Itis said of the New York Marathon, the Boston Marathon, and so many others: not only that they are beautiful and a joy to behold but more importantly that they are something different and deeper.
Anyone who has participated in a race, even a small one, can testify to this. There is something magical and unique about this kind of human events: there is the expression of the ability of thousands of people to overcome their limitations, there is the manifestation of their incomprehensible will to do something absurdly useless. By running a marathon, you are not doing anything that the economy deems productive (other than feeding the industry that revolves around the competitions, and that is not insignificant) in fact: you are doing something that society would not hesitate to consider unnecessary.
Yet millions of people run marathons.
According to the author of this very short and beautiful video, there is a reason, and he figured it out after seeing several of them, including among the people attending them. Instead of observing only those who ran, he shifted his attention to those on the sidelines: friends, relatives, strangers. Everyone cheering on those who ran, regardless of whether they knew those people or not.
Why were they doing this? Why do they do it? Because the marathon is not about (just) running: according to Ali Gallop, the marathon is a powerhouse where human energy is produced, and no one can resist the force of thousands of people doing the same, pointless, exhausting and exhilarating thing together. Producing an energy that overwhelms everything and everyone.