Recently, I barely survived my first Hyrox. It’s a horrendous fitness race with a particularly steep € 105,- admission fee. At the starting line, during the last few seconds of countdown, someone rolled his eyes and cynically asked me why we put ourselves through stuff like this and pay money to do so. “They should be paying us!” they laughed, before running off significantly more confidently than me.
It reminded me of an interview I read over a decade ago. In it, a journalist asked an event organizers (so called “obstacle runs,” such as Mud Masters and Spartan Race) why people attend these sorts of events, which are both challenging and expensive. His answer was something along the lines of:
“I think people’s day-to-day lacks adventure. Our events briefly give them something to fight for, something to survive and overcome. An experience they can’t get anywhere else.”
I remember it because I believe he was absolutely right.
I work from home. Every morning, after doing morning stuff, I take my cup of coffee and head up the stairs to the attic, aka my workspace. “I’m off to Computer Land,” I’ll tell my wife.
“Good luck,” she’ll reply.
Not that I need it. Going to Computer Land is one of the least adventurous things one can do. Yet almost all of spend many hours there every day. Over time, a certain greyness builds up. An emptiness. Perhaps future doctors will diagnose it as “computerisis.”
The only way to rid ourselves of this emptiness is to do things outside of Computer Land for a while. In my case, these things involve self-flagellation through fitness races. But they only provides a temporary fix.
In the long run, I know I need something in my life to seriously balance my time in Computer Land. Something where I can use my hands, building something that I can touch and smell and break and fix.
And I’m happy to announce that I’ve found exactly the right thing. It’s quite big. Literally. It’s double big.
More on this very soon.