Going the Distance
Llegar hasta el final
A student draws a parallel between Rocky's true goal and the teacher's emphasis on discovering what you actually want, leading to a reflection on why fully living matters more than winning.
Going the Distance
A student draws a parallel between Rocky's true goal and the teacher's emphasis on discovering what you actually want, leading to a reflection on why fully living matters more than winning.
I just had a thought, because I watched Rocky a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't seen it for years and years, but I bought it on DVD and watched it. We always think Rocky wins the fight, but he doesn't actually win. Apollo Creed wins. But they don't make a big deal of who wins the fight at all. What Rocky says to himself is that he wants to go the distance, and he goes the distance. He goes all of the rounds with Apollo Creed, and that's what he's really happy about. It's even more beautiful, because he sets his own goal. I just thought that was a nice point to add.
Totally. It's even more beautiful. And he wrote the movie himself.
Nobody would make it, so he had to fight to get it made.
He sold his dog, which was his most precious thing. And then when the movie succeeded, he bought the dog back for thousands and thousands of dollars.
And the dog is in the movie.
The real Rocky story
So to make the movie, he had to metaphysically go through the same process as the character in the movie. He wins in that he made the movie. He lost the fight, apparently, but it's great, because even that shows that you could still not get what you're going for and it's completely, one hundred percent right and satisfying.
Yeah.
It reminds me of a story about a runner who stopped running at some point during a race, distracted by a bird or something. Someone asked him what happened, why he quit the race, and he said, "I didn't quit. I left." He had this mentality shift in the moment where winning was no longer what was important to him. Sometimes it's more about the journey than about winning.
Finding out what you actually want
I find that really interesting. You talk a lot about what it is that you actually want, and that's been challenging for me to look at. In Rocky, the thing you're supposed to want is to be the champ, to beat Apollo Creed. But actually, that wasn't his personal desire. He had a different one that he had to work out for himself. Finding out what you want and getting what you want is different from what you're told it should be. And going through lots of pain is a way to find that out.
There's something very satisfying in this, which is expressed in the phrase: the journey is the reward. It's not about getting somewhere. It's the process of living fully that is the thing in itself. Where we arrive, how things go, whether they're successful or not, that's much secondary and ultimately doesn't matter. What matters is: did I go for it? Did I go for what I really wanted, or was I in fear? That's the failure, if I would call it something.
Spiritual life is about living
My teacher used to talk about this kind of thing a lot. It's not something I hear much in spiritual circles, especially the more popular ones like Advaita Vedanta. There's not that much talk about life and doing things and choices and how to live. But I find that really important. So much can be unlocked, and ultimately it is all about living. If you look at all the maps of spiritual awakening, the last stage is always: back to life.
I feel like there's a pain in not living what life wants to live through you. That's a constant pain to have. And there's a real joy when you do get with that.
That's a healthy pain. And there's a healthy joy in just being true to oneself, aligning with what we want, taking risks. Taking the risks that are worth taking, because we can take risks as a way to feel like we're facing fear without facing the real fears, the bigger fears.
Like distractions.
Facing the real fear
Very few people who are daredevils are doing the thing they're meant to be doing. I'm sure there are some for whom that is their thing. But often it's a way to face fear without facing the real fear. It decompresses that sense of "I'm not facing fear," but it can become an addiction, because you're not nurturing yourself with the real thing. You're not facing the real fears. I'm using it as an example, but we can do that in different ways, in more subtle, tricky, hidden ways.
That's great. Thank you.