Downhill Running Quotes

Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can’t quite keep up with gravity.

The emotional rollercoaster she was riding was taking another downhill run.

He was my enemy. He was evil. He wasn’t even human. I should have been disgusted, but just like the last time, I couldn’t help myself any more than water could stop itself running downhill.

We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill. We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. That is our destiny.

Writing's like running downhill; can't stop if you want to.

We know about bad guys, what they do, and often, who they are. The politicians have chosen to send us into battle, and that's our trade. We do what's necessary. And in my view, once those politicians have elected to send us out to do what 99.9 percent of the country would be terrified to undertake, they should get the hell out of the way and stay there. This entire business of modern war crimes, as identified by the liberal wings of politics and the media, began in Iraq and has been running downhill ever since. Everyone's got to have his little hands in it, blathering on about the public's right to know. Well, the view of most Navy SEALs, the public does not have that right to know, not if it means placing our lives in unnecessary peril because someone in Washington is driving himself mad worrying about the human rights of some cold-hearted terrorist fanatic who would kill us as soon as look at us, as well as any other American at whom he could point that wonky old AK of his.

At any rate, that’s how I started running. Thirty three—that’s how old I was then. Still young enough, though no longer a young man. The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. That was the age when I began my life as a runner, and it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist.

From the moment you become a spectator, everything is downhill. It is a life that ends before the cheering and the shouting die.

Uphill? There's nothing up the hill," Colly said, trying desperately to work out where this conversation was going. "As a matter of fact, there is. There's a bluff about twelve meters high, with a river running below it. The water's deep, so it'll be quite safe for you to jump." In his brief glimpse of the river, Halt had noticed that the fast-flowing water cut under the bluff in a sharp curve. That should mean that the bottom had been scoured out over the years. A thought struck him. "You can swim, I assume?" "Yes. I can swim," Colly said. "But I'm going jumping off some bluff just because you say to!" "No, no. Of course not. That'd be asking far too much of you. You'll jump off because if you don't, I'll shoot you. It'll be the same effect, really. If I have to shoot you, you'll fall off. But I thought I'd give you a chance to survive." Halt paused, then added, "Oh, and if you decide to run downhill, I'll also shoot you with an arrow. Uphill and off is really your only chance of survival." "You can't be serious!" Colly said. "Do you really-" But he got no further. Halt leaned forward, putting a hand up to stop the outburst. "Colly, take a good, long look into my eyes and tell me if you see anything, anything at all, that says I'm not deadly serious." His eyes were deep brown, almost black. They were steady and unwavering and there was no sign of anything there but utter determination. Colly looked at them and after a few second, his eyes dropped away. halt nodded as the other man's gaze slid away from his. "Good. Now we've got that settled, you should try to get some sleep. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.

They passed like cloud shadows downhill … the boys of summer, running.

… I do not feel that life is a downhill run. Nor do I think of it as an arc that rises steadily until it reaches its apogee, tapers, and arches back to earth. The fate we choose is inscribed in multiple flights. Some follow the gravity of rise and fall, while others - those of the spirit for example - may never head downward, but climb steadily to the end, where they just drop cliff-like into the dark. Consequently, there is no right time for last words, no point of demarcation for our adieux. There is no designated moment to set down the summary thoughts of a mind still counting. Whether you begin to die at the beginning … or whether you burn brightly to the end, you can’t wait forever to pass to others what you have learned…

All the terms used in the science books, 'law,' 'necessity,' 'order,' 'tendency,' and so on, are really unintellectual .... The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, 'charm,' 'spell,' 'enchantment.' They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic.

Those who walk, run, or slide downhill eagerly would rather not think about the long, hard climb back up the hill again.

The balancing feedback loop that should keep the system state at an acceptable level is overwhelmed by a reinforcing feedback loop heading downhill. The lower the perceived system state, the lower the desired state. The lower the desired state, the less discrepancy, and the less corrective action is taken. The less corrective action, the lower the system state. If this loop is allowed to run unchecked, it can lead to a continuous degradation in the system’s performance.

The third encounter came towards the end of the afternoon when Sophie had worked her way quite high into the hills. A countryman came whistling down the lane towards her. A shepherd, Sophie thought, going home after seeing to his sheep. He was a well set up young fellow of forty or so. "Gracious!" Sophie said to herself. "This morning I'd have seen him as an old man. How one's point of view does alter!" When the shepherd saw Sophie mumbling to herself, he moved rather carefully over to the other side of the lane and called out with great heartiness, "Good evening to you, Mother! Where are you off to?" "Mother?" said Sophie. "I'm not your mother, young man!" "A manner of speaking," the shepherd said, edging along against the opposite hedge. "I was only meaning a polite inquiry, seeing you walking into the hills at the end of the day. You won't get down into Upper Folding before nightfall, will you?" Sophie had not considered this. She stood in the road and thought about it. "It doesn't matter really," she said, half to herself. "You can't be fussy when you're off to seek your fortune." "Can't you indeed, Mother?" said the shepherd. He had now edged himself downhill of Sophie and seemed to feel better for it. "Then I wish you luck, Mother, provided your fortune don't have nothing to do with charming folks' cattle." And he took off down the road in great strides, almost running, but not quite. Sophie stared after him indignantly. "He thought I was a witch!" she said to her stick. She had half a mind to scare the shepherd by shouting nasty things after him, but that seemed a little unkind.

