49. Miscellanies on Life - A Catching-Up Episode

It has been nearly a year since Oliver and Ante recorded their last episode. During this time, much has happened both in the world and in their personal lives. They have decided to engage in a free-flowing conversation about various aspects of their lives to reconnect, catch up, and set the stage for future discussions. For the first time, there is a transcript of the episode, which may be of interest to some listeners. Until next time!

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In this podcast, we engage in free-ranging conversations about life, faith, philosophy, ethics, relationships, culture, experience, and all matters existential. As the show’s title suggests, we approach these topics “in the middle of things”—grabbing hold of them unsystematically and provisionally. As for who we are: we are friends, verbal sparring partners, and colleagues at Andrews University. - Oliver Glanz and Ante Jerončič 

Transcript

Oliver: Good afternoon, Ante.

Ante: Good afternoon, Oliver.

Oliver: This has been a while. It's good to see you. I have been looking forward to this moment where we catch up again and talk about what has happened in all the time that we have not talked.

Ante: Yeah, it's been quite a break in our In Medias Res recording. So many things have happened in the last year. There are many reasons why we have waited for so long. Let's just reduce it under the rubric: life happens. Some of these things were a little bit out of sync. Sometimes things were very busy on my end, and then at other times more on your end. It was a little bit of a challenge, perhaps, to get together and start recording. But during this time, from time to time, I would hear people come to me and say, "You know, we are still listening," or "When are you recording?" So it was a little bit in the back of my mind, and I am really, really happy.

I don't know, Oliver, what your thoughts are, but I think you mentioned it to me in passing very briefly how sometimes even the best podcasts that we listen to, after a while, become a little bit stale. The diction is predictable, the topics, the takes. Sometimes what happens when listening to others might happen just when listening to yourself. So it seemed to me that having a break—it was not intentional—but perhaps having a break and letting life run its course might have given us a new platform, some changes that have happened, some new perspectives. So in the end, it might actually be for the better. I don't know, I try to give it a positive spin, and hopefully, that's how it actually is.

Oliver: Yeah, absolutely. I think all beautiful things need breaks; otherwise, you are no longer able to appreciate the content, the vibes, or the attitudes that come with these beautiful things. I'm not sure whether we talked about that in the past, but Karen and I, in our marriage relationship, have always enjoyed the blessings of disconnecting and connecting. Usually, in the summer periods, when we travel to Europe, I'll usually stay a little longer. Karen needs to return a little earlier because of the beginning of the academic year, and I'm not teaching the fall semester usually, so I can stay a little longer in Europe. We have this disconnect for a couple of weeks, and seeing each other after that disconnect just increases the meaning of the relationship and the beauty of the marriage. So for us, we have figured out, probably for about 10 or 12 years since we've been here, that regular or annual disconnects, at least for us, are a jewel, a blessing, and a gift to the depth of our relationship and the joy that we experience with each other.

Ante: Yeah, I can totally relate to you on that level. I know people experience it very differently, and this is not to judge anyone; everyone has different ways of recharging oneself and recharging a relationship. I know some people who, when separated from their spouse for a week, almost fall apart. They feel so empty and they cannot handle that. I respect that; it's beautiful, and it speaks to a wonderful connectedness and friendship. But I am also of the mind—and myself, I even have to count now, I mean, we are entering 35 years of marriage, and we've been through a lot, Debbie and I. You know how it is. There is always that danger when you're married for such a long time that you already think you know what the other person is going to say. You almost start checking out sometimes. The predictability of responses, of interactions—that can really lead to staleness. That's the potential danger that's there.

I think a little bit of a disconnect—not emotionally, not relationally, but in terms of time, having some slightly different experiences, and then coming together—it really works, I think. Sometimes it's not even a temporal disconnect or spatial distance; it's just experiencing your spouse, or any person you're close to, in a very different format. If you experience that person from a spatial distance—so when I see my wife, let's say, on a platform and not sitting beside me—I just get completely different vibes and different emotional experiences of my wife just because of the spatial difference and her performance, so to say, in my absence.

Anyway, we had this distance. We interpreted this distance as a blessing for our conversations, for the podcast, and now we are trying to resume, get back together. A lot of things have happened, so I think both you and I went through a lot of interesting experiences, both highs and lows. I'm just very curious to get an update from you and see what you bring with you. What's in the luggage you've been able to pack over the last 10 or 11 months? Let's choose this opportunity to get a sense of each other again.

