Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast with
your hosts Brian Auten and Chad Gross join us for
conversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics, evangelism, and
the Christian worldview.
Speaker 2: That day, for no particular reason, I decide to go
for a little runner.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast. I'm Brian Aughton
and in this episode, we explore the intersection of ethics, endurance,
and spiritual formation with ultra runner, philosopher and writer Sabrina
b Little. Sabrina is a five time US champion in
ultra marathon events, a former member of Team USA, and
a researcher and lecturer in philosophy with a focus on virtue, ethics,
and moral formation. She's also a contributing writer for Running
Times and I Run Far. Today we're discussed seeing the
formative power of endurance sports, how they can cultivate virtue,
expose vice, and serve as a training ground not just
for the body, but for the soul. Chat's not with
us today. He's looking at a certain property in downtown
New York. I think it's an abandoned firehouse anyway, and
he was going to go to the bank straight after
or something about a third mortgage or something. But at
any rate, he's not with us today, but in the
following week I'll be away and he'll be doing an interview.
So we're doing a little bit of juggling right now.
I hope you'll enjoy this interview. It's a little bit
different than normal. But I have an interest in trail
running and running around in the mountains and such and
came across Sabrina's book, loved it and thought I want
to talk to her about character formation and how things
like running or endurance sports can really give us some
insights into character formation. I hope you'll enjoy it. Let's
go to the interview.
Speaker 2: Let's get ready. Switch me on.
Speaker 1: Well, Sabrina be Little, thanks for joining me for the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So here's my story about finding your book. I was
I've been getting into more and more running and endurance
and training and that sort of thing, and I was
looking through various books and I came across your book,
which is called The Examined Run Why Good People Make
Better Runners. So I was intrigued by the title. And
there's a lot of running books out there, and I thought, well,
that sounds sort of philosophical because I'm thinking, you know,
the Examined Life. And I was intrigued. So I downloaded
it and I listened to it. I was like, Wow,
this is great. This is a great hybrid book. I'm
totally interested in both these topics, and so all the
examples were really great, and it kind of reminded me
of you know, the Apostle Paul talking about running the race,
and it just made me realize there's so many analogies
for spiritual development, character developments, virtue development that you see
in endurance sports. So thank you for writing that book.
Really great. I'm gone through it twice now. And so
tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey,
and how did you get into this ultra running and
philosophy and ethics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 3: I mean, so starting in high school, I was really
interested in Christian apologetics. So that's kind of the on
road that I had into philosophy. I didn't know that
there was such a thing called philosophy, but I knew,
you know, in some of the humanities classes in my
high school, you would read things like Plato's Republic, and
we read a little bit of Aristotle, and we would
read the Odyssey and things like that, like these great texts.
And at the same time, at home, I just was
really interested in engaging questions of faith, and so I
kept finding things like John Lennox's, you know, Reflections on
Science and Faith and things like that. So when I
went to college, I thought that I was going to
be a science person. I signed up for all of
these science classes, but it was a liberal arts curriculum,
and so I was required to take some philosophy classes.
And so in my first philosophy class, I didn't really
like it. They were asking a lot of questions but
didn't provide clean answers the way that I was getting
in my science classes. But over the course of the semester,
I just started to kind of feel at home in
a tradition of inquiry, and I was also discovering more
like thinkers that I found interesting and compelling, some of
which were in the Christian tradition, so Augustine and Aquinas
and people like that Church fathers. I also found Plato
and Aristotle, who I've spent a lot of time with over.
Speaker 2: The next several years.
Speaker 3: So I ended up graduating as philosophy and psychology double major,
and have continued on that path. So that's how I
got into philosophy running. Honestly, I don't remember life before running.
It's something that I've always loved to do. I played
a lot of sports growing up, soccer, basketball, volleyball, field hockey,
and the through line was that I was always good
at the running part. So I started winnowing down my
activities when I got to high school and just doing
running for its own sake and loved it. Entered college
to run and fell into the trail and ultra scene
kind of that way.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll have to toot your horn when it comes
to the philosophy part. Now. From reading the book, I
was really impressed by your precision and your thoroughness. It
was just like, wow, this is scholarly, but this is
also talking about training and racing and things like that,
and so I could really tell that you're a precise
thinker and very clear and able to teach. I very
much appreciated that part of it. But someone goes to
your website, which is Sabrina Little dot com, they'll see
this whole list of championship things and stuff. So what
are some of the longer races you've done are the
ones that maybe you might be proud of.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I have been really fortunate to be able to participate
in a number of US national teams, so representing the
United States and international competition, and anytime I get that
chance that is those are my favorite moments because a
lot of times the sport is very individual and you
just it's just you out there alone, which is wonderful and.