A better-constituted boy would certainly have profited under my intelligent tutors, with their scientific apparatus; and would, doubtless, have found the phenomena of electricity and magnetism as fascinating as I was, every Thursday, assured they were. As it was, I could have paired off, for ignorance of whatever was taught me, with the worst Latin scholar that was ever turned out of a classical academy. I read Plutarch, and Shakespeare, and Don Quixote by the sly, and supplied myself in that way with wandering thoughts, while my tutor was assuring me that "an improved man, as distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew the reason why water ran downhill." I had no desire to be this improved man; I was glad of the running water; I could watch it and listen to it gurgling among the pebbles and bathing the bright green water-plants, by the hour together. I did not want to know why it ran; I had perfect confidence that there were good reasons for what was so very beautiful. ("The Lifted Veil")

I don't know nothing for sure, except water runs downhill and I gotta pay my rent.

The waters of good preaching are always running downhill to the stream of Christ, who he is, and how he has loved us.

Asking Nina not to draw attention is like asking water not to run downhill.

One of the strangest things about these five downhill years of the Nixon presidency is that despite all the savage excesses committed by the people he chose to run the country, no real opposition or realistic alternative to Richard Nixon’s cheap and mean-hearted view of the American Dream has ever developed. It is almost as if that sour 1968 election rang down the curtain on career politicians. This is the horror of American politics today - not that Richard Nixon and his fixers have been crippled, convicted, indicted, disgraced and even jailed - but that the only available alternatives are not much better; the same dim collection of burned-out hacks who have been fouling our air with their gibberish for the last tenty years. How long, oh Lord, how long? And how much longer will we have to wait before some high-powered shark with a fistful of answers will finally bring us face-to-face with the ugly question that is already so close to the surface in this country, that sooner or later even politicians will have to cope with it? Is this democracy worth all the risks and problems that necessarily go with it? Or, would we all be happier by admitting that the whole thing was a lark from the start and now that it hasn’t worked out, to hell with it.

THE hardest run is the run downhill. The world wants to pull you forward by your own momentum and dash you down on your face, and you must resist it: the art of running downhill is the art of the controlled descent.

He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.

Parsons famously divided the social science world into a set of component "systems"—notably the social, the cultural, and the psychological—a division that by now seems as arbitrary as it was then influential, especially in its distinction between social structure and the cultural order. Even at the time, it struck some that the project was like analyzing water into its discernible ele­ments of hydrogen and oxygen in order to understand why it runs downhill.

friendship built on business is far better than a business built on friendship. Be nice to others when you climb up, because you will run into them when you go downhill. (The essence of life is struggle and competition. Struggle and competition are stimulating.)

Once paper and ink were to hand, it was useless to appeal to his better nature, to tell him he was wrecking reputations and ruining people's lives. A kind of sweet venom flowed through his veins, smoother than the finest cognac, quicker to make the head spin. And, just as some people crave opium, he craves the opportunity to exercise his fine art of mockery, vituperation and a buss; laudanum might quieten the senses, but a good editorial puts a catching the throat and a skip in the heartbeat. Writing's like running downhill; can't stop if you want to.

I turn my head a little. The radio's caroling "Tonight," velvety smooth and young and filled with plaintive desire. Maria's song from West Side Story. I remember one beautiful night long ago at the Winter Garden, with a beautiful someone beside me. I tilt my nose and breathe in, and I can still smell her perfume, the ghost of her perfume from long ago. But where is she now, where did she go, and what did I do with her? Our paths ran along so close together they were almost like one, the one they were eventually going to be. Thin fear came along, fear entered into it somehow, and split them wide apart. Fear bred anxiety to justify. Anxiety to justify bred anger. The phone calls that wouldn't be answered, the door rings that wouldn't be opened. Anger bred sudden calamity. Now there aren't two paths anymore; there's only one, only mine. Running downhill into the ground, running downhill into its doom. ("New York Blues")

Weyrother evidently felt himself to be at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.

Thirty-three—that’s how old I was then. Still young enough, though no longer a young man. The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. That was the age when I began my life as a runner, and it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist.

Always remember this: whenever you have thought long and hard about a new idea or plan of action, working out lots of details and preparing for all sorts of contingencies, and you first tell someone else about it, they are hearing it for the first time. It will be nearly impossible for any newly informed person to be as enthusiastic or as confident as you are. And it’s natural for your own confidence level, like water running downhill, to settle at the lowest point nearby. That’s why it is so important to be very careful about how you share your plans with others, and limit your exposure to the negative thinking and negative comments casual disbelievers can produce.

At any rate, that’s how I started running. Thirty-three—that’s how old I was then. Still young enough, though no longer a young man. The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. That was the age when I began my life as a runner, and it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist.

What is this mysterious masculine force which spurs you onwards, whence comes this will, this heroic initiative which seems to precede the start of the great journey? This is what prevents you turning back on the path. If you were to do so, if you failed to travel the path to its end, you would be guilty, because the practices of your initiation have mobilised enormous forces which destroy men and drive them insane if they are not aimed in the right direction. The signs will help you open a way for yourself in the virgin forest where no roads exist. 'Even the Gods are your enemies; because their impersonal lives are at risk in this war. You will have to overcome the Archetypes, dethrone them, reincorporating their tremendous numinous energies within yourself. Do you remember the Greek legend? Man was a circular androgynous. He began to roll up Mount Olympus. The Gods were frightened, fearing defeat, and so they resorted to artifice: they divided the man-sphere in half. The result was that he was so busy trying to find his other half that he had no time to make war with them. But, luckily, the Gods made a mistake. Because one day we will bring them back to life as well, giving them a face. 'When the water runs downhill, it gives rise to Samsara and human generations, to the circular movement of the involuted earth; when it runs uphill, the opposite direction, it provokes the mutation of the Gods themselves, the divinisation of the hero; it creates a free, eternal race, without Gods, without a king. This is the Road of the Warrior.