Oliver: Yeah, that's really a good opportunity to do so. Sometimes it is really in these conversations that these things emerge. I haven't really made a list of things that were important, but they might come up.

Ante: I can perhaps begin and say that my last six months have been just incredibly busy, especially the fall semester. As soon as the school started, I went to Croatia and participated in the Congress of the Adriatic Union, which was a gathering of people and pastors, of course, but also church members from Slovenia, Croatia, and a lot of them from Albania as well, because Albania is part of the field in the Adriatic Union. Initially, I was invited with, "Oh, you know, do you want to come and speak, have two or three sermons?" I said yes, and then when I said yes, it was, "Hey, do you want to have a pastors' meeting, have five presentations of an hour?" And I was thinking, okay, well, this is my semester, how will I handle that? I said yes. "Oh, yeah, wonderful, can you teach a class for us? An intensive?" So that was then tacked on top of that.

As soon as I returned, a couple of days later I went to teach this intensive—the MAP Min that we talked about before, where you teach 5, 6, 7, 8 hours a day. So that was a very, very intense period. Fall semester. That was one of the reasons I just could not even imagine doing In Medias Res on top of that. So that's partially what happened on my end. It was a tremendous blessing connecting with my roots. As I was standing there in Maruševec, which is the Adriatic Union College and High School, standing there on that platform, I was so profoundly overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude that the most important things in my life that have shaped my identity and that shape my daily living have everything to do with that space.

Oliver: Because you studied there, too, right?

Ante: It started there. My journey started there, my first real journey into theology, deeply indebted to my teachers. That's where I met Debbie. All my professional journey and also my married life and many other things really started in that place. So this sense of indebtedness that everything I have and that I treasure is due to other people and what they have poured into me and invested into me, and showed me some paths and encouraged me... I don't know, it was such a lovely, lovely experience for me. And that was quite fun, you know. Croatian National Television did some interviews on that congress, so I participated there a little bit. It's very nice, they come in when we have these big Adventist gatherings; some of our people have good connections, and there's a religious programming happening on Croatian TV, and they did a very nice report on the theme, on the topic, on the event. It was very, very nice. I also did some podcast recordings. So it was a very rich, very nice time. So that was for me the fall semester. In addition to some other projects and papers that I then presented, which we can talk about a bit later. But that was what was happening. How about you?

Oliver: I can only imagine how that is. I remember when I was teaching at our school in Romania, in Cernica—I have never studied there, but I was spending a week there teaching. The media gets involved, and you have these recordings for the Hope Channel, and it really feels like you're invited to participate in a discourse that started long before you came, that will continue after you have left, and you are able to participate in a beautiful, missionary work, or meaningful work that people do in order to connect to the wider community around you. It has been a great experience for me, too.

So when you asked me about what prevented me from being more available for these conversations that we've had, it was also pretty much in the fall semester where it hit me hard. There were two major things. The one thing is I had to finish my commentary on Lamentations, which is now finally done. I think I have to do two or three more little edits, and then I can send it to the copy editor, and it's going to be with the printing press.

Ante: Congratulations! What good news.

Oliver: So that was one thing. And the other thing was that, as you know, I have started working together with the Dean's office, trying to understand the work that the secretaries and the admins are doing there, and trying to help them, assist them with more automations. So I've been programming probably from the end of September until December, sometimes fixing a few bugs that appeared in the last two months as well. So I've been very busy with actual programming work. It's very meaningful work, so I don't regret anything. It has also been fun to get to know our hardworking administrative assistants and help them, giving them tools that will make their life better. This has been absorbing most of my time, really, in the fall semester. No regrets, but yeah, long hours, long days of working. Meaningful work, though, I must say.

And now I think what absorbs me is the teaching—a full spring semester. I'm teaching two classes: one on Theology of the Old Testament, one Hebrew class, and then I'm teaching two online classes as well. So an exegesis class, a Major Old Testament Prophets class where we're studying the book of Jeremiah in its Hebrew script version, and then also another Hebrew online course. So that has been consuming quite some time, but it has actually been a very good semester for me so far. I have very good students in both my online Major Old Testament Prophets class as well as my Old Testament Theology class. It's really fun. My Hebrew students this year... you cannot always choose your batch, but this one I have a really, really good batch. Hebrew 2 students—they are all MDiv students, and they outperform most of the PhD students I've ever had in Hebrew classes. So I'm really, really proud of those students. They're doing very well, and it makes me feel like I am doing meaningful work here in the seminary. So yeah, this is a short report on my workload, but I'm sure we're getting more into some of the lows and the high points of the last 10 or 11 months. There's some more exciting stuff that I would love to share.

