I saw a photo of David Goggins on Instagram. It was taken about fifteen years ago. He was bloated, his head as round as a pumpkin, indulgent and fleshy. His eyes were sunken, sullen, dead. A birthday cake slumbered on the dining table, unharmed but soon to be scoffed by an even unhappier version of a man dog-piling himself—day after unmerciful day. Where does that kind of hate come from? I would have hugged him if I could.
The cheerless layer cake looked unappetizing, and Goggins looked more wretched than that. He exuded defeat, a man trapped, deserted. That’s how he looked. But up he rose, climbing a ladder of thorns. He found his way to the man locked inside himself. He confronted his jailer and killed him, and he was reborn, fit, sleek, motivated, and rugged. He got to work, a hatchet in one hand, a hammer in the other.
A sound approach.
My mind has been overcast and flabby of late. Doubt, procrastination, and consternation my relentless companions. It’s loud in here, under my scalp. Awful Chinese food, cherry pie, and booze do not adequately buttress old ramparts against hordes of emboldened, menacing assailants wielding battle axes and ancient hissings. I have a dead-eyed photo like the one Goggins shared—mine is decades old. I’m fat, unhappy, ensnared. My eyes are unoccupied, lead weights dragging me under. Me.
Honest labor has always been the best antidote for these bouts of mental dysentery, so I strapped 35 pounds of iron to my back and went for a hike to clear my head.
I assaulted the gravel trail, my boots taking ground unapologetically. I was purposeful in each stride, posture perfect, eyes alert, head up, chin out. Whatever was coming at me had better be ready. It was early, around 530 AM, and nearly pitch black. My trail soon became a dim, ominous tunnel—I willed it so, and then a long closet stretched before me. This closet was from my childish nightmares, where the boogeyman hid behind a wall of shoe boxes, grinning or lurking in the dress shirts, swaying on cheap metal hangers. I could hear his motherfucking breathing. In the blackness, now, I needed him to manifest from shadow to man. Come out from the trees. Fight me, you coward!
I had walked this trail many times but never in the dark. A gray track came slowly to focus, lit lightly, the battle between night and Genesis waning. I stomped the footpath furiously, a stone crusher. Searching for my opponent. Yearning for combat. I wanted to be challenged, to draw first blood to find my measure of a man, my equal. I was fearful but not afraid.
And then it dawned on me as dawn creased the murmuring leaves.
I am solitary on this trail. I am the adversary I seek. I have found the man.
And soon the streetlights gently appeared, civilization proffering peace.
A flicker of regret, I felt.
And then savage satisfaction.
With blood on my hands.