We never really achieve perfection, do we?

It’s 4:40 am.

I’m walking into the gym, to the treadmills, and there’s a man alone running.

Perhaps he’s warming up for his workout, but he’s sweating a lot for it to be a warm-up.

I catch a glance at his treadmill.

5.21 miles.

That means–if he’s averaging 8-minute miles–he’s been running for the past 40 to 45 minutes.

He didn’t wake up at 4.

He arrived at 4.

All of this reminded me of a recent podcast.

When asked if he knew who David Goggins was, Louis CK said he’d never heard of him.

Getting a glimpse into the essence of Goggins, Louis was shown a video of him running, shirtless and shredded, all while yelling at the camera to stop being a bitch and just run.

Louis remarks:

“Anyone could be that guy; you just choose which thing you're gonna fucking torture yourself with. You could be that guy but that's hard to be that guy and then you're like this all the time.”

Wrapping up his thoughts, he says:

“It's not like you do that and then you break through to some infinite perfection. You just do this and then you fucking die.”

Dark yet oddly poetic, is it not?

I think he’s correct.

We all torture ourselves with something.

Or at least, we should all be torturing ourselves with something.

An obsession on finding that perfect note in whatever we endeavor.

From faster mile times to prettier words, one must chase what we feel is that infinite perfection.

Yet, we never quite get there, do we?

— George