Speaker 2: A great reflective space.
Speaker 3: But having US national team opportunities means that you're running
with people and it's the shared endeavor, and the experiences
are heightened and just so enjoyable because of that.
Speaker 2: So I guess the high.
Speaker 3: Points in my career are that I've won five national titles,
which generally means you get placed on a national team
when that happens if you perform really well in national championships.
So then I've been placed on five national teams. I've
been a world silver medalist in the twenty four hour run,
and I set the American record in that event in
both the two hundred k and the twenty four hour.
Since broken, the level of the sport continues to raise,
which is super fun and exciting. More people are running
than ever before. So yeah, those are some of my
high points.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so great stuff, very impressive. And so now you
do some coaching and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I coached for seven years and then in
one of the universities that I worked at, I was
just a volunteer assistant coach on the NCAA team at
the university. Right now, I have a four year old
to two year old and I'm prite it with my
third So my coaching commitments are less lesser at the moment,
but I'm hoping to get back into it eventually.
Speaker 1: Yes, very good. That's really great. So we've talked about
your background and stuff, and part of my motivation and
doing the interview and having you on was, first off,
I love the book. It wasn't like someone sent me
the book and hey, can we be on your podcast
or something. But this is one where I like, oh,
I have to talk to her because I want to
know more. Because I've been reading a bit about development
of virtue and the different you know, the fruits of
the spirit and things of that nature. And one thing
that struck the chord with me about the topic is
this idea that there's certain discipline things that you It's
like fruit. You can't just have fruit tomorrow, you have
to cultivate it. And in order to have things like patience,
you can't be patient. Patient wants and now you're a
patient person. It's sort of like there's a time when
you just have to keep growing the beard and then
you can say, Okay, finally you have the beard, because
we can see more beard than face now, you know.
But there's a point where they's stubble, and it's like
you can't say you have that beard, you know. So
it's the same thing like virtue fordmation. But the analog
here with sports is that you can't go out there
and run one hundred miles tomorrow you'll die, you know,
you kill yourself. But one can if they work, they develop,
They do these disciplines and they train themselves. So I
suppose the idea here is training for righteousness or training
the virtues or character developments. Can you talk a bit
about what is virtue and how you relate that to
athletics in its development?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so many things that I could say.
Speaker 3: So, first of all, in the tradition seving from Aristotle,
the way that virtues are described like the word is arete,
which just means excellent, Right, So how do you become
a more excellent instance of your kind as.
Speaker 2: A human being? Right?
Speaker 3: And there are going to be some like theologically nested
assumptions in here. So first of all, on Aristotle's picture,
it's like how do you acquire them? You acquire them
by practice. So he says, men become builders by building,
and liar players by playing the liar. So to we
become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Because virtues are a kind of habit, he uses the
word hexus or active disposition. It's something that's formed by repetition.
So you have to do it to be it. And
so this takes out the guess work, right, because you
just repeatedly do the good thing and until it defines
you in a stable way. The Christian picture is a
little more textured, just insofar as like what is the
great good of a human life? For someone like Thomas Aquinas,
it would be like beotific vision, right, knowing and seeing God.
And so what's interesting is like so he describes virtues
being formed in two ways. First, you have faith, hope,
and love, and they're infused in you there's nothing you
can add to that, Like you are given these things,
but then you also have this like natural way of
like you're supposed to participate in your sanctification. Right, It's
something that's this ongoing work in you, and it's not passive, right,
So you are developing that fruit over time. And one
way I like to think about this is like, so
there's the athletic kind of like daily working out the goal, right,
daily drawing closer toward that finish line, or acting in
light of that finish line. But I also think that
sports gives us a vision for understanding what this looks like,
just insofar as I love running, and so there are
a lot of things that I do in ordering my
life toward success in my sport. And so if I
love God, right, if that is like this central love
of my life, there should be certain actions that I'm
taking that are reflective of that love, right, like certain
ordering disciplines or way that I am drawing closer to
God on a regular basis. And so it's this thing
that's freely given. Right, There's like nothing I can add
in terms of saving myself. And yet because I've received
this gift of love, there are certain ways in which
I draw closer on a daily basis, and I and
I practice being more excellent with that kind of vision
in mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe you could talk about what's the difference between
virtue and vice and is someone virtuous or is someone
full of vice. One of the books you referenced in
your own book was one by Christian Oh what is it?
