Working Class Runner

Prior to becoming a more serious runner some time back, I spent years as a practicing theatre, improv and dance performer, and wrote about those subjects here.

I stopped performing in 2017 because I frankly didn’t enjoy doing it anymore. Showing up to the theater became a chore with no personal benefit, and that’s not why people practice and perform.

Now and then I get views on my old improv posts. Here’s one that got viewed last night. I wrote a lot about ideas and principles that demonstrated the ability to produce better improv, better theatre, better shows. Much of what I wrote still stands up today, even though I haven’t stepped on a stage in two years and don’t feel much like doing so today.

I’m glad my writing on improv and theatre is still of use to people performing today. It’s part of why I didn’t take that writing down once I switched my focus to running.

Part of the reason I stopped performing: Fundamentally, on and off stage, your success in performing arts entirely depends on the approval and active support of other people. After all, you are performing for an audience, and even if performing solo you need other people to get a stage to do it.

Because of this, you can do everything essentially “right” (whatever that means in your case), but if people don’t want to fully engage it won’t matter. The problem really hit home when I began teaching and coaching. If people don’t want to engage, don’t want to work hard, don’t want to take you seriously… no effort you put forth will succeed on a suitable level, whether you perform or seek to help performers. In the performing arts, everyone else decides if you succeed or fail.

Despite everyone’s best intentions, it’s little wonder so many performers are mentally unhealthy. Objectively, a lifestyle that depends entirely on the approval and support of others is not a healthy way to live.

It’s also a key reason I got seriously into running, which like most forms of exercise is essentially the opposite. While useful, you don’t need anyone’s approval or support to succeed or grow with running. If you know what you’re doing and you regularly do the work, you can grow. Even if for whatever reason someone doesn’t want you to succeed, they (short of criminal or other ethically bankrupt activity) cannot stop you.

I put a lot of time and growth into becoming a theatre performer, but every time I think about going back… I think about all the costs and obstacles to doing it, and it frankly doesn’t seem worth the effort. I may be talented, may be funny, may be whatever else… but so are a lot of other people. And competing with those people for a finite, dwindling amount of attention in an increasingly ADHD, media-heavy world doesn’t seem like the best use of my time and energy.

Meanwhile, running has always been a great use of my time and energy. I’ve gotten in much better shape and health. It’s always engaging to me. The knowledge I’ve built from doing it, what I share writing about it, helps a large number of people I haven’t even met.

So that’s a big reason why I run and write about running and the lifestyle. If there’s a takeaway for you from this, it’s to focus on doing what rewards you and helps you reward others… and to not invest yourself in things that don’t.