The World as Proxy

I live on a very hilly road where I like to run. There's something satisfying about knowing exactly why I feel terrible half of the time during those runs-- it's the half of the time when I'm going uphill instead of downhill. And when I feel good it's because I'm going downhill. There's a very obvious external reason for all of my feelings.

When I run on the treadmill though, as I have been doing during these sub-zero January days, I realize my positive and negative feelings run through the same cycles, despite every step I take being exactly the same. I have learned to abide with the feelings as they come and go, understanding that each one will pass. But something in me deeply prefers what I experience out there on those hills: I think we gravitate toward life situations that validate our inner dynamics, the flow of our feelings. I think there is a pattern to how we feel even in the absence of external stimuli, that sometimes we go seek out the stimuli to give our minds external reasons to latch onto for why we feel the way we do. But the truth is, some feelings just arise because we are who we are.