Humans are fantastic creatures. We are social animals, we are incredibly efficient biological machines, and, more than once, for better or for worse, we have managed to change the course by which the earth progresses through time and space. We have sent our mark beyond our solar system and to the depths of the Pacific. We have designed buildings to sway in the wind as not to fall over, and managed to make a film out of just 12 atoms moving about under a microscope. We can see beauty, and generally agree on then things that are beautiful in this world. The state of Arizona’s Grand Canyon, for example is oft considered one of the most beautiful entities in the world today. Beautiful things bring us joy, peace, and nearly every positive emotion that one could locate among the spectrum of such things. This much is true, but our understanding of beauty should extend beyond just the aesthetics of it all. The question now becomes: can we understand how beauty, specifically the beauty of what others do, was created? You see, we can very well stand for hours atop the skywalk in the canyon, peering, awestruck, down at red rocks and the Colorado River. It is likely, though, that many if not all of us will never quite be able to fully fathom the amount of time this hole in the Earth took to form, much less why it did the way it did. Perhaps it is too much to ask, for each of us is intrinsically ourselves and we can be no other person but ourselves, so our scope of understanding must be limited, by nature. In the accomplishments of others, we see beauty; but too often, and this is quite unfortunate indeed, even though it may be through no fault of our own, we lack the capability to understand the means by which said accomplishments have come about.

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Take, for example, the human’s ability to run long distance. Imagine with me a footrace. There are five beings lining up on a line drawn perpendicular to a dirt track. There is a cheetah in lane 1 and an Andalusian in lane two. Lane 3 and 4 are occupied by a Sumatran orangutan and a border collie. Lane 3’s occupant is special, because it is human. Tension surrounds the line like the mist rising from a waterfall, but it does not hide its contents.

Regardless, the gun rises, and is fired. The horse and the cheetah leap into action. Their muscles contract and relax in an enormous transition of energy from stride to stride, which transfers their bodies as a whole down the dirt path in furious bursts of movement, powerful hindquarters rippling beneath taught skin all the while. Their furious effort catapults them far ahead of their competition in no time at all, and very soon the human is staring at the rear ends of his running mates far off in the distance. Back in the front, the horse and the cheetah are straining. Ten minutes gone, and the heat of the late afternoon is beginning to take its toll. Panting like madmen, the animals frantically attempt to cool their insides. Unfortunately for these two, the human has found a better way to moderate the heat.

Sweating profusely, the human begins to regain the ground from which he had once been so far gone. The human passes the Border collie, whom has resorted to a lackluster effort of exhausted determination. Body hair is not advantageous in times such as these. The chimpanzee is far behind the rest – the opposing thumbs of his feet restrict any efficient running movement. Plus, the rainforest doesn’t often allow for such jaunts of pure speed.

Progress in lanes 1 and 2 has all but ceased as the human has nearly caught his competition. The horse can do no more than trot; and the cheetah is lying on the side of the track, drastically overheated from its extraordinary effort. The human glides by with relative ease, or at least that much that would deter the cheetah even further from any attempt at a chase. This human is not an Olympian. He is not Mo Farah, he is not Steve Prefontaine, and he is not Quenton Cassidy of Once a Runner lore. He is a 28 year-old Han Chinese man, who is right handed (National Geographic Society). His humanity is what makes him special. 3 million years ago, humans began to elevate their diets. Animal protein became far favorable to the small concentrations of it in roots and nuts, normal Australopithecine fare of the day. The animals of interest, though, were often difficult to approach, and killing them on first contact was all but impossible without sufficient lethal weaponry. So, early man did things the hard way. He would chase the beasts.