Ante: So on the personal life—I mean, these are the kind of big-ticket items or the big blocks of commitments. But you are still in the same church, right? You're still going to our local Stevensville church? Are you part of any new projects, any new groups? I know that you're doing some marriage counseling, right? Did I understand it correctly?

Oliver: That's right. I think that's one of the highlights. Actually, on the church level or the communal level, there are some highlights that I've been able to experience in the last year or so. One of them is getting involved in a student group. About three hours from here, a student group at Northern Michigan... I forgot what exactly the name is. It's a very diverse group with different ideologies or backgrounds present, and that has been an exciting experience. I've been there three times now with the student group, between 20 and 40 people each time, where we discuss biblical themes from an existential lens. Questions of shame and guilt, questions about meaning, and questions about man and woman relationships from Old and New Testament texts. So this has been definitely a highlight. I think I have always enjoyed these existential questions that the younger generation is asking, trying to translate them into ways of living that make sense to them in the here and now.

Then another highlight definitely is Karen and I, once in a while, are doing marriage preparation classes. When a couple that fell in love here in the seminary wants to engage in preparatory sessions to get ready for the challenge of marriage, we once in a while offer this platform. We are now working, I think since October, with a lovely couple going through different themes and topics that relate to marriage. These moments are so nice because they also invite you to reflect on your own marriage again, and they allow you to get into those perhaps itchy spaces that deserve more attention and more reflection for your own marriage life, but doing this in a very graceful context. This definitely has been a highlight, has brought Karen and me closer together in a different way, and it has been a beautiful ride.

And as you speak about church life, yes, we're still going to the same church, and there's also a highlight. We got a new pastor. It has been such a beautiful experience with this new pastor. There's so much positive theology that he's preaching on. For the first time in a long time, we are, as a family, really looking forward to going to church, listening to the sermon, and getting some inspiration. Often as we drive home, we feel like, man, we could have sat in there a little longer. It has been a good experience, has really triggered thoughts and reflections in us, and invited us into spiritual ambitions that we have not had for a while. So we are very, very excited about this new development in our local church.

Ante: Wonderful, wonderful. I know that the change—the pastor that you received, he also was just tremendous in our local community here at PMC, the great things he has done with kids. So I'm sure that the kids will just tremendously benefit from having him as a pastor. I really wish you all the best, wish him all the best, for sure. And I'm so happy that you are reporting such positive things. Hey, I'm so glad that you've been able to be involved in these projects. I know you had a little bit of a setback when it comes to running. I know you had some plans, you wanted to do that, but you have some other future plans. Perhaps you can tell us a little bit about them, in terms of mountaineering and things like that.

Oliver: Right, right. I mean, as you know, I've never been really into running as a purpose in itself. Running was always just a tool to get me fit for the high mountains. I unfortunately got some hip issues. My plan was to run a sub-3-hour marathon last year, and I got very, very close with my training program. With the calculated data, I should have been able to run about a 3-hour and 1-minute, 30-second type of marathon. I got very close, but then I developed hip issues—some hip pain that forced me in October to basically stop running or using running as a training regimen. I was biking more and using the stair stepper and doing other types of cardiovascular exercises. Unfortunately, I did not meet my target or my aim of running a sub-3-hour marathon, but I'm not too disappointed about this because my love is, as you know, the mountains.

I plan to climb Mount Denali solo. This was a great opportunity for me to shift motivations and to shift training regimens. So in May, my plan is to do a solo climb on Denali. That has really helped me to get very positive attitudes, to become playful in my life again, to get my mind connected to the things that I love. So in the evenings, you will often find me behind my sewing machine, doing some attachments or some changes to my tent structures, opening down boots and down jackets and down pants and refilling them with some new down, getting my equipment well prepared. Tracing the GPS tracks, planning in my mind the way how I'm trying to tackle that mountain. Every evening when I go to bed, I'm basically dreaming of that mountain. I always look forward to going to bed because I know the last thoughts I have will be about imagining that trip, imagining the tools that I'm going to use, the staging of the Denali project when it comes to acclimatization, when it comes to calorie usage, fat max, and these types of metrics. This has been the love of my last five months, getting prepared for this Denali climb. I got my permits a couple of weeks ago, and I'm really looking forward to it. I had some great exchanges with some Everest climbers, getting some other types of gears explored and getting their feedback and their experiences. You see me smile in the camera, so I'm really looking forward to the Denali trip in a couple of months.