If a physics textbook operated on Descriptivist principles, the fact that some Americans believe electricity flows better downhill (based on the observed fact that power lines tend to run high above the homes they serve) would require the Electricity Flows Better Downhill Hypothesis to be included as a “valid” theory in the textbook—just as, for Dr. Fries, if some Americans use infer for imply or aspect for perspective, these usages become ipso facto “valid” parts of the language. The truth is that structural linguists like Gove and Fries are not scientists at all; they’re pollsters who misconstrue the importance of the “facts” they are recording. It isn’t scientific phenomena they’re observing and tabulating, but rather a set of human behaviors, and a lot of human behaviors are—to be blunt—moronic. Try, for instance, to imagine an “authoritative” ethics textbook whose principles were based on what most people actually do. Grammar and usage conventions are, as it happens, a lot more like ethical principles than like scientific theories.

...for a piece of famous fluffiness that doesn't just pretend about what real lives can be like, but moves on into one of the world's least convincing pretences about what people themselves are like, consider the teased and coiffed nylon monument that is 'Imagine': surely the My Little Pony of philosophical statements. John and Yoko all in white, John at the white piano, John drifting through the white rooms of a white mansion, and all the while the sweet drivel flowing. Imagine there's no heaven. Imagine there's no hell. Imagine all the people, living life in - hello? Excuse me? Take religion out of the picture, and everybody spontaneously starts living life in peace? I don't know about you, but in my experience peace is not the default state of human beings, any more than having an apartment the size of Joey and Chandler's is. Peace is not the state of being we return to, like water running downhill, whenever there's nothing external to perturb us. Peace between people is an achievement, a state of affairs we put together effortfully in the face of competing interests, and primate dominance dynamics, and our evolved tendency to cease our sympathies at the boundaries of our tribe.

Then," I said, "suppose I did ask you?" "Then," he said, "this." And he closed his lips over mine. He was my enemy. He was evil. He wasn't even human. I should have been disgusted, but just like the last time, I couldn't help myself any more than water could stop itself running downhill. I managed to slide a hand up his chest, get two keys off their strap, and clench my hand around them; then I dissolved into the feeling, and kissed him back just as eagerly. It was nothing like kissing Shade. That had been like a dream that slowly enfolded me; this was like a battle or a dance. He took possession of my mouth and I took possession of his, and we held each other in a perilous, perfect balance like the circulation of the planets.

Unlike egotism, the drive to significance is a simple extension of the creative impulse of God that gave us being. It is not filtered through self-consciousness any more than is our lunge to catch a package falling from someone’s hand. It is outwardly directed to the good to be done. We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill. We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. That is our destiny. Our hunger for significance is a signal of who we are and why we are here, and it also is the basis of humanity’s enduring response to Jesus. For he always takes individual human beings as seriously as their shredded dignity demands, and he has the resources to carry through with his high estimate of them.

There is an inherent, humbling cruelty to learning how to run white water. In most other so-called "adrenaline" sports—skiing, surfing and rock climbing come to mind—one attains mastery, or the illusion of it, only after long apprenticeship, after enduring falls and tumbles, the fatigue of training previously unused muscles, the discipline of developing a new and initially awkward set of skills. Running white water is fundamentally different. With a little luck one is immediately able to travel long distances, often at great speeds, with only a rudimentary command of the sport's essential skills and about as much physical stamina as it takes to ride a bicycle downhill. At the beginning, at least, white-water adrenaline comes cheap. It's the river doing the work, of course, but like a teenager with a hot car, one forgets what the true power source is. Arrogance reigns. The river seems all smoke and mirrors, lots of bark (you hear it chortling away beneath you, crunching boulders), but not much bite. You think: Let's get on with it! Let's run this damn river! And then maybe the raft hits a drop in the river— say, a short, hidden waterfall. Or maybe a wave reaches up and flicks the boat on its side as easily as a horse swatting flies with its tail. Maybe you're thrown suddenly into the center of the raft, and the floor bounces back and punts you overboard. Maybe you just fall right off the side of the raft so fast you don't realize what's happening. It doesn't matter. The results are the same. The world goes dark. The river— the word hardly does justice to the churning mess enveloping you— the river tumbles you like so much laundry. It punches the air from your lungs. You're helpless. Swimming is a joke. You know for a fact that you are drowning. For the first time you understand the strength of the insouciant monster that has swallowed you. Maybe you travel a hundred feet before you surface (the current is moving that fast). And another hundred feet—just short of a truly fearsome plunge, one that will surely kill you— before you see the rescue lines. You're hauled to shore wearing a sheepish grin and a look in your eye that is equal parts confusion, respect, and raw fear. That is River Lesson Number One. Everyone suffers it. And every time you get the least bit cocky, every time you think you have finally figured out what the river is all about, you suffer it all over again.