For hours on end, man would follow lumbering mammals across the African plains, never relenting, and always one step behind. The animal, keenly aware of the clear and present danger that this presence presented would never cease to press forward until… exhaustion set in. Weak and encumbered, the kill was a straightforward task. So it went, for hundreds upon thousands of years. In due course, man became and endurance running machine. The Achilles tendon, an anatomical bit almost nonexistent in his chimpanzee relative, acts a rubber band to propel him forward with each stride (Hanson and Nicolosi). His narrow hips, broad shoulders, and large buttocks help to counter-act the frequent rotation that occurs in his lower half. Relatively short arms and thin, slender ankles are easy to swing back and forth and cut efficiently through the air (Parker-Pope). Limited body hair, tall, thin bodies and hundreds of thousands of eccrine glands cool the body with efficiency that no other system – those found in nature or the human domain – could match (Lieberman and Bramble). All of those uniquely human characteristics were derived from the pressure to survive applied over an unfathomable expanse of time. Before we had the tools to get the job done, we had the lower legs to carry us there and the heart to do the same without entering cardiac arrest. And so, after millennia, the human became the ultimate example of endurance running, and it allowed that species to live long, and prosper. We have clearly benefited from these abilities, and it is an interesting image to have in one’s mind: an entire tribe of villagers slowly chasing down their means of survival (McDougall). It is important to consider, as well, that the entire village would chase the animal, not just the young and reckless youth. The women and small children came along as well – after all, they were the ones who most needed high quality nutrition. The elderly came along too, for they were the ones most used to this sort of pursuit, and had the expertise to better ensure success in the long run. Sure, there were the 27-something males – only they had the grip strength necessary to murder even the strongest of their prey. I implore you though, what is the band of professionals without the herd of amateurs watching every move to one day be among the ranks? Running then was a community affair, not an activity reserved for the young. Through millions of years of tough evolutionary pressure, where those who did not run after their food would die, humans became endurance running machines, bested by few in the animal world. Every marathoner has early human’s desire for protein to thank for their athletic prowess: without, we might all be only sprinters in the great race of our lives.

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James Marsh awoke from a deep sleep on a February morning in 2009, quite pleased with himself. He rose from his bed and put on some toast, walking past a calendar that reported a date: Sunday the 22nd. The corners of his lips rose ever so slightly at the thought, the thought that this day had finally come into being, and that this day was his chance to prove something momentous to the world, if they had not yet believed it. Mr. Marsh allowed the morning and afternoon to slip by like teatime at the Four Seasons. He tightened his half-Windsor and slipped a sport coat over his tall frame. As the night went on, Mr. Marsh met up with the most effervescent Frenchman one could hope to encounter – a tightrope artist whose name was just a spirited as his demeanor – Philippe Petit. Philippe was adorned in a considerably shinier jacket than Mr. Marsh and a long white cashmere scarf. He had not always been so fashionable. Young Petit was practicing. He found two oaks in a local park, and managed to string rope between them, around and around and around again, until there was no more rope to be wound. As Philippe put it, he had entwined not just any two trees, but “trees with character” (TED Talk). Trees with character. On the fourth day, Philippe removed one of the ropes, and exchanged his monstrous ski boots for more moderate sneakers. As such, Philippe progressed, hour after hour, day after day, until his sneakers were replaced by slippers and his bundle of nylon had been reduced to a surface no greater than an inch wide. Philippe walked. He traversed the rope many more times than Mr. Marsh had made his coffee. He walked between the towers of Notre Dame, the pylons of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Towers with character. Pylons, with character. For the next twenty years, Mr. Petit did the impossible not

once, but many, many times. As he describes in To Reach the Clouds, Mr. Petit knew the things he was doing were impossible. He knew, though, that he could do it. So, without permits, Mr. Petit and his compatriots snuck into the World Trade Center. Hiding in the darkness of night, They climbed the more than 100 flights of stairs to the apex of the tower and abridged the roof, swallowed instantly, no simultaneously, by the white din of Wall Street far below and the gray murmur of light at daybreak in the city. Once the cable had been set, Mr. Petit approached the high wire. His first step, he reported, was terrifying. He felt the density of the air change dramatically between the place he had been and the extraordinary void that opened up below him. Mr. Petit was ready, and he could not doubt that his legs would transport him to the other side. He knew that if he thought that, he would believe it, and the resolve he had been afforded with after his hours, days; years spent on the wire would fall apart under pressure. He would crumble, like Pinocchio taking a polygraph. So he walked, with the doggedness and expertise one could obtain only from thousands of high-wire crossings practiced over the course of one’s existence. He had the bravado that would make his police captors cringe. In his TED Talk, Philippe described the nature of the wire itself: “At my feet, the path to the North Tower – 60 yards of wire rope. It’s a straight line, which sags, which sways, which vibrates, which rolls on itself, which is ice, which is three tons tight, ready to explode, ready to swallow me.” The view from above was a terrifying one, the cable threatening to fling it’s intruder off of his perch at any moment.

