Cathexis, Rescuing A Little Dog (Porgy), And The Strangeness Of Human Motivation

Hi folks,

Whilst wandering around Alicante, Spain, the other day I spotted a picture of Antoine de Saint Exupéry, who wrote Le Petit Prince, a remarkable feat of imagination.

Empathy for other species is a strange human emotion, given the fact that survival is everything on this win or perish planet of ours. But it is a real emotional driver. It is one that keeps me away from dog pounds, as it just feels bad to leave any homeless animals behind. I find that my feelings towards homeless humans is in fact less charitable, being laced with suspicion. As I think about this more analytically it makes sense – our true competitors are members of our own species (you know the story of the two guys running away from the lion, I am sure). Other humans are actually competing for our ecological niche. One thing that I find to be odd is that different nations choose different species to ‘adopt.’ I was listening to National Public Radio yesterday and a man was proudly telling us that he butchers about 100,000 dogs a year for food, while the French still eat horses. Most Americans are horrified by such things, but most of us happily eat pigs, who are delightful creatures.

Porgy before we cleaned him up.

The ethics of human behavior sure is a complicated and an apparently arbitrary process, which is addressed beautifully in ‘The Little Prince,’ by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. This story emphasizes the issue of our internalizing, or cathecting, an image of our ‘loved object,’ be it a rose, a fox, or a whole species.

This fact of human emotion led my sister, Marian, to rescue a little dog from a truly horrible person (sorry, but lots of data on this) living next door to her in Torrevieja. The ill-treatment of this defenseless creature was too much, so finally Marian moved Porgy into her yard, the neighbor clearly didn’t care about the issue, we washed him with flea shampoo, cleaned up his filthy fur, bought a nice kennel, dog treats, and most of all we gave him affection. This little dog was transformed.

Porgy, happy, clean, cared for, and living in his nice new home in Sunny Torrevieja.

But we cannot cathect the whole planet! Or can we? This difficult ethical issue is at the heart our motivation machinery, and this is a critical aspect of our training. If you are motivated by something that is not ‘solid,’ like what other people think or the applause as you come over the line, it just won’t last. I’ve seen it in science, sports and many other aspects of life, so the answer to understanding what motivates you is to question everything you do.

This is one of the best journeys of one’s life.

And, “Thank you Marian for taking on Porgy.” You are clearly motivated by something that causes you to act kindly towards defenseless creatures.

So, what really motivates people to train for the Ironman? For me it is simple. It just feels great to stay at a high level of general fitness, especially on the rare occasions that I drop Rory on the bike (yes, there is a little underlying competitiveness).

And you?

-k @FitOldDog

Today’s workouts:

Workout PLAN Coach: Chris Hauth

Bike

Duration: 01:30:00

Description: Bike 1 1/2 hours easy (Z2) with drills: Three 45-second 1-leg drills with each leg keeping the upper body still and with 30-seconds easy with both legs between intervals Six 30-second spin-ups (120+ rpms)with 30-sec. recovery Five 1-minute pick-ups to threshold (Z4) with 1-minute recovery

Run

Distance: 8.0 mi Duration: 01:00:00

Description: Z2 run with the last 20′ being hard on the back end of this run