For reasons due to the rising level of competition and the popularization of our sport, we are inclined to think that most ultrarunning enthusiasts lead methodical and regular lives. Which most of the time is true, but we must always also consider what the roots of our sport are, as well as different ways in which each of us lives our passion.
We talk about passion, and for this very reason there are also those who decide to sacrifice almost anything else to follow this fire within them.
It is not meant to be a judgmental article as much as food for thought, as well as an opening to a point of view we may not have considered yet.
One is not necessarily born dirtbag and dies dirtbag, for a great many it is “a phase” of life, but this phenomenon is inextricably linked to ultrarunning and it would be foolish to let no one ever talk about it, sort of like when people in cities pretend that roadside hoboes do not exist.
The value of work
The value of labor has been imposed on man in a coercive form, and history proves it, from slavery in the civilization of the Egyptians, to the industrial revolution of the modern era, onward. Work may ennoble a man’s life, but it also has a counterbalance, usually a very strong one, that affects the individual’s mental and physical health. Working as an employee basically means that a person is paying for your life time to work and because he, your employer, is getting rich from your work. Money is that thing for which we decide, more or less freely, whether it is worth it to invest (or throw away) time of our lives doing something we may not even like, in exchange precisely for money.
Now, without assuming that everyone willingly accepts this not always egalitarian social contract–the fact that the boss of a company drives a car that costs more than a house that employees will ever be able to afford to buy for me for example is absurd–but let’s say that if you happen to judge a person with envy thinking “yes, but he works less than I do” evidently the problem is yours, not his.
If you ask me, I have by far more often heard people complaining about their work than telling me how much they loved it and how happy they were with the money they were making, deeming the exchange worthwhile. You may therefore be less radical than I am in your view of the role of work in a man’s life, but always consider that human nature would not lead us to spend 8 hours in a row (or more) a day in front of a machine repeating the same movement, or in front of a pc pressing keys.
The more work the better
And who would have said that? This is a Christian-Protestant view for which life is for accumulating wealth and demonstrating with material goods one’s worth in earthly life. Which, if you think about it, is quite absurd, because it is really much more likely that a person who has more free time is a more interesting person (with more interests) because he or she spends more time getting new stimuli than doing the exact same thing for most of the day. Especially if his work is not creative and is what is called in the jargon a mokey job (a job for which you could easily be replaced by a computer). Better hard work even without skill than apathy, you find me in general agreement, but very often I felt I was dealing with people who were no longer used to even thinking. I have known so many people full of wonderful possessions and material wealth, but empty inside. I have also met so many people who would have been interesting if they could take time for themselves to mature some form of intelligence, to have more time to devote to relationships instead of spending their lives boxed up in a windowless office. In short, “the more work the better” seems to me a rather absurd theorem, considering the fact that earthly goods are, like anything created by man: transient.
But who is a dirtbag?
He is a person who tries to work as little as possible and spend as much time as possible living his passions. He is someone who is so passionate about what he does that he often does not work at all, living hand-to-mouth, sleeping where he can and eating what he can, with a lifestyle most of the time with very little consumption.
Don’t imagine them as freeloaders or junkies begging on the street, don’t even imagine them as daddy’s boys living off other people’s income-they are people who do what they do with the clear goal I mentioned above and they make do with it as best they can.
The tradition “in sports” can certainly be attributed to sport climbing. The so-called “cliff rats” i.e., the British climbers who lived on the dole in the Thatcher era to the overwhelming majority of the movement, in the United States, who still live under the walls of Yosemite or in Joshua Tree camped out as best they can, maximizing the time they spend climbing.
He thinks the founder of Patagonia spent periods of his life eating canned cat food to be able to save every penny he could to spend on climbing. Many top climbers of past eras have lived as dirtbags: from Ben Moon to Jerry Moffatt to everyone living in a van, car, tent or even a cave.
The rather obvious thing is that it is always the sports that are outside the label of “sport” but to become attitudes by which one lives one’s life in which this way of living is rooted. You will hardly find a dirtbag in formula 1 or synchronized swimming, while it is clearly a fairly common factor in climbing, surfing, and why not, ultrarunning. Jenn Shelton is perhaps the most glaring example from the U.S. being then an elite athlete, but already I alone know many other people, only they are not established athletes-the level doesn’t matter of course.
Italian chopsticks unite
When I think back on much of the time I have spent working over the past few years, particularly during my last assignment (before DU Coaching, which I love), I also think about the amount of time I lost. I can say that the time I spent studying at the university instead was fulfilling and satisfying, for me.
Regardless of what personal experiences are, the most important thing is to try not to fall into the cliché that people who do not work 50 hours a week are individuals with problems, and vice versa. We all live our own lives, and the purpose of this article is obviously to make you think that instead of pointing the finger at a person who has more free time than you, you should think about working: working on your lifestyle and your way of thinking without prejudice.
The hours of the day are always 24 for everyone, depending on how one chooses to live them. You can choose to devote them to running, work, volunteering or the couch. In Italy, dirtbagging is very uncommon, partly and mainly because of our bacchettona view of things.
How many people do you know who live in their cars?
Would you hire in your company a very good person who chose to live in a car and spend every spare minute he has in the mountains running?
Many of us do, but just as many (and perhaps more) are still shocked if they see someone with tattoos working in a bank or hospital.
Everything has pros and cons
Very often we hear “he’s being professional” to belittle someone’s performance. Even this cliché has some very obvious limitations; the life of the professional athlete is not all sunshine and roses. But this would deserve a separate study, and maybe someday I will write about it. Anyway, let’s say that if out of 100 people you leave the whole day to run, it is very likely that only one (or none) of them will run the Olympics or win Western States. Not everything is as easy as it looks from the outside, particularly in fatigue sports such as running.
I assume that very often even a dirtbag dreams of a warm bath, a roof over his head, a clean sheet, or one of the millions of superfluous but often very comfortable uselessnesses we have in our lives.
Long live dirtbag!
I will tell you one thing, I am not a dirtbag. I have never been one, and at many times in my life I wanted to be one instead. I think it’s important for all people in the ultra scene to understand not so much the logic behind this phenomenon (it’s great that everyone has their own ideas about it), but more importantly to understand what the roots of what we do are, with even the more borderline nuances that have always distinguished ultrarunning from running and other sports, and that make it unique.
Let’s preserve the attitude of ultrarunning or at least save it from easy platitudes.