Ante: Will this be the highest mountain you're going to climb?

Oliver: Yeah, that will be the highest mountain that I'm climbing. It's the highest in North America. It often is presented as the coldest mountain in the world, so it's definitely a weather challenge. Denali, in contrast to let's say Aconcagua or Mount Everest, is, when it comes to the weather, a much riskier mountain, so you need to prepare with much more gear. Obviously, you don't necessarily need oxygen if you're well acclimatized. People do climb it with oxygen support, but that should not be necessary if you're well prepared and if you have your kit together well.

Ante: When do you plan to go?

Oliver: The climbing season is usually between mid-May and the end of June. So it's a window of about six weeks. I try to go as soon as possible; that would be mid-May, for the reasons that the weather is more stable. It's much colder, but it means that the avalanche risks are reduced, and the snow bridges over the crevasses are more stable. If you go later in the season, the end of June, sometimes the beginning of July, things get more sketchy. So from a physical perspective, it's easier to climb later, but the objective risks are higher. I'd rather reduce the objective risks and come more prepared when it comes to my physical abilities.

I could talk about this for another two or three hours. There's so much. Perhaps one little window that makes it also so interesting: I did a solo climb on Mount Rainier in the summer, and it was such an interesting experience because two Alpine philosophies clashed there. I was trying to do this as a fast Alpine style climb; that means you push the distance and the heights with a minimum of equipment, quickly. In a typical Alpine style, that would be a 12 to 14-hour trip. I started at 10 o'clock in the evening and planned to be back at 10 o'clock in the morning, from the valley—from Paradise, the parking lot there—up to the summit and back. I was always surprised: why is the official advice when it comes to climbing Mount Rainier suggesting that this is a two-to-three-day climb? I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.

When I was climbing, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, I was already above 3,000 meters, and I saw climbers ahead of me. I thought, "Why are they already ahead of me? They must be so fast." But then it took me about 30 or 40 minutes, and I passed them. Then I realized what it was. They had approached the mountain from an expedition perspective, not an Alpine perspective. That means they have huge backpacks with all the rescue gear you need for all kinds of potential scenarios. They have walkie-talkies. They have boots you would use on Everest. So they're heavy, and at high altitude, of course, you automatically slow down significantly, and I was very lightly equipped and could easily pass them. Then I understood some of the theoretical discussions you have in the Alpine territory: expedition style versus Alpine style. Usually, it's a continental European style of climbing versus the more American style of climbing, where you prepare for all potential calamities that could confront you.

I think that's worth a discussion at a certain moment: how do we prepare for life? How do we engage with life? How many risks do we actually take if we over-secure ourselves? If we over-insure ourselves, that might actually lead to more risks unintentionally. The more you try to protect yourself, the more you can actually get hurt. Because you're taking more time on the mountain, and the mountain might throw off rocks or avalanches while you're spending your time there.

Ante: Exactly, exactly.

Oliver: So that was a very interesting experience for me, and one that invited me into philosophical spaces as well. The irony is, there were probably about 10 or 11 rope groups climbing on that particular day, and only three made it. I was the first one who actually summited and went down. After me, two more summited, and the rest all returned. Why? Because they were too slow, the snow bridges started to get weak, and the ice conditions became too challenging. All the heavy gear that the people brought up there, they had to return and bring back, and that's a gruesome experience too, climbing down again with such a big, heavy backpack. But anyway, this is a fascinating experience, making me rethink how the different Western modes of living in daily life take form.

Ante: Very interesting. Now, your Denali experience, that will be more like expedition style, right? Simply because of...

Oliver: Yeah, it will be more expedition style, but I try to get it to morph as much into an Alpine experience as possible. It's a huge distance, so therefore you automatically have to climb for many days. It's usually two to three weeks, depending on the weather. The weather at one moment or another will hit you, and then you will bog down, and you will have to stay in your tent, sometimes for 10 days; you cannot do anything because it's just a huge snowstorm passing by. But still, I believe you can do it in an Alpine style, at least as much as possible. It's possible to reduce the risk by going faster, by having less technical security machinery with you. For me, the most important thing is to be safe on the mountain. And that means you need to move faster so that you are out of the danger zone quicker.

Ante: Is it the same thing as Mount Everest, where you have a base camp and then you climb the summit in one day and come back, or...?