Called The Character Gap? By Christian's Yeah, so I went
and read that too. He you know, he was talking
about how no one is fully one thing or fully
the other, but there's a mixture. And I wonder what
your thoughts are on that, and how virtue and vice
are maybe on a spectrum or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, So when the ancients start talking about virtue and vice,
it's like to meet the standard of virtue means you
consistently act well from the right motivations across situations long term,
which is.
Speaker 2: An exceedingly high bar.
Speaker 3: Right. So thinking about honesty, for example, that would be
like I'm honest to my friends and my family, I'm
honest on my taxes, I'm honest like in you know,
when I'm taking examinations and when I'm talking to myself
about my sport and so forth. Like all these little
moments pertain to honesty and having that consistent level of excellence,
but also being honest for the right reason, right in
the right ways, and so forth, experiencing fitting emotions toward it,
not doing it begrudgingly. So that's an exceedingly high bar,
and the same can be true. The same can be
said of vices. To consistently choose the wrong thing long
term for the wrong reasons. Having that kind of consistency
is really hard. So realistically, do most of us hit
those standards?
Speaker 1: Probably not.
Speaker 2: Most of us are probably somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 3: And what Christian Miller says is that we act consistently
enough that reveals that we do have traits with respect
to these things. Like, for example, say you are honest
to your friends on a regular basis, you'll probably continue.
Speaker 2: To be honest to your friends.
Speaker 3: If you consistently, like have high integrity on your taxes,
you'll probably continue to.
Speaker 2: Have that be the case.
Speaker 3: But you're not meeting this very high bar or not
meeting this very low bar. So you're probably somewhere in
the middle with what he calls says mixed traits. And
so what that means is you have ample room to grow,
the ample room to improve your character toward virtue. Most
of us have considerable space for progress in our moral lives.
Speaker 1: Sort of crossing the streams here between character development and
sort of like alphaical philosophy through the academic side of
things like Aristotle and different thinkers and stuff. And then
you've got the spiritual side of things where we're talking
more theologically, where thinking about sanctification, for instance, how do
you see those interacting, Because there's an aspect where, for instance,
the scripture would say you are sanctified, but we're also
being sanctified. So there's the now not yet aspect of that.
I wonder maybe if you could unpack your thoughts on
that on how you know, because as you say, there's
a huge, huge, high high bar and I mean no,
of course, as Christians, we know we can't make that standard,
but we're still striving for it. But we're not striving
in order to attain salvation. We're already saved. However, we
are still striving for sanctification and we're working and God
is working. So how do you, as you've thought through
these things, how do you see those two interacting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a complex question, right, Like, in both cases,
I have work to do.
Speaker 2: But in the Christian case, it's like.
Speaker 3: I'm not the only one doing work, and I'm not
the initiator of this work. Right, He's begun this good
work in me and is seeing it through to completion,
and I am just like doing my best toddling through
trying to contribute constructively to that work or participate in
that work. So like I don't know when I am
thinking of from like the Aristotelian type approach, it's like
I'm waking up and and have an agenda and you know,
trying to work through my own excellences and trying to
you know, like become a more excellent instance of my
kind as a human. When I'm waking up from the
Christian perspective, like that perspective is I am participating in
the rhythm of God's grace and it is work that
has already begun in me, right, and so I am
not like the author of that work. And so that's
like a different it's a different approach. It's also a
different finish line, right, you know, Like on the Oriscicilian picture,
it's like I'm going to try to get myself to
become as good as I can on my own terms,
through my own faculties and the limits of my own imagination.
And on the Christian picture, it's like there's a person
and I'm trying to drop closer to that person. Yeah,
and then right, like in both cases, I think both
pictures kind of offer you honesty in terms of like
what you are, like your defects, right, But in one case,
like in the natural case, it's like that's on me,
and in the other case, I'm kind of disinburdened from
seeing it as fully, Like when I mess up, it's like, Okay,
well christ already did this thing right, And it's kind
of funny, Like I think it's is it care of
guard who makes some comment about how no one is
free to laugh quite like the saint is, because the
saint is disburdened from having to save himself, like he
can see his incongruities, he can see the ways in
which he falls short, and also he knows that he
is going to fall short, and there's this other person there.
