On Agon and Ecosophical Endurance: Finding Your Own Pace

Abstract

Prompted by Sigmund Loland’s ecosophy of sport and Peter Sloterdijk’s analysis of human beings as upward tending training animals, as well as by insights from historical phenomenology (or ‘metabletics’), hermeneutics, interpretivism and pragmatism, I have argued for a vertically challenged life, preferably to be played out on two unmotorized wheels. Following this plea for cultivating stamina, I ended the previous chapter with an ode to the strenuous mood of the lonely endurance athlete, ahead of the pack, tired but satisfied, and potentially on the brink of the good and flourishing life.