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for my most rebellious post-doctoral student. I would tell my teen-age son that he
must wait another year for his own car. I felt generally intolerant.

In an article in Runners World, I labeled my run’s first global brain state
transition, the first second wind. It energized me with the cool firmness but ready-to-
be angry righteousness of modern religious orthodoxy: Orthodox Jews gunning
down Hamas terrorists as retribution for bus bombing children which was itself a
retribution; Muslim suicide bombing as vengeance for cultural contamination;
Catholic Bishops refusing the Eucharist to pro-choice politicians; Charismatic
Christians gay bashing defense of the sanctity of marriage; Mohammed’s early Sufi-
like poetry of love turning into territorial aggression and Jew killing in his later years.

Once in while, unpredictably, past the first hour of running and after the first
second wind, a fatigue easing second burst of energy followed the second stage of
exhaustion. I called this running-induced, second global brain state transition to a
softer loving energy, the second second wind. Colors became intense, clouds
breathed and my body lightened. Running once again became easy. I was flooded
with empathic and generous thoughts. I understood that the Dean was faced with
too many space demands to satisfy; the grant reviewers’ criticisms of the budget
were meant to be constructive. I recalled that strong minded, rebellious post-
doctoral students often made the most creative contributions to science. I realized
that my son’s urgent desire for his own car was a proposal in the direction of the
independence that would be required of him the following year when he was going
to be hundreds of miles away at a university. Filled with benign optimism, I felt the
compassionate perspective afforded those with energy but without envy, anger or
fear. William James, in Varieties of Religious Experience, A.C. Underwood’s book,
Conversion, Christian and Non-Christian and Gobi Krishna’s The Awakening of the
Kundalini, among many others before and since, describe the sudden appearance
of long lasting states of optimistic energy and loving empathy that can emerge after
long episodes of suffering, especially following periods of privation of spiritual
meaning and the loss of a previously strong faith. These episodes are painfully
chronicled by St. John of the Cross in his Dark Night of the Soul.

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