So yeah, I mean, it's definitely like a switching of perspectives,
primarily in terms of where you're going, but also your
authorship in becoming more excellent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I want to ask about what role do
you think maybe habit and discipline play informing virtue and
maybe as it relates to sports.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean sports is really a great laboratory for virtue.
Speaker 2: I think just because you show.
Speaker 3: Up every day with the intention of improving, right, and
you do it out of like this kind of love. Right, Like,
if I love the sport be it soccer, be running,
be it something else, I want to show up and
I want to improve, right, And that kind of like
intentional repetition is a really good framework for working on
virtues that are acquired by repetition. So I think, like
not having a practice space like this, and honestly, does
it have to be sport, No, Like you could be
really into gardening or music or something else.
Speaker 2: Sports is just like my own space, and so it's
a space that I know really well.
Speaker 3: But if you have this kind of practice space where
you can show up every day and intentionally work on things,
and that's not just like the physical practice, but also
the habits of mind, learning to deal with kind of
outsized emotions, practicing being diligent, practicing like failing, coming up
against other people's excellences and learning how to navigate, like
how to deal with that in a way that has
dignity that is really valuable in terms of doing the
work of being formed. Whereas if I didn't have that space, well,
you know, sometimes there could be occasions to work on
courage in my life, but they're not going to be
a regular thing, you know, or patients, Like, there's not
going to be the systematic and regular coming up against
needing to wait in the way that you get in sports.
And so I think it's this really unique space that
we have to practice virtue. I also think there's a
kind of when you are working on virtues in normal
I think sometimes the risks and stakes are higher. Like,
for example, say you're working on courage in a workout, Well,
if you fail during the workout, what is that going
to look like? Maybe you blow up, right because you
go too quickly and you assume too much risk and
experience not enough fear, and that's a problem. But if
you do it, like say you send a really firmly
worded email to a boss you know who you've been
too mousey around and you assume too much risk, well
that could cost you your job, right, So having this
kind of like practice space to work on your character,
I think is a really neat opportunity for the repetition,
but also because the stakes are a lot lower if
you mess up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's in a way there are virtues that you
seem to gain that I'm trying to think of the
term that the transferable skills sort of thing, where, for instance,
I would think that I'm more resilient, more determined, more
focused because of training that I've done. I think that
transfers to other areas of my life. I kind of
think that there are certain traits that through doing the
physical training. I think that it's true that one becomes
a different type of person in a good way, and
it also becomes I kind of had this idea that
every race is a microcosm of life, and the longer
the race, the more it is a picture of life,
because it's like you can go through every single emotion,
and you can have ups and downs, and there's high
points and low points, and there's sort of this learning
aspect to it, where Okay, I just learned life lessons
and I was just running. I wonder if maybe you've
had those experiences and maybe you can give us some
examples and elaborate and elaborate on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it really is a life in a
day kind of experience in some of these races, because
in races, your emotions are heightened, first of all, and
so sometimes you're dealing with the ugliness of yourself in
a compressed space, like you get frustrated or and you
just have to sit there with your frustration or I mean,
you've promised yourself that you'll get to the finish and
you really want to quit, right, and so there's this
irresolution in yourself and you have to overcome and show
yourself kind of one step at a time that you
can see the task through completion.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's definitely the case.
Speaker 3: And in terms of like the resilience that you talked about, right,
So resilience, what is that. It's kind of like maintaining
effective agency and the face of setbacks, right, continuing to
choose and act in light of the possibility of renewal
even when there's minimal evidence that you can finish or
something like that. I mean, there is empirical evidence that
during play this is formed in fact one of the worries.
So there's this book by Jonathan Hite, where he talks
about the Anxious generation, how our children are being undone
by screens, and one of the literatures he engages is
the impact of play on forging resilience that is lost
if you just have a screen based childhood. Right. And
I've really seen this play out in my own running,
right because because I've been able to push through when
I don't think it's possible, and also even when I
fail and have been soundly defeated in races and it's
my fault and all these things, I have to show
up the next day and keep training until learning to
show up even when you've failed is really a valuable
life skill that can transfer over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it seems like another thing would be like
you're training not in just like like you're there's an
ultimate telloss of a goal that you're trying to cheo.