Clingmans Dome in the middle of the park. Then, it’s downhill to Virginia, and people have told me Virginia is a cakewalk. I’ll learn soon enough that “easy” trail beyond the Smoky Mountains is as much a fantasy as my dream lunch with pizza…uh, I mean Juli, but for now I’ve convinced myself all will be well once I get through the Smokies. I leave Tray Mountain Shelter at 1:00 with ten miles to go. I’ve eaten the remainder of my food. I’ve been hiking roughly two miles per hour. Downhill is slower due to my sore knee. I need to get to Hiawassee by 6:00 p.m., the check-in deadline at Blueberry Patch Hostel, where my mail drop is waiting.5 I have little margin, so I decide to push for a while. I down a couple of Advil and “open it up” for the first time this trip. In the next hour I cover 3.5 miles. Another 1.5 miles and I am out of water, since I skipped all the side trails leading to streams. Five miles to go, and I’m running out of steam. Half the strands of muscle in my legs have taken the rest of the day off, leaving the other half to do all the work. My throat is dry. Less than a mile to go, a widening stream parallels the trail. It is nearing 6:00, but I can handle the thirst no longer. There is a five-foot drop down an embankment to the stream. Hurriedly I drop my pack and camera case, which I have clipped over the belt of my pack. The camera starts rolling down the embankment, headed for the stream. I lunge for it and miss. It stops on its own in the nook of a tree root. I have to be more careful. I’m already paranoid about losing or breaking gear. Every time I resume hiking after a rest, I stop a few steps down the trail and look back for anything I may have left behind. There’s nothing in my pack that I don’t need. Finally, I’m

Thanks to our discussion in the last chapter, we can also agree that character is a product of perseverance: “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom. 5:3–4). I don’t know how that idea strikes you, but it sounds a little backward to me. I would expect that a person with character would find it easier to persevere through difficult circumstances. That makes sense. But how does perseverance produce character? When I look at the world around me, it seems to me that most things actually decay over time rather than grow stronger. The longer we live in our home, the more I see spots that need a paint touch-up. The longer I drive my car, the more I find I need to take it in for tune-ups and repairs. And the longer I live, the more I realize my body isn’t what it used to be! But maybe this process of perseverance leading to character works differently. Surely God is the X-factor. When you add God to the equation, persistence over time builds up character and strength instead of taking it away. Consider, if you will, the snowball. Left by itself, it doesn’t amount to much. It’s just a little round chunk of white frozen water. Yet place that snowball at the top of a steep hill on a snowy day, and things begin to change. If you invest some time rolling that snowball across the ground so it picks up snow and grows into a larger ball, you begin to create something big and heavy. If you invest even more time and energy (this is where perseverance comes in), you might get that ball rolling down the hill. And the longer it rolls, the faster it goes, the bigger it gets. Now you’ve got something powerful. This is a force to be reckoned with. This is when people start running for cover. Your little snowball suddenly becomes a runaway freight train! I believe that equation of suffering, which produces perseverance, which produces character, works in a similar fashion. Our willingness to trust and rely on the Lord in a time of trouble invites His power to work in our lives. The more we trust and depend on Him, the easier it becomes. As the Lord says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30). Pretty soon our perseverance enables the Lord to add character to our “snowball”—and the more we persevere, the stronger we grow. We find ourselves rolling downhill toward a godly life. It still might be a bumpy ride, but the size and momentum of our snowball just about guarantees that as long as we are pursuing God’s will for our lives, nothing will stop us.

Grace runs downhill and now all his time is being redeemed.

concerned an exercise machine called the Alpine Ski, a magnificently designed device that simulates downhill skiing, giving the user not only the aerobic benefits you get from something like the NordicTrack, but at the same time, a serious muscular workout. The Alpine Ski’s inventor, Herb Schell, was my client. A former personal trainer in Hollywood, he had made a bundle with this invention. Then suddenly, about a year ago, cheaply produced ads began to run on late-night television for something called the Scandinavian Skier, unmistakably a knockoff of Herb’s invention. It was a lot less expensive, too: whereas the real Alpine Ski sells for upward of six hundred dollars (and Alpine Ski Gold for over a thousand), the Scandinavian Skier was going for $129.99. Herb Schell was already seated in my office, along with the president and chief executive officer of E-Z Fit, the company that was manufacturing Scandinavian Skier, Arthur Sommer; and his attorney, a high-powered lawyer named Stephen Lyons, whom I’d heard of but never met. On some level I found it ironic that both Herb Schell and Arthur Sommer were paunchy and visibly in lousy shape. Herb had confided to me over lunch shortly after we met that, now that he was no longer a personal trainer, he’d grown tired of working out all the time; he much preferred liposuction.

concerned an exercise machine called the Alpine Ski, a magnificently designed device that simulates downhill skiing, giving the user not only the aerobic benefits you get from something like the NordicTrack, but at the same time, a serious muscular workout. The Alpine Ski’s inventor, Herb Schell, was my client. A former personal trainer in Hollywood, he had made a bundle with this invention. Then suddenly, about a year ago, cheaply produced ads began to run on late-night television for something called the Scandinavian Skier, unmistakably a knockoff of Herb’s invention. It was a lot less expensive, too: whereas the real Alpine Ski sells for upward of six hundred dollars (and Alpine Ski Gold for over a thousand), the Scandinavian Skier was going for $129.99.

