maybe that’s where the appeal for predestination comes from. Whether you’re saved or damned, there’s no need to stress, it’s all been decided since before time by a dispassionate God so you might as well let your life play out however it will.
It's tempting to go ahead and adopt these thoughts as a sort of motto: there's nothing I can do, nothing I can change, I don't have control and I'm fine with it. It sure would be a less stressful way to live. For me, anxiety is always about control. It's not that I'm scared of something, but that there's something I should do to avoid disaster, something I should do but can't. It would be easy enough to run slow if I couldn't control my legs, but I can, so whenever I fall behind my pace there's always that thought that there's more I can do. So why not pretend that I don't have control and let all that stress fall away?
But every time I try to start thinking like that, even when I'm being pushed along by the finger of God, there's some part of me that won't stop kicking against whatever calm base I manage to build. It won't let me give in to blind trust. It won't let me forget that it's just me propelling myself forward, that I could always trip and fall in the lake and drown. So I've got to let fear keep prodding me forward, because if I ever stop being afraid, I'll stop moving. And, as much as I try, I can't help but feel disgusted when people say "Whatever will be will be." Isn't that just giving up on free will? Maybe that makes for a less stressful life, but taking out stress doesn't leave you with happiness. Maybe it just leaves you with nothing.
There's a balance somewhere here, I know there must be. But I haven't been able to find it yet.
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