Let's say, and I'm I'm thinking of how a race
equates to the Christian life, for instance, and the training
aspect of it where you're running the race, but you're
running the race and you happen to be training at
the same time, but you're thinking about not just today,
but how is this going to prepare me? For tomorrow
and the next day, and then what am I going
to do to build upon that and that. So there's
an aspect of foresight and sort of a long term view,
and I think that's really helpful because as Christians we
have to have that long term view and we have
to build upon the virtues and acknowledge, like honestly acknowledge
or lax and say, well, how am I actually going
to change these things? Work on them over time?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right? And I think right.
Speaker 3: So in Scripture there's the passage on the Race for Faith.
I think one way in which we consistently move forward
through those periods of recognition of frailties. Like that whole
section is placed with like the context of there are
other saints who've done this, and you're not alone, And
I think that's so emboldening.
Speaker 2: Like any time that.
Speaker 3: I've had a workout that is really challenging, having a
friend there who's also running it gets so much more
out of you, right, because it's rare that you feel
bad at the same time, or even just knowing that
other people have done the same route and they've gotten
it done.
Speaker 2: It's like something that.
Speaker 3: Is so encouraging and so I resonate with that part
of that passage where it's like these are all these
great heroes of faith and now they are the audience, right,
and they've been there before. It kind of like, yeah,
it shows you it can be done, and when you
feel weak, you kind of draw on the vision that
they've set out for you and show you that it's possible.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: So I've been thinking about how in athletics or running
or any sort of support someone's in, there is a
certain effect that someone wants from its training stimulus. So
they know that this sort of workout is going to
give them this sort of effect. And that's great because
once you sort of learn yourself and learn the effects,
you can kind of plan your outcome within certain you know, targets,
you know, within certain expectations, and you can kind of
work on yourself based upon how you're responding to that.
So when we're talking about like those are so like
physical disciplines, right, but when we're talking about spiritual formation
and spiritual disciplines, I see the principle there from the athletics,
and I see how there are certain things that one
does if they are doing training, that there is something
transferable I'm just wondering when it comes to character formation
and spiritual development. Is the workout if you will, spiritual disciplines,
is it my prayer life? Is it reading scripture? Is
it fellowship? Is it all of those things? Would that
sort of be the analog or the sort of thing that, Okay,
you know, engage in these things and you will bear fruit.
This will cause certain changes in your character and things
like that. What would you say to that idea?
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 3: I don't think that athletics should ever be thought of
as a standalone tool for the formation of your character. Right, So,
like Christian context aside, Like, what are things that are
often relied on as ways of growing in character? I
mean one is reading great books. Another is exposure to
excellent people who are going to give you a vision
of what a good life is. Another is praise and blame, right,
Like when you have a child, for example, and you say, like,
you're doing great job, thank you so much for sharing.
That is something that calls them to that standard or
the like the converse, right, so, you were not so
nice to your.
Speaker 2: Sibling, right.
Speaker 3: Another thing is like guilt or shame, like these kind
of negative balance emotions that we try to avoid culturally,
but are super valuable in our lives in terms of
calling us, you know, to something different to be more excellent.
And then in the Christian context, yeah, it's like everything
you name, right, So revelation, right, spending time reading scripture,
it's spending time in a community of believers. It's like
having that sort of quiet, reflective time, those moments of contrition.
But then it's also like physical practices. And I think
one really great source for reflecting on the nature of
the kinds of physical practices that could benefit a Christian
life would come from the Desert Fathers. So these were
monks who were living in the desert in the medieval
time period, and they had all of these physical practices
and would do things that maybe to us seem like
honestly strange, right, Like they would sometimes they were anchor
and they would wander alone in the desert. Sometimes they
were they would be stylite and they'd stand on these
these poles, right. Sometimes they would do these practices of
temperance where they would like I remember reading that one
monk he would hang like cucumbers in his little scriptorium
uh area, and it was like to try to desensitize
him from he felt that he had an outsized appetite
and wanted to glorify God in that way. And another
way was this practice stabilitus loki. And in stabilitus loki,
you would you would do your manual labor. But they
were noticing that they had this thing that they called
the noon demon or something like they would become phrenetically
internally busy, and they wanted to practice being able to
stay in place on a task and do that meaningful
work and not resist the demands of love placed on them.