Oliver: On Mount Everest, it would be similar in that you have these different camps. You have the base camp, then camp one, camp two, camp three, camp four, the summit camp, and then you do the last push. Similar to Denali, you have the base camp at the Kahiltna Glacier, and then you have camps up to camp five, which is at 17,000 feet. My philosophy would be to not push all the way to 17,000 feet—which is a little bit above 5,000 meters—but to stay at 14,000, and then do one big push. Because if you stay at 5,000, you are already in a very exposed situation. The weather is pretty harsh, the temperatures are very low; you can meet temperatures up to minus 40 degrees Celsius. The question to me, from an Alpine perspective, is if you really want to stay up there, you need to bring a lot of tools up there to stay safe, which then means a lot of exhaustion you take on by bringing that heavy equipment up. I think you will probably be faster and safer if you stay at 4,000 meters, and then do a very light, quick push up to the summit and back. I'm trying to skip the high camp, and my calculations show that this would be safer. But of course, you need to be well-equipped to do those 2,000 meters at high altitude in a single day.

Ante: How fascinating. We will for sure have to talk about this. I know you've developed this skill over many, many years, you know, you've tried many things.

Oliver: Ante, you know, speaking about sports, I just found out that you're really getting into cycling. I think that's a highlight for both of us when we think about the last year. We had the Giro d'Italia, there was the Tour de France, with massive, crazy, fun experiences by super athletes. Not just super athletes, but also the way they relate to each other as human beings is so fair, so fun, so collegial compared to the times of Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich. We are in a completely different season when it comes to extreme sports or endurance sports like cycling. How did you get into that?

Ante: Okay, so there is a broader topic, and it is just my general interest in sports psychology and sports physiology. I always found endurance racing and endurance activities such a potent and beautiful metaphor for the Christian life. It's not a surprise that Paul himself and the New Testament writers were kind of building on these very strenuous endeavors to talk about perseverance and discipline. So this is nothing new that is present in antiquity. Before I came to cycling, I'd been interested in that quite a bit, but I became more interested as I learned more about all these various training methods. Even though I cannot engage in all these things myself because of my age and background, I'm still nevertheless very much interested in these topics.

Even sociological questions like, why is it nowadays that these ultra endeavors are so popular? Nowadays, basically, when you say, "I'm running a marathon," some people go, "Oh, just a marathon, that's nothing, you're not running 100-mile races? What's a marathon? It's nothing anymore." There's a whole reason why that is taking place. I am currently reading a fascinating book by Adharanand Finn called The Rise of the Ultra Runners. I'm not an ultra runner; I will never be one, it's not my thing, I cannot do it for health reasons. But what do people find in it? Why do people want to exhaust themselves? Is it something that culture has taken away from humans, and humans try to find a different outlet to be challenged to the utmost? You have these crazy races. The Moab 240, or Western States, or UTMB... all these amazing races, but there are even more extreme ones. Why are people doing that? Why do people want to exhaust themselves? That is a topic I would like to unpack with you sometime.

But when it comes to cycling, I was riding my bike, but I wasn't really into the sport. I didn't really follow races too much. When I would turn it on, I would see a bunch of people riding, and at the end, often they would—I don't know—try to win. I had no idea of the teams, of what different teams seek to achieve, of the strategies, of how every different rider has his or her specific task. And it's fascinating how in cycling, you know, you don't necessarily pick teams, but you pick riders. Sometimes you can be for one, the next day you're for another; you find an underdog story and you root for them. It's such a fascinating world, watching these amazing races. Very often they take place in very picturesque environments. Right now in Catalunya, we have a race happening this week; we had one in Italy last week, then there's the Flanders Tour coming up in Belgium. All these picturesque places... it's so fun to watch. And these super athletes, what they're able to do! A lot of these riders are very slim, they don't have a lot of weight, but the power output they're able to generate! I was reading about Pogačar, who is certainly, with Jonas Vingegaard and some of these other people, the rider of our generation. I mean, these guys are cycling in Zone 2 at 430, 450 watts. Anyone who does cycling knows how crazy that is. For me, it's always a lesson about preparation, about life, and how that can translate to life and the lessons we can learn from these people. The commitment, the seriousness, the tactics, the strategy. It's just fascinating for me. I don't know much, but now I'm very much interested in it.