The railway hit Harrow on the Hill in 1880 and it’s been downhill ever since, culminating in one of those formless red brick shopping centres which artfully combines a complete lack of aesthetic quality with a total disregard for the utilitarian function for which it is built. As a result, your average shopper has only to spend ten minutes inside to be reduced to a state of quiet desperation. Primark has the right idea, being right by the entrance so that fleeing punters would grab the closest approximation to whatever it was they wanted before running screaming into the night. I’m

People think the wrong things about sewers. They think piss and shit, a sludge of brown. That’s not it. That’s just the scum that skims along the surface, that’s just the loathsome icing on the cake. It’s the cooking fats, the congealed remnants of washed-away meats, the scrubbed-down rotting husks of vegetables, and yesterday’s mashed potatoes. It’s sanitary towels flushed into a toilet prone to blockages, it’s old tissue paper never quite disintegrating, and it’s human hair that tangles like spider silk and doesn’t break. It’s detergent from the washing machine and soap from the dishwasher, it’s baked-bean grease and uneaten leek soup that has grown mould on its surface from being left in a broken fridge. It’s the fat they fast-fried the chips in, and the remains of old rotting onion. It’s pregnancy tests that gave the wrong answer and the condom that split; it’s used nappies and puke and the bleach they tried to use to take away the smell. It’s everything you’ve ever not wanted it to be, running busily away downhill through brick-built tunnels, towards pits of rotating slime or the wide open sea. The mask wasn’t there to stop the smell; that would

Ready?’ Bim and James nodded and clung on to the flimsy bamboo basketwork that formed the sides of the tray. I pushed them over the edge. They sped away, rattling down. The little basket went hurtling away with James shrieking like a crazed jackal. They reached the lowest point on the cable and continued a little way up on the other side. The momentum didn’t help them much though. Soon they had stopped and Bim was standing with both her hands on the cable. If you lost balance and grabbed the cable downhill of the wheels, I could picture now how easy it would be for the wheels – pulled down by your body weight – to run over your fingers. Bim was trying to pull them up the other side.

He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.

The bandwidth of the interstate highway was inadequate to the volume of data moving on it, the data being traffic, but behind the wheel of the Pontiac GTO, Kenny Deetle slalomed through real space with the same bravado with which he raced through cyberspace. He never used the horn, though other drivers hammered theirs to express outrage at the panache with which he weaved sharply from lane to lane, treating their vehicles as a downhill racer would treat the poles that marked the course of a ski run. They thought his maneuvers were reckless, but Kenny knew them to be the consequence of exquisite calculation—or at least strongly believed that they were, which was nearly the same thing in a quantum universe where the Uncertainty Principle held, in part, that nothing was anywhere until it was observed, or something like that.

Loneliness, by contrast, can make us less able to get beyond even the normal disruptions, setbacks, and mistakes of day-to-day life. The inability to let go of such events has, in turn, consequences that are not just social but physiological: Loneliness creates a subtle but persistent difference in cardiovascular function that sets the stage for trouble later in life. Their diet is higher in fat. They sleep just as much as the nonlonely, but their sleep is less efficient, meaning less restorative, and they report feeling more daytime fatigue. Middle-aged adults who are lonely have more divorces, more run-ins with neighbors, more estrangement from family. Once this negative feedback loop starts rumbling through our lives, others may start to view us less favorably because of our self-protective, sometimes distant, sometimes caustic behavior. Now others really are beginning to treat us badly, which seems like adding insult to injury, which spins the cycle of defensive behavior and negative social results even further downhill. This is how chronic loneliness not only contributes to further social isolation but predisposes us to premature aging. Chronic loneliness not only makes us miserable, then, it can also make us sick.

The drive to significance is a simple extension of the creative impulse of God. . . . It is outwardly directed to the good to be done. We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill. We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. That is our destiny. —DALLAS WILLARD1

Unlike egotism, the drive to significance is a simple extension of the creative impulse of God that gave us being. It is not filtered through self-consciousness any more than is our lunge to catch a package falling from someone’s hand. It is outwardly directed to the good to be done. We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill. We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. That is our destiny.

The giant deer took a leap to the downhill side, and then high-stepped around and past me, walking, not running, as if having known all along what decision I would make during this most perfect of days in one of the most perfect seasons, and situated perfectly and halfway between who I used to be and who I was on my way to becoming.

As a mechanical engineer who took a lot of physics, I am fascinated by this particular creationist argument, because it is both scientifically subtle and completely misinformed. Here’s the most important thing to know: The Second Law applies only to closed systems, like a cylinder in a car engine, and Earth is not even remotely a closed system. Transfers of matter and energy are constantly taking place. Life here is nothing like a perpetual motion machine, but neither is it like a ball rolling inexorably downhill. There are three main sources of energy for life on Earth: the Sun, the heat from fissioning atoms deep inside Earth, and the primordial spin of Earth itself. These sources provide energy throughout the day. The Sun provides the most energy. It’s a fusion reactor releasing 1026 Watts every second (1026 Joules). Earth’s core also provides energy in the form of heat. The spinning of our planet keeps shifting the energy inputs and adds acceleration to the wind and the waves. So as you can see, the world we live on is not even remotely a closed system. All of our world’s ecosystems ultimately run on a continual external source of light and heat. Energy

I started on the bunny hill with the kids and on the second day got a little too over confident.  I also misinterpreted the symbols on the trail marks for the degree of difficulty and managed to find myself at the top of the mountain and the beginning of a double Black Diamond run.   I had no idea until I discovered the only way down was to ski, and that the double Black Diamond meant “For Experts Only.”      Marguerite had gotten off at a rest area, found a nice table outside, got a cup of hot tea and rented a telescope so she could watch me ski down the mountain.       She got a ski show all right; about 200 yards down the slope I lost complete control.  I saw the sky and ground so many times as I tumbled I lost count and when I did come to rest it was at the bottom of the run and I was minus a ski.  A nice Swiss couple had retrieved it for me and it wasn’t until they gave it back that I realized just how lethal a runaway downhill ski could be, I was damned lucky it didn’t go through somebody down the mountain.      I realized I was over matched and stuck with the bunny hill for the rest of the day.