And so all that they were doing in that task
was just remaining in their physical work and having their
attention fully fixed on that practice.
Speaker 1: And I see that.
Speaker 3: One as particularly applicable as a distance runner, because sometimes
one of the temptations that I have is to try
to without a vision of what I would do instead,
I just want to stop and do something else. Right, Like,
you feel distracted and it's hard to stay there, to
stay where you are and do the work that's set
before you, and instead you want to do literally anything else,
and you.
Speaker 2: Have no vision of what you want to do instead.
Speaker 3: And that kind of like stabilitas loki practice that you
get in the context of distance running, where you just
remain on task, I think is really really valuable spiritually speaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. I'm reminded of a new word I
learned when I was reading your book, and it was
in transigence. I thought that was really fascinating. Maybe you
could impact that and you make some examples of what
that might be and how common that might be for
people in this sort of sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So in transition, it's just an excess with respect to
remaining in place. And so when you think about perseverance,
it's positioned between a vice of deficiency, which is a resolution,
so you can't commit to things, and you are like
a way of you know, the work that you're supposed
to do, but you can't get yourself to commit to it. Right,
this kind of a resolution. But the excess right is
in transigens or bullheadedness or pertinacity, whatever word you want
to use to describe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these are great. The words are so descriptive and
I didn't know that. You know, just to interrupt two
seconds having words for these virtues and vices. That is
like the first step to developing these things, because you're, oh, yeah,
I see that character trait. I didn't realize it. That's
a thing, and it's really helpful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like as a child when you
acquire a grammar in different disciplines and you can see
the world in new ways that you weren't aware of before.
Like I feel the same thing morally speaking, when I
learn about virtues and vices, like it gives me spectacles
to better see myself than others. But this kind of
intransigence hides in plain sight and distance running because sometimes
we hold on imprudently, We hold on past when we
should and so an example is I just read what
is the is this book Into Thin Air and it's
about the Everest climbers, And so much of what makes
those people successful is that they are committed, stubbornly committed, right,
and sometimes it's successful, and then other times it's their undoing.
And so many people lose their lives because they just
push past the point when it ceases to make sense.
And we can do this in distance running by sometimes
holding on too long past injury right, or overstepping kind
of lines in our lives that are not even physical,
like sometimes they are cultural right, so stepping on family
time in order to get a run in or committing
to complete a race, even when doing so means that
you are treading on other responsibilities in your life, like
your work or your family or friends who need you
or something like that. And so the point is just
that not all finish lines are good ones, right, So
you might make it to the finish line, and also
it could be something that detracts from a good life,
because that's not like a finish line that was suitable.
So perseverance is a good when it's fixed on good
ends and is performed in suitable ways. But we can
definitely experience an excess with respect to that virtue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was funny because sort of in tandem, if
not prior to reading your book, I also read some
other famous runners, like biography and some of their adventures,
and it was like I was seeing everything you were saying,
you know, where the vices and things like that, and
I know, well, I wouldn't say that that person's name,
but one another one person I would say is like
I think a lot of people know about ultra running,
not from people who are actually doing it for the
sport itself, but maybe hearing of it from like David
Goggins or something, and so they associate that with that
sort of go all in sort of hardcore insane approach.
And you know, we were talking about certain vices or
what was it, performance enhancing vices and things like that.
Some of those stories I've read there kind of remind
me of that, because it's like, you're really persevering here,
but you're crazy, you know. I don't know how to
put it other than that, you know, yeah.
Speaker 3: I think, well, yeah, so a couple things about that,
Like one, I think because those those kinds of voices
really bother me too, right, But I think that in
some cases it's a correction for the fact that a
lot of the people who are receiving those messages are
more on the irresolution side, and they need to be
you know, pushed in the.
Speaker 2: Opposite direction a little bit to persist.
Speaker 3: But when I hear things like that, I mean, yeah,
like it's it's sort of suffering that is irrespective of
like the kind of suffering that you're going to undergo
and whether the pains that you're experiencing are actually just imprudence.
Sometimes it means like pushing past signs in your body
that say you should quit, right, But I mean a
lot of the influencer culture and a lot of fitness
culture rests on these sort of slogans, and you know,
like it fits less neatly on a T shirt if
you say things like never quit except when you definitely
should because you're overstepping the boundaries in your life that
you should respect, and all these like little asterisks and
caveats about when it's actually a good idea to to suffer.