1000 feet below, the scene was considerably more serene. Philippe’s all-black dress formed, out of him, a silhouette that was walking on air. It was a wonderful sight to behold from the ground. Incredible tension ravaged the emotions of observers 1500 feet up, while awestruck incredulity proved to be a common theme below. It was one of those moments that one could never forget, one that is etched into the hippocampus like the Ten Commandments into marble, never to be removed. As above, so below? Hardly.

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Roz Savage had been through hell. 4 times she had broken her only hope for survival. The age-old metaphor 2 steps forward, 1 step back has never been more appropriately used. Tendonitis ravaged her shoulders, and the constant barrage of salt water inundating her craft had left her bottom in a sorry state of disrepair. “Pulled down 9 times, get up 10” (Savage). She had left, 2 years ago, her job in management consulting at a London Firm. Unsatisfied with the way her life was progressing to that point, Roz made a decision. In somewhat of “a leap in logic,” she decided to row a cross the Atlantic Ocean. Row she did – for 100 days, she traversed the ocean, from East to West. Broken oars only strengthened her resolve.

Though Antigua was still hundreds of miles away, her mind wandered to the immense joy and euphoria she would undoubtedly feel when she breached that island’s shore. The time though, between now and then, was unfathomable. Skin reddening, arms pained to the touch, mouth dry, hair in countless split ends, Roz Savage’s body was showing the duress of her time on that great expanse of water for which humanity has the utmost respect… and fear. Roz Savage knew all to well the power of the ocean, far beyond the understanding that a beach goers can garner. They dare their friends, challenging one another to that ultimate test of reserve, one’s will to venture into the blue. Then one steps on a sharp but not life-threatening rock 2 meters down, has a good laugh, and races back to the comfort of white sand, margaritas, and Mexican señoritas.

Her journey was grueling and quite symbolic to the very end. 20 foot swells had long plagued her route, and the steady winds and powerful ocean surface currents had managed, many times, to send her craft many miles in the wrong direction. There are no seabirds out this far – Roz’s only companions are the occasional shipping vessel – sometimes even four at one time. Her only friends were marlins and Merlins, the latter constructed solely of stainless steel. For 100 days she rowed, alone, on that ocean, and was tossed about recklessly. As an outsider, the image of one woman, alone in a rowboat on the world's great oceans, is an oddly beautiful one. We paint in our minds glossy seas and cool breezes, clear skies and a brilliant sun. It is likely, though, upon further inspection, that loneliness of the oceanic variety is not so poetic.  In her TED Talk, while standing proudly in front of a photograph depicting her arrival in Antigua after the Atlantic row, Ms. Savage said this:

If the Atlantic was about my inner journey, discovering my own capabilities, maybe the Pacific has been about my outer journey, figuring out how I can use my interesting career choice to be of service to the world, and to take some of those things that I've learned out there and apply them to the situation that humankind now finds itself in.

It is an intriguing thing to say, given the extraordinary pain she must have been subjected to at times throughout her journey. How could one be so appreciative of something that has inflicted such great suffering? On land, many humans, when faced with hardships, look constantly for the easy way out, and do everything in their power to escape the predicament in which they sit. It is only the special few, though, that will actually manage to glean benefit from something that is such a disservice for human life.

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One year ago, Sony Pictures Classics released a movie entitled Whiplash. The film tells the story of a young percussionist attending the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory, a fictional music school in New York. The student is Andrew Neiman, and he has aspirations to be one of the greats, among the world of jazz drumming. At a certain point, Andrew is invited to participate in the top Studio band at Shaffer, and even manages to be, at times, the lead percussionist. At bare bones, the story itself seems to be one of glory, of ascensions, of a journey to musical excellence for this young musician. Certainly Andrew Neiman wishes it was so.
His rise, though, was not one of simplicity. The conductor of the studio band is Terence Fletcher, a man with a very much deserved reputation for being abusive to his students. He is a perfectionist to the utmost, and expects nothing less than exquisite and articulate musical pace. There is a particular scene in the film, one that both resonates with audiences long after they have left. It is Andrew’s first time playing with the studio band, and Fletcher will not give him any slack. Neiman begins playing the opening sequence from Whiplash, the jazz composition from which the film bears its name. Some time in, Fletcher snaps his wrist back and clenches his fist. The music ceases, and Neiman raises his head from the kit, expectantly. “Not quite my tempo… try again. 5, 6, 7, 8… You’re rushing… try again. 5, 6, 7, 8… dragging, just a hair,” and  so on. Rushing or dragging? Rushing or dragging? So it went, until, after some time of playing comfortably through Whiplash, Neiman looks up, and finds himself looking directly at an aluminum folding chair headed directly for his temple.