This is Christianity in a nutshell. God works when we are in need. When our quest for glory is falling apart, that’s when God is there. True joy is knowing that God comes to us when we’re not good enough, when we’re ashamed, when we’re sick, and when we’re exhausted. Grace always runs downhill.

MORE FROM GOD’S WORD Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 NIV Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous. 1 Peter 3:8 NKJV So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Colossians 3:12 NASB But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously. Micah 6:8 MSG Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, because He cares about you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 HCSB The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my savior; my God is my rock in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold. Psalm 18:2 NLT SHADES OF GRACE The grace of God runs downhill toward the ones who are emptied and vulnerable, toward the ones who admit that they struggle. Angela Thomas A PRAYER FOR TODAY Today, Lord, let me count my blessings with thanksgiving in my heart. You have cared for me, Lord, and I will give You the glory and the praise. Let me accept Your blessings and Your gifts, and let me share them with others, just as You first shared them with me. Amen

The progress of medicine and public health has been an incredible boon—people get to live longer, healthier, more productive lives than ever before. Yet traveling along these altered paths, we regard living in the downhill stretches with a kind of embarrassment. We need help, often for long periods of time, and regard that as a weakness rather than as the new normal and expected state of affairs. We’re always trotting out some story of a ninety-seven-year-old who runs marathons, as if such cases were not miracles of biological luck but reasonable expectations for all. Then, when our bodies fail to live up to this fantasy, we feel as if we somehow have something to apologize for.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover. “Run, Percy!” she told me. “I can’t go any farther. Run!” But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she’d told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air. “Mom!” She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: “Go!

Now there aren’t two paths anymore; there’s only one, only mine. Running downhill into the ground, running downhill into its doom.

James paints a picture of a downward spiral of giving into temptation. First, evil desire entices and lures (or traps) the complicit victim. Next, as this indwelling evil desire is allowed to run unchecked, it “gives birth to sin.” In other words, just as conception leads naturally to childbirth, giving free rein to sinful inclinations naturally results in discrete moral transgressions. Just as water runs downhill, so evil desire, if allowed to pursue its “gravitational inclination,” runs down into sinful activity.

I’ve written at length about Trump’s racial history, and the picture is hideously below the mark of what America deserves in a president; he’s an awful, dark stain on our history. What the first term makes abundantly clear is that it’s not an act, it’s not a strategy, and it’s not something the American people can bear. It is exactly who he is: a fucking racist. The referendum on Trump’s racism will play out in 2020, and well beyond, costing the GOP seats, status, and support for generations. They have no one to blame but themselves. IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE Which leads us to what he looks like in a second term. Cognitive decline is an ugly, hard reality for millions of Americans. As the Silent Generation slips into their final years, and the oldest Boomers join them, families all over America confront Alzheimer’s and many other tolls of aging. For many afflicted with a loss of memory and ability, this decline is a sad, steady reduction in the joys of life. For Trump, it’s part of the reality show, though not one he wants to focus on. Comparing Trump now with video clips from a decade ago is chilling. The slippage in his verbal acuity is marked. His rages and explosions of temper aren’t part of an act; they’re no longer controlled or controllable. The nearest contemporary parallel was the second-term decline of Ronald Reagan. Americans sensed the terrible gravity of Alzheimer’s pulling at him, but he was still surrounded by largely competent people and was, on the whole, a healthy man. For all the disagreements Democrats had with him, Reagan could never be considered an impulsive narcissist with a hair-trigger temper and no concern for others. Reagan actually bothered to understand nuclear weapons and the risks they posed, unlike President Missile Parade. Trump’s lack of knowledge should terrify you as much as it does me, especially as his cognitive decline continues apace. Given his hold over the cabinet, there’s no workable solution for this president’s combination of apparent mental infirmities and uncontrolled urges and racist fuckery, suggesting a second term will be more dangerous than the first.

Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can't quite keep up with gravity. Cath fell and fell, leaving a trail of messy words and bad similes behind her.

