Keanu, Qualifying & a terminally-ill man's blog
Reading time ~5 mins
A new year is here. Wishing you a better life ahead. This year has a lot in store for us. Something for everyone.
For me, my marathon is just 2 Sunday’s away. And I am jittery. I’ve spent November and December training hard thanks to my friends who trained side by side.
In the last 2 months, I managed to run 360 km in training. It’s been hard, but it all pays off.
A Tale or Two has its first issue coming up in the following week. It’s going to slide into your inbox anytime this week. Keep an eye. 👀
In today’s issue,
A film I was waiting for got released just a day before the year ends. The film was so beautiful that I’d want to go and tell every person to watch it. You’ll fall in love with animals.
Sharing athletics-related news that is quite astonishing.
I am grateful enough to be sent the link to a blog that changed my outlook on life. A story worth sharing.
God’s work
Wildcat (2022)
Synopsis: Back from war in Afghanistan, a young British soldier struggling with depression and PTSD finds a second chance in the Amazon rainforest when he meets an American scientist, and together they foster an orphaned baby ocelot.
I was shaking and holding back tears while watching this documentary. The journey of a man and the wild it has shown is so touching I wanted to live it on a loop. View the trailer, I was in love just watching the trailer. That when the film arrived on 30 December, I watched it.
This makes it to my all-time favorite list. It’s that beautiful, so heart-warming, it changed me. It made me feel different about nature. It moved me to a certain level.
The documentary follows the journey of Keanu and Harry, it’s full of ups and downs, Keanu is an ocelot ( a wildcat, as the title of the film, suggests). And Harry is this young ex-soldier battling PTSD and depression and his struggle with the mental health issue he deals with is experienced. It’s terrifying, but at the same time, it’s shown how he deals with it.
Interestingly the filming of this documentary is almost like a film. After the documentary ended, it felt like I saw a fictional tale. Knowing it’s real, keeps me at peace. I’d watch it again and again and would recommend to you to watch it once at least.
Too fast! Too soon?
2024 Paris Olympics Qualifying Standards
The Olympics is the battleground of the best of the best competing to be THE BEST. Qualifying for the Olympics is a huge deal for a person, let alone winning.
But, the qualifying standards for their athletic events have become faster through history, look below and compare it to the above table.
Things have gotten faster. There seems to be no explanation by the committees but the new standards are ridiculously high.
Specifically talking about the 10000m event. The time to qualify is =< 27 minutes. Only 2 Europeans have managed to break that timing. The others will have to try and break it by 2023.
India on the other hand meets the standards only in 5 events. You can read here about it.
A story worth sharing
“A man who got to know he has terminal cancer writes about his experience till the day of his death as he chooses to die by assisted suicide in Switzerland. As he travels on the Worli Sea link he writes how he thought to himself this is the last time I see this.” - The person who sent me the link to the following article. Thank you again.
Chika Kapadia, in May 2022 got to know that he had cancer which is in its last stage and he has 6 months at max. He writes an online blog parallelly and writes how he feels. The thoughts of a dying man who knows he dies soon, and gets to do whatever he wants before he passes, deal with the delicate situation with positivity.
The things he wrote about moved me. I couldn’t feel anything. It felt empty as I was done reading his journal entries.
If you could spend your time reading this long blog, then it might change the way you look at life. The mortality of our lives is realized again and again.
To end the first newsletter of this year, a line from David Goggins’ new book Never Finished.
Maybe you finished Ultraman or graduated from Harvard. I do not care. Respect is earned every day by waking up early, challenging yourself with new dreams and digging up old nightmares, and embracing the suck like you have nothing and have never done a damn thing in your life.
Thank you for reading, have a great day and year ahead.
See you at the next issue, thanks for reading.