Speaker 2: What are proper limits on that sort of thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know how vices and virtues are so often
excesses or deficiencies of something that you know you should have,
you know, And I don't think i've because I don't
think about ethics as a subject and don't study it
too deeply. I'm not my thing like area of expertise
or something. But you know, I was just reminded that
that is so important that a lot of these things
we start out might be good. So there were certain
aspects in your book there that was like convicting in
a way because I was like doing some introspection and thinking, Okay,
what lines do I need to draw to make sure
that this is a healthy thing and not something that
either leads to other people resenting it or me burning
out or things like that. And I think that that's
got to be a struggle for a whole bunch of people,
because when it comes to certain sports, certain personality types
seem to gravitate towards them, and then certain vices emerge
that are just so calm into that particular sport or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I wish there were a very firm line
and you could say this is when you cross over
from perseverance to pertinacity, right, But it's so dependent on
your context and how something is fitting within your life.
Like when I speak to young runners, the one thing
I always tell them to do is to have people
speaking into your life who are outside of the sport,
because sometimes I think things that are praised within the
sport actually aren't praiseworthy, and you might lack vision within
the sport, right someone saying, oh, you're so dedicated and
you know, great job persevering. But someone who loves you
and wills your good and is outside of the sport
might see that you're crossing a line before you see it.
And so having people you admire both within the sport
but also outside of the sport to give you that
kind of competing vision is really valuable. And I always
ask my husband that I'm like, should I I'm intending
to do the second run? Like is that a good idea?
Is there something else I should be doing right now?
Just to keep the dialogue open, because sometimes I can
even see that I've crossed the line where I only
see it in retrospect. And having someone who can speak
clearly into your life and you know that they love you, like,
that's a really valuable thing to have.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you could speak to what your thoughts
are on competitiveness. And I'm not a big like Strava
person or something like that, but I have a little
garment groups and things, and I feel like I'm overly competitive.
And although I don't go around shouting hey I win
and stuff like that, I still I'm like, do I
need to disconnect from that? Because I just as soon
as I'm not in first place or something, I'm like,
I have to change that. And I just don't know
if that's advice or if just is I don't know
how to tell if this is bad or not.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, it's such a good question. And I
think our cultural imagination for what competition is is so
entangled in envy, right, this kind of vice of unhappy
self assertion, that we have a limited imagination for what
it might look like in good ways. Right. And I
always like to tell people, like, striving is not a problem, right,
Competing is just driving together.
Speaker 2: Right. And if a virtue, it virtually means excellence.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Trying to become more excellence is going to involve a
fair amount of striving, right. And how do we often
get a vision of what excellence is through other people?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So striving with other people can be super valuable. Even
certain negative emotions that we experience in the context of
other people's excellence can be really fruitful in action guiding.
Speaker 2: And one example is this kind of emula.
Speaker 3: So you experience this sort of negative feeling toward yourself
when you realize that you lack some good thing, coupled
with this kind of positive feeling toward that good thing.
And so it's this mixed balanced emotion where you feel like, oh,
I like have this lack and I see this beautiful
thing that I want. And emulation is a kind of
leveling up emotion. And we see that in scripture too.
It's like outdo one another in good deeds. Right, It's
this kind of raising up, like seeing the good in
the other and then calling yourself to a higher standard.
We see it in like virtue friendships too. Another alternative
is admiration, right, So having this sort of appreciative perception
of the good in another person. And so there are
these alternative emotions for experiencing the excellence of another person
that are don't.
Speaker 2: Have to be envious, right, right.
Speaker 3: And so like experiencing gratitude for the other person or
something like that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like I.
Speaker 3: Sometimes when I'm talking to young teams or something like that,
they assume that in occupying competition in a virtuous way,
that means they need to be kind of mousey toward
competition or or not say that they're striving for something
or or kind of like hide those things away, and
that there's no winsome way of striving. And I don't
think that's true at all. Like, I think there's this
virtue called magnanimity that Aquinas talks about, and it's this
kind of well ordered striving. You consider yourself worthy of
great things that you are indeed worthy of, and yet
it's humble enough to recognize that you're not self caused,
that a lot of good in you is gifted and
you rely on other people, and so if you can
strike that balance, then that is that's the goal. It's
not like a failure to strive at all. It is
it is like trying to be more excellent and trying
to get there and relying on other people. So I
don't know, like personally, am I there, Like I've you know,
dealt with envy and my own racing a lot, Like
I think that's just but being honest about the category
and trying to trying to occupy the other vision and
trying to encourage younger athletes to like practice being able
to celebrate the excellence of other people, because there's a
kind of undoing of the competition itself when you can't
celebrate other people. And I honestly think of it as
being like a kind of theft, because if you can
only celebrate when you win, but then you're going to
explain away the successes of other people or not let
them have their moment, then like you're taking something away
from someone else. And I don't think that's a good
way of occupying sport.