WHIPLASH
Rushing or Dragging

FLETCHER
  Why do you suppose I just hurled a chair at your head, Neiman?

NEIMAN
  Uh, uh, I don’t know.

FLETCHER
  Sure you do!

NEIMAN
  The tempo?

FLETCHER
  Were you rushing or were you dragging?

NEIMAN
  Uh, I don’t know.

Fletcher walks aggressively towards Nieman.
FLETCHER
  Start counting.

NEIMAN
  5 6 7…

FLETCHER
  In four, damn it! Look at me.

NEIMAN
…1 2 3 (Slapped, hard, by Fletcher, as the four count is drwoned out) 1 2 3 (Again slapped by Fletcher) 1 2 3 (Again slapped) 1 2 3 4…

FLETCHER
  Now, was I rushing, or was I dragging?

NEIMAN
  I don’t know.

Neiman’s face is red, and one can see tears welling in his eyes. Fletcher remains in place, his eyes firmly locked on Neiman.

FLETCHER
  (Shakes his head) Count again.

NEIMAN
  1 2 3 (Slap) 1 2 3 (Slap) 1 2 3 (Slap)…

FLETCHER
  (Aggressively) Rushing or Dragging?!

NEIMAN
  (Quietly, dejected) Rushing.

FLETCHER
  (Even more aggressive now) So you do know the difference!

If there has ever been motivation to practice, this encounter is most certainly it. So, throughout the rest of the film, we see Neiman pushing himself to incredible lengths to be, as he puts it, “one of the greats.” One of the hallmarks of the film, in fact, is the many times we see Andrew’s hands, worn from hours of aggressive practice, very literally turning his kit red with blood. He rises to bandage the skin between his thumb and his index finger and sits down again to resume practice, even more intensely than we observed before. The camera cuts to the same hand not 10 seconds later, and we see blood permeating the padding of the 5 bandages he has already applied and sliding down his had, dripping onto the cymbal, accompanied by perspiration and unabridged lacrimation. Sweat, blood, and tears, it can be said, are the few tangible reminders of Andrew’s fading humanity throughout the film. Fletcher, at times, seems very close to breaking his spirit. We are shown the pain this causes in Andrew and the stress it imposes on him to find some way, above all else, to get better.

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In the novel Once a Runner, the reader is promptly introduced to a college athlete named Quenton Cassidy. Cassidy, it can be said, was an excellent runner. Every year for the past three, he had continually received invitations from the organizers of the best track invitationals in the country to run at their meets. He would frequently race with Frank Shorter, the man who is credited with making running mainstream in the United States. Mr. Cassidy had once been awarded a full scholarship to Southeastern University, and was required only to run track, and run it well, to remain there. Andrea, his wonderful girlfriend, understood the commitment he had made to running and the implications of it. He had, though, given all of that up. Moving to an isolated cabin in the countryside, Mr. Cassidy ran 25 miles a day every day. He ran intense workouts 3 days a week and long runs every other day. He ran and ran, until, were he forced to not run, he might very well fall over and die. Most runners, on an extended, intensive training streak such as this might ask themselves, at one point or another, whether the pursuit they were involved in was, or at least could be likened to, that state of being which we all call living. Quenton Cassidy was having a very different experience of existence, though. There were times at which he felt suspended somewhat between the two states so explicitly defined by science. There was only so much programming on the small television he had once used in that cabin, and it was not enough to detract from the etheral and rarely pleasant training he endured. One day though, Cassidy was called upon to race at an invitational, to run the mile. As he toed up to the line, in front of more people than he had seen cumulatively in the last 4 months, no one expected anything from the lanky blonde. He was an unknown to them, an onlooker, an outsider peering in.