Oliver: Yeah, you know, another aspect that really fascinates me about the recent version of cycling and cycling competitions is this: I grew up with Jan Ullrich as my superstar and the fights against Lance Armstrong. But there was such a nasty enmity between the competitors. I mean, I think it's well known how Lance Armstrong behaved in that space. But for me, these two types of observations might actually be paired. The one observation that you just mentioned—why are people getting into the ultra space? Why is a marathon not enough? Why is a bike ride of 50 kilometers just boring, and it needs to be 100 to 200 kilometers? That phenomenon all of a sudden seems to be a very public, noticeable one. On the other side, parallel to it, is the question: what has happened that the competitive space in which these endurance races take place is much more friendly than it was 30 years ago? What changed the environment so that a Mathieu van der Poel, a Wout van Aert, or a Pogačar seem to be friends? If you follow the podcast—and I can only suggest to anyone interested in biking, The Move podcast by Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong—the fun thing is that Lance Armstrong just cannot wrap his mind around the fact that these are highly competitive people who are so friendly to each other.

Ante: Yes.

Oliver: Every time I listen to the podcast, Lance Armstrong is just puzzled: how can they not hate each other and still compete at that level? That is another phenomenon. How is it possible that we have such friendly attitudes, with competitors texting each other, and still competing as if it's just a game they play? It's not a war. And we don't only find this in cycling; you also find this in other sports like skiing. That's an interesting phenomenon that I haven't been able to figure out yet.

Ante: Yeah, I totally agree. When you look at the preeminent riders of the last couple of years, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar—Vingegaard is a composed gentleman, very measured when he speaks. Pogačar is more like someone who tries to push buttons, attacks, and has a very aggressive style. But I see him very often at the end, even when he loses, giving high fives and saying, "Good job." Very interesting.

But you know, there is also another dynamic. When you look at these cultural phenomena, you can explore them from different angles. You've explored the sociology, and we could also explore the economics. In the past, when they started these ultra events, you basically just had your shoes and some food, and you would just run. I was reading the other day that the UTMB (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc) has become a racket in many ways. You have to collect "stones," qualify, enter a lottery, and it's unbelievably expensive. Even triathlon—I calculated it, and it takes about $10,000 to participate in Kona. Is this now just for privileged people? Advertising pushed the sport, but it also turned it into a commercialized, inaccessible space. It raises interesting questions about money, culture, and privilege.

Oliver: I think it climaxed recently in the Winter Olympics, where the Norwegian nation completely overran any other nation with medals. Other countries, like the US, are all of a sudden only marginal players. It seems this has much to do with the commercialization of sports. I've witnessed this myself coming back from our ski vacation in Utah. We were looking to go to Colorado to a big ski resort like Vail or Breckenridge, and you just cannot afford it. It costs more than $200 for a day ticket. For a family of four, just the lift tickets would cost about $700. If you needed to rent equipment, it's basically $1,000 per day. Skiing has become a sport for privileged people. In Norway or other parts of Europe, you can get a lift ticket for $20, so the competitive base is much bigger.

When you look at the best skiers the US has offered recently, they are often kids from millionaire families. So I think the commercialization of sports has done a crime to the average human being. That's one of the reasons why Kilian Jornet boycotted the UTMB. It's why I personally have not run an official marathon; I reject paying $200 just to participate in a lottery. To get to Kona, the fee itself must be around $1,600, plus the required qualifying races. If you don't have a high income, there's no way to participate consistently. I'd rather just grab a banana, my water bottle, and my shoes, and go run an ultra marathon. That, for me, is the celebration of life.

Ante: I'm so glad you brought this up. I know even in the US, for sports like soccer, parents have to pay for clubs and travel. It's very hard for people here to understand how it works in Germany or Croatia, where you join a local club for free. This brings me back to your point about the Norwegians. I was reading a book by Brad Stulberg called The Norwegian Method, which talks about their lactate threshold training. But beyond technique, it's a whole culture. They have youth clubs, funding, and this concept of friluftsliv—open-air living. Success in sports is more than just training strategies; it's the environment and philosophy.

We tire of training methods and just want to experience the beauty of the sport without marking hierarchy. People often treat exercise as a way to optimize their VO2 max or lifespan—an obsession with results. But then there's the transition to simply seeking a meaningful life, or "resonance," as Hartmut Rosa calls it. We should definitely unpack this tension between optimization and resonance in a future episode.

Oliver: Yes, it's an either/or, and we could explore how they connect. Let's do that next time. It's a great topic.

Ante: Well, Oliver, we started with marriage and ended up in sports, but it's been a great opportunity to connect. For our next episodes, we'll try to be more structured and reduce the audio production stress, meaning you might hear a few hiccups. It will be a more raw experience, but that's the idea of In Medias Res—getting us in the middle of things as they happen, not a perfected version.

Oliver: Sounds good to me. Ante, all the best to you. I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Ante: Sounds good. See you. Take care. Bye.