It's hard for me to acknowledge limitations. When the world is telling me that I've already been as good as I'll ever be, gone as far as I'll ever go in a particular direction, I always disbelieve at first. I lean into these sorts of headwinds. Set my shoulders as best I can. Arrange myself so that my bigger muscles are on the right line. Then I push.

This is not a noble thing, nor shrewd, nor grand. It's actually the sort of thing that gets dogs run over in traffic.

Still, I always like to try to shift a limitation out of my path. It's disorientingly amazing when it works.

When it doesn't, as is usually the case... I at least know what it is I can't do, as opposed to simply suspecting it. That thing you want badly, but won't try for, because you suspect you can't get it? Imagine being wrong in your suspicions. OK, now imagine being definitively right. My thinking is, either way, you're up something: why not try?

Plus, the effort warms me up for something else. Leaning into those personal walls makes for excellent stretching of the calves before running the race I was going to be running anyway. That's useful in its own way.

I keep listing to myself all these good reasons why, right up to the point where my metaphor has to sit in the gutter and wheeze for a bit. Massage some of the knots out of all them pushin' muscles. I feel as if I've been doing more of this attempted barrier-breaking than usual lately, and it seems to be leaving me tired.

It's always hard to decide at that point, the point where I'm so weary of making efforts, whether to give it one more shot, or to just try to hold my head up as I walk another way. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, and all that, when I can barely even raise those opposable arms of mine, is indeed a question of some import.

I'm glad to know so many people doing brave things, to be seeing so many efforts so worthy of my respect. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to misdecide.