Then the gun went off. Lap 1 was unremarkable, lap 2 was a friend of the mundane. Lap 3 though, my God! The compatriots from Southeastern whom he had not spoken to in months had begun to realize who this unknown miler really was - it was Cassidy! "Look, that's Cassidy! Goddamn, where's he been all this time! He looks better than ever!" Andrea, seated next to her new love interest, took her hand away from his, clasped the two together, and smiled. It really was Cassidy! His muscles were strong under the thin nylon shorts that left little to one's wandering mind. There was beauty in his movements through the penultimate lap, and enough of it to instill a engrossing sense of wonder in the final one. He finished with a stride that one could picture easily stretching across the universe.

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There is no doubt in my mind: we, as members of the human race, have the capacity to appreciate beauty. We recognize it every day; architecture, food, nature, that feeling we get when we look deep into someone’s eyes and recognize not only inner beauty but also the beauty of the eye itself. We take pride in this affinity, even more so when we are one of the few who see any one example of beauty. Seeing beauty is a wonderful experience. Largely, though, many of us humans don’t have the guts to create beauty. We see the result of effort, but we have neither the time nor the ability to completely understand the incredible exertion that was invested in its production.

When James Marsh arrived on stage to accept his Oscar for the documentary film Man on Wire, he spoke very quickly and invited Philippe Petit on stage. Time was short - as is the norm on such commercialized awards shows - so despite his quick tongue and effervescent demeanor, Philippe could not vocalize much. While on stage, Mr. Petit produced a coin from his finely tailored suit. He held it up, enticing the network cameras to tighten up on his hand and the golden disk which now occupied it. After some remarks, Mr. Petit said the one thing that matters to all of this: “… and I want to thank the Academy for believing in magic…” (ravenous applause ensues). This is an interesting thought, though, because Mr. Petit is no magician. Allow me to clarify: he is a magician, yes, in the sense that his control over deception and the related concept of false perception were superb, if not incredible. He is not, though, one who can execute real magic, because real magic is not just supernatural, it is fictitious. Mr. Petit is just a wire walker. Quenton Cassidy is just a runner. Roz Savage is just an ocean rower, and Andrew Neiman is just a drummer. None have the ability to defy physics, but they all share the unique ability to create phenomenal art, through years of suffering and months of pain.

We, as a culture, seem to have an inclination to the word appreciation. It saturates our colloquial speech, and the emotions behind the word are ones that are often felt. We appreciate when someone holds open the door for us, rather than The Board of Directors appreciates everything you’ve done for this company.  I very much appreciate your gift to me! We are excited to announce, as your regional healthcare provider, Nurses  Appreciation Week 2015. Perhaps we do this because we can never fully understand what it takes. Broken ankles, bloody hands. Broken souls, bloody cranial tissue. A dent in one’s head the shape of a chair, a gash the size of a cymbal. Kurt Vonnegut once said this: "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.' " Amid the ruminations ignited by these words, it is a tempting thought to submit to complacency in the face of art. Not all temptation, it should be said, is bad.

Works Cited

Hanson, Joseph, and Joseph Nicolosi. “Science of Marathon Running.” It’s Okay To Be Smart.
YouTube, 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.
Lieberman, Daniel E. and Dennis M. Bramble. “The Evolution of Marathon Running
Capabilities in Humans.” Journal of Sports Medicine 37.4 (2007). Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
McDougall, Christopher. “Are we born to run?” TED Talks, Jul. 2010. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
National Geographic Society. “7 Billion: Are You Typical?” National Geographic. YouTube, 2
Mar. 2011. Web. 10 March 2015.
Oscars. “’Man on Wire’ winning Best Documentary Feature.” YouTube, 17 Apr. 2014. Web, 6
Mar. 2015.
Parker Jr, John L. Once a Runner. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008. Print.
Parker-Pope, Tara. “The Human Body Is Built for Distance.” New York Times 27 October 2009.
D5. Print.
Petit, Philippe. “The Journey Across the High Wire.” TED Talks, Mar. 2012. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
Raz, Guy. “To The Edge.” TED Radio Hour. National Public Radio and TED, 26 Nov. 2014. Web,
25 Dec. 2014.
Savage, Roz. “Why I’m Rowing Across the Pacific.” TED Talks,  Apr. 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2015.
Vonnegut, Kurt. "Knowing What's Nice." In These Times: With Liberty and Justice For All... In
These Times Magazine. 6 Nov. 2003. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.
Whiplash. Dir. Damien Chazelle. Sony Pictures Classics, 2014. DVD.