She'd been sent up to the field to fetch the mare, although perhaps "sent" was too strong a word. Her father had done nothing more than ask her if she'd go, because the mare would not come willingly to any of the men but led them all a tiring chase, whereas for Lydia she came directly, took the halter quietly, and let herself be led downhill as meekly as a lamb. To Lydia, it was a welcome chore. These first days of October had been busy ones that kept her in the garden cutting squash to dry and harvesting the beans for seed and digging her potatoes. There'd been pies to bake and pickles to be scalded- she had left the last to Violet, who made pickles best of any she had tasted- but the garden on its own had wanted more hours in the day than she could give it, and the digging left her shoulders sore, so it had been a great relief to start this day by simply walking up along the orchard wall into the upper field to find the mare. Her father had a mind to go to Hempstead to Aunt Hannah's, and the mare would take him there and back more swiftly than the wagon team. She was a gray, a four-year-old with something of a filly's mischief glinting in her eyes as she stopped grazing, raising her fine head, and watched Lydia approach. "There'd be no point," was Lydia's advice. "I've neither will nor energy to chase you so you'd have to play the game alone, which would be little fun." The mare flicked one ear in acknowledgement of this and gave in gracefully, and although she did not step forward, she at least stood still and did not run. Lydia wasn't entirely sure herself why the mare favored her, but they had shared this rapport from the very first day that her father had brought the mare home as a yearling. Just as a horse could sense a nervous rider or a cruel one, it appeared that the mare could sense Lydia already carried a full share of troubles and did not need more. Whatever the reason, the mare bent her head to the halter and made no complaint and submitted herself to be led.

She finally reached the peak. The view was spectacular; if Ann turned around, she could see all forty-five miles of tumbling green wilderness between her and Leadville. But she didn’t even pause for a slurp of water. She had an ace in her hand, and she had to play it now. She was woozy from the thin air and her hamstrings were screaming, but Ann pushed straight over the top and started chop-stepping downhill. This was a Trason specialty: using terrain to recharge on the move. After a steep first drop, the backside descent quickly softens into long, gently sloped switchbacks, so Ann could lean back, make her legs go limp, and let gravity do the work. After a bit, she could feel the knots easing in her calves and the strength creeping back into her thighs. By the time she reached bottom, her head was up and the glint was back in her cougar eyes.

The race across the mountain continued, but the mountains still glowed when it was their time to glow. They still cried when it was time for rain. And they still told you stories, if you only knew how to listen to them. But I was no longer one of those who knew how to listen … who knew how to laugh and cry with them … I was an athlete … I was an alpinist. I spoke of walls and overhangs. I ran and trained and counted my ascents. I fell prey to the folly of categorization, adding up points, comparing myself to others and making myself poorer and poorer. I was turning into a shallow and stupid craftsman. All I saw were numbers, summit heights, sizes of walls, estimations of difficulty. I only saw Roman and Arabic numerals, commas and plus and minus signs. My hands and legs were strong and unstoppable but my head became empty and my heart no longer beat faster because it was being overwhelmed by beauty – only because of physical effort. My path was rapidly turning downhill while the curve of my success continued to rise. One climb became indistinguishable from another. I functioned like a well-oiled machine that will continue to run on empty if no one stops it. And thus the wheels of my machine kept turning without purpose, faster and faster, until my children reminded me that the birds in the forest were still singing.” Excerpt From: Bernadette McDonald. “Alpine Warriors.

People often picture the cover of a book to be a doorway into another world; I’m no different. I also find the first few pages of a novel to be a thicket of branches and leaves hiding what’s inside. Some books start slow, which means I have to struggle through this bramble before I get my first clear glimpse at the landscape, before I can determine if I even want to stay. If the effort is too hard, I might give up and try another door. I’ve always preferred books that are so inviting as to run downhill from the moment you enter, and have but a tiny bit of foliage to get through. So when I write I don’t want my readers to climb, I want them to step forward and fall in, and get sucked down, unable to escape.

The Inquisition believed that there was such a thing as truth, and that it was important; well, likewise Richard Feynman. But the Inquisitors were not Truth-Seekers. They were Truth-Guardians. I once read an argument (I can’t find the source) that a key component of a zeitgeist is whether it locates its ideals in its future or its past. Nearly all cultures before the Enlightenment believed in a Fall from Grace—that things had once been perfect in the distant past, but then catastrophe had struck, and everything had slowly run downhill since then: In the age when life on Earth was full . . . They loved each other and did not know that this was “love of neighbor.” They deceived no one yet they did not know that they were “men to be trusted.” They were reliable and did not know that this was “good faith.” They lived freely together giving and taking, and did not know that they were generous. For this reason their deeds have not been narrated. They made no history. —The Way of Chuang Tzu, trans. Thomas Merton1

eased back to a walk, obeying the ultrarunner’s creed: “If you can’t see the top, walk.” When you’re running fifty miles, there’s no dividend in bashing up the hills and then being winded on the way down; you only lose a few seconds if you walk, and then you can make them back up by flying downhill.