Speaker 1: Thinking about our listeners and maybe if they're sticking with
us and maybe there happened to be a non athlete,
how do you think they can begin to think about
character development for even though they might not be into
sports or athletics or things like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question, honestly. Like I talk to
my students a lot about these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: Like sometimes they assume that.
Speaker 3: Their character is a given. So for example, they have
a hard time reading, for example, and they just say,
I'd have a short intention span. It's just who I am, right,
And the one thing that I want to impress upon
them is just that they do have agency with respect
to their character. They can improve in a number of
these respects. But it's not something that's going to happen
by accident, right. It has to have this kind of
intentional character of improvement, and sports gives us a really
good model for it.
Speaker 2: But like music does as well, right, Like.
Speaker 3: You can't expect on day one to be able to
play some sort of beautiful concerto.
Speaker 2: So just have this kind of long view of where
they want.
Speaker 3: To go, surround themselves by people that they look up
to and that can remind them of a sort of
vision of what they'd like to be, but then taking
that first step of improvement and continue to work toward
the kind of character that they'd like to have.
Speaker 1: Now, I do want to point our listeners to your book,
and again that one is called The Examined Run Why
good people make Better Runners. But I wonder what particular
thinkers Sabrina have influenced you a lot or said hey,
here's a handful of books that here's something that should
be on your shelf. This has been influential to me.
Speaker 3: So I always turned people to the Confessions Augustine's Confessions
as like my greatest recommendation from the history of philosophy.
Just it's kind of like a reflective practice in health
and his own sin and is drawing closer to God.
Like that's going to be the number one recommendation always.
But in terms of contemporary philosophers, I mean, you named
one of them. So Christian Miller, his Character Gap is
a great, great book. I also he's in the process
of writing a book on honesty right now that's intended
for public audience, and that's going to be so good.
Speaker 1: I know, it's book of his Wasn't that something like
in tandem with the Templeton Foundation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Templeton funded funded a lot.
Speaker 3: Of Yeah, he had a massive character grant and now
he has a massive honesty one.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's already written like an academic monograph on honesty,
but he is coming out with a public, public facing
one now. So that and then there's a great book
by Nathan King called an Excellent Mind, and that's on
intellectual virtues, and that one is really accessible as well,
and I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: Cool. Well, that's great now if people want to find
your work, I mentioned earlier your website, Sabrinolittle dot com.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do a lot of public writing on ironfar
dot com. So there's a column there called the Examined
Run and I put out pieces monthly there. And then
I also write for Psychology Today in a blog called
Considerations of Character, and I'm on a number of social
media channels mostly to share those those articles as they
come out.
Speaker 1: Huh. Well, Sabrina, it's just been a great pleasure to
have this conversation with you. Thank you so much for
a great book, and I'm very much inspired by it.
It's already led me to other books and things, and
I'm sure that I'm going to continue looking at this subject.
So thanks so much for your time today.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me and that means a lot.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that feedback, Thanks for listening to the podcast.
If you have a question you'd like us to address,
or just a message for us feedback good or bad,
you can either email us at podcast at apologetics three
fifteen dot com or leave a voice message for us
using speak Pipe. Just go to speakpipe dot com slash
apologetics three fifteen to leave us a message. And remember,
if you include a ghostbuster's quote in your question, we
guarantee that we'll read it on the podcast. We also
ensure up to fifty percent better quality answers. Also, if
you've enjoyed today's podcast, please leave a review in iTunes
or the podcast platform your choice, and please share this
episode with a friend if you found it useful. Remember
you can find lots of Apologetics resources at apologeticspree fifteen
dot com, along with show notes for today's episode. Find
Chad's apologetic stuff over at truth bomb apologetics. That's truthbomb
dot blogspot dot com. This has been Brian Auten and
Chad Gross for the Apologetics three fifteen podcast, and thanks
for listening.