Skin in the game can make boring things less boring. When you have skin in the game, dull things like checking the safety of the aircraft because you may be forced to be a passenger in it cease to be boring. If you are an investor in a company, doing ultra-boring things like reading the footnotes of a financial statement (where the real information is to be found) becomes, well, almost not boring. But there is an even more vital dimension. Many addicts who normally have a dull intellect and the mental nimbleness of a cauliflower—or a foreign policy expert—are capable of the most ingenious tricks to procure their drugs. When they undergo rehab, they are often told that should they spend half the mental energy trying to make money as they did procuring drugs, they are guaranteed to become millionaires. But, to no avail. Without the addiction, their miraculous powers go away. It was like a magical potion that gave remarkable powers to those seeking it, but not those drinking it. A confession. When I don’t have skin in the game, I am usually dumb. My knowledge of technical matters, such as risk and probability, did not initially come from books. It did not come from lofty philosophizing and scientific hunger. It did not even come from curiosity. It came from the thrills and hormonal flush one gets while taking risks in the markets. I never thought mathematics was something interesting to me until, when I was at Wharton, a friend told me about the financial options I described earlier (and their generalization, complex derivatives). I immediately decided to make a career in them. It was a combination of financial trading and complicated probability. The field was new and uncharted. I knew in my guts there were mistakes in the theories that used the conventional bell curve and ignored the impact of the tails (extreme events). I knew in my guts that academics had not the slightest clue about the risks. So, to find errors in the estimation of these probabilistic securities, I had to study probability, which mysteriously and instantly became fun, even gripping. When there was risk on the line, suddenly a second brain in me manifested itself, and the probabilities of intricate sequences became suddenly effortless to analyze and map. When there is fire, you will run faster than in any competition. When you ski downhill some movements become effortless. Then I became dumb again when there was no real action. Furthermore, as traders the mathematics we used fit our problem like a glove, unlike academics with a theory looking for some application—in some cases we had to invent models out of thin air and could not afford the wrong equations. Applying math to practical problems was another business altogether; it meant a deep understanding of the problem before writing the equations.

There's a palace a fallin.There's a smoke in the sky.There's a boy running downhill to the lowlands tonight And he's catching the train to where he's heard you have been He's a fool now among us, a dreamer within Dreaming of you And on that day there was snowfall in the street, yellow light And they cleared the bill and rails just by those dark shimmer eyes In that land there's a winter In that winter's a day In that day there's a moment when it all goes your way And you know it's a lion's heart That will tumble and tear apart When he's coming down the hills for you But can you still now remember who's been hiding up there? Through his howling at twilight all his songs of despair? Do you remember the caller of a black and white crime? Well he lives by that memory and falls from his mind And you know it's a lion's heart That will tumble and tear apart When he's coming down the hills for you Well he'll walk in the city forever Oh, walk in a time to be gone Well there's no real goodbye if you mean it So I guess I'm forever alone Now he's a stranger among us, he will die in the park Where he hides from the statues and the weather remarks In that land there's a winter In that winter's a day In that day there's a moment when it all goes away And you know it's a lion's heart That will tumble and tear apart When it's coming down the hills for you

So here I am striding along the meandering path that leads to our village. The earth, the grass and everything around is wet from a recent shower. I myself am drenched to the skin and keep slipping in the mud. The path goes steeply uphill. I hasten my steps, scale the hill almost at a run and suddenly my village opens to view, lying in the valley as in the palm of my hand. My knees give way and I sink on a boulder, a lump in my throat. I sit for a long time, swallowing tears and waiting... At last I see Granny go out of our house. She is more bent than she was last year, but she moves briskly enough. I jump up, grab my weightless suitcase and run downhill shouting at the top of my voice "Gra-a-anny!

We turned the page together and kept on without a pause, and halfway down the page a line flowed out of us that was music, his voice crisply carrying the words while I sang them along, high and low, and abruptly, shockingly, it was easy. No—not easy; that wasn’t even an adequate word. His hand had closed on mine, tightly; our fingers were interlaced, and our magic also. The spell came singing out of us, effortless as water running downhill. It would have been harder to stop than to keep going. And I understood now why he hadn’t been able to find the right words, why he hadn’t been able to tell me whether the spell would help Kasia or not. The Summoning didn’t bring forth any beast or object, or conjure up some surge of power; there was no fire or lightning. The only thing it did at all was fill the room with a clear cool light, not even bright enough to be blinding. But in that light everything began to look, to be different.

All sources of energy in our Universe run down. We can't help that. Everything is downhill in just one direction, and we can force a temporary uphill, backward, only by taking advantage of some greater downhill in the vicinity. If we want useful energy forever, we need a road that is downhill both ways. That is a paradox in our Universe; it stands to reason that whatever is downhill one way is uphill going back.

All sources of energy in our Universe run down. We can't help that. Everything is downhill in just one direction, and we can force a temporary uphill, backward, only by taking advantage of some greater downhill in the vicinity. If we want useful energy forever, we need a road that is downhill both ways. That is a paradox in our Universe; it stands to reason that whatever is downhill one way is uphill going back.

Success is like a turtle climbing a mountain. Failure is water running downhill.

The strong inverse relationship between the risk and overall participation in an activity is obvious: large numbers of people are willing to risk a dislocated shoulder or a sprained ankle while skiing downhill on a groomed run; very few are into launching themselves into the void from precipices.

Southern Cross" Ooh Got out of town on a boat goin' to Southern islands Sailing a reach before a followin' sea She was makin' for the trades on the outside And the downhill run to Papeete Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas We got eighty feet of the waterline nicely making way In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away Think about Think about how many times I have fallen Spirits are using me larger voices callin' What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten (Been around the world) I have been around the world (Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl (Who knows she knows) Who knows love can endure And you know it will Yes When you see the Southern Cross for the first time You understand now why you came this way 'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day So I'm sailing for tomorrow my dreams are a dyin' And my love is an anchor tied to you tied with a silver chain I have my ship and all her flags are a' flyin' She is all that I have left and music is her name Think about Think about how many times I have fallen Spirits are using me larger voices callin' What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten (I've been around the world) I have been around the world (Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl Who knows love can endure And you know it will, and you know it will Yes Ooh So we cheated and we lied and we tested And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do You will survive being bested Somebody fine will come along, make me forget about loving you At the Southern Cross Crosby, Still, Nash, Daylight Again (1982)