The legend of Pheidippides gave rise to the modern marathon, the 26.2 mile test of endurance that closes out each Summer Olympic games. The story goes that Pheidippides, a Greek herald, ran the 26 miles from Marathon, where the outnumbered Greeks had just defeated the Persians, to Athens. Upon reaching the city, he declared "Nenikekamen" or "We have won" (and not "Nike" or "victory" as is commonly thought) and then prompty died on the spot, apparently of a heart that had burst with joy.

I have heard high brow (usually British) comedians joke about this. After all, the Greeks had won. Why did Pheidippides need to RUN all the way to Athens. He could have taken his time. It seems almost... psychotic.

This makes me wonder what comedians will say of Susan and I, 2500 years in the future, when Jani's story is lost in myth and legend. Will they wonder why we ran as long and as far as we did?

If I look back upon my own history of the last nearly seven years since Jani was born, it seems crazy to me. Before Jani was born, Susan and I lived a life that gave no indication of what we would later do. I was, frankly, lazy then. Susan and I would sometimes spend the whole day in bed, watching movies, then go out for a leisurely dinner. When I say we spent the whole day in bed, I don't mean that we were having sex. That required energy. No, I mean we just spent the whole day in bed. We'd argue over whose turn it was to take Honey out to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I would go with Susan to her overnight traffic shift and pass the night watching cable at the station (we didn't have cable back then). Then we'd go home at 5am and sleep until early afternoon. It was a life of excess. Not an excess of wealth but an excess of time. I had no real sense of responsibility. I wasted time like a faucet left on while you brush your teeth. I was waiting for a future where the rest of the world would recognize my genius. Looking back, my life had no purpose then, no meaning beyond my own needs. I think I say this now to show that I was not a saint.

Then, I was walking.

Seven days after Jani was born, seven days after creation, god struck me down on the road to Damascus, rendering me blind. For those of you who do not have children, you cannot imagine what it is like to have another human being who is totally dependent on you. For all parents, your life ceases to be your own for a while. And then when you suddenly get it back, you don't know what you want. The sense of freedom is too much, like coming out of Plato's Cave after spending your life there. You blink and try to see in the sudden bright light and you go crazy because you don't know who you are or where you are, which is why many marriages fall apart after the kids get older. Having kids is like being abducted by aliens and then returned years later. Your life is just vanished. You "lose time."

Simply having to feed another person on schedule is a chore. After years of only having to take care of yourself, you have to take care of another. Feed them. Clean them. Wipe them. Feed them again. Bathe them. Again with the feeding.

These simple tasks are difficult enough because we are not used to it. Society trains us to take care of ourselves, not another human being.

Since the focus of baby care classes is basic infant care, it lulls you into a sense of believing that infants will only complain if their basic needs aren't met. You believe all you have to do is feed them, clean them, keep them warm, and maybe hold them a little bit.

That's bullshit.

It turns out that "basic" human needs are not so basic, nor are they the same for every infant. The baby care classes prepare you to feed the baby and change a diaper, not how to meet your child's emotional and psychological needs. It is assumed that infants do not have such complex needs. This is just as much crap as the stuff in the diapers. Humans are born complex, psychological creatures, and can have needs that far outstrip basic needs. Maslow was dead wrong. He postulated that if a person's basic physiological needs like food, water, and physical safety were not met, the individual had no desire for higher level fulfillment like esteem. If that was true my daughter would not have run out into traffic or tried to jump out a window. She was trying to do those things because her need for happiness had not been met, could not be met anymore by Susan and myself.

The desire to fulfill these higher needs began for Jani at birth. It was reported to us that she only cried in the nursery when the other babies fell asleep. When the others were screaming with cold and confusion, Jani was content. Because her mind was occupied with the sounds of others. In her first two years of life, people would remark how well behaved she was. Of course, these people only saw her out in the world, surrounded by crowds and chaos that would make other babies scream for the comfort of their mother's breast. Not Jani. Jani has always been at her calmest in the eye of a hurricane. The more violent the world around her becomes, the calmer she gets. Because it is stimulation. This was even true of her behavior in the face of my violence. She grew calm, even mature, telling me "Daddy, it's okay. You need to calm down" when I would throw objects across the room and put holes in drywall.

That, comedians of the future, is why Susan and I have been running for six years. We have run because Maslow was wrong, because Jani needed more than her basic needs. She needed the world and the world became her room because the toys in her room would not quiet the voices in her head. Only the screams of the world will do that.

Pheidippides heard voices in his head as well. Before his famous run to Athens, he had run 150 miles in two days from Marathon to Sparta to beg the Spartans to come to the aid of their fellow Greeks. Along the way, he came across the god Pan on a mountaintop. Pan called to him and asked him why the Athenians did not pay any attention to him. Pan was feeling ignored by the Athenians despite his friendly overtures towards them and the fact that he had helped them before.

Maybe the Athenians couldn't hear Pan's friendly overtures. Which might have been a good thing. Because Pan has two sides. Yes, he is the god of the forest and the woodland creatures. He can be good-natured and even playful. But Pan had another, far more sinister power. He had the capacity to instill the most extreme kind of fear in people who heard his voice: blind, irrational fear. Fear that prevented logical thought and suspended rational judgment.

Panic.

Hence, the origin of the word. Pan could cause such "panic" that those who heard his voice in the woods would tear their hair out and rip themselves to shreds with their own fingernails. They would smash their skulls against trees and rocks, seemingly impervious to pain.

In many ways, Pan well represents schizophrenic delusions. For most schizophrenics, the early auditory and visual hallucinations are not frightening. Like Pan, they can seem friendly and playful.

Eventually, however, they begin to turn, responding to the external attempts to defeat them. The Rats do not want Jani to take her medication. They bite her in anger if she does not hit Bodhi, who they are scared of. It is very clear why these hallucinations seem so real to the sufferer. They respond to external stimuli.

Like Pan, the hallucinations always eventually turn dark, angry, and frightening. The respond violently to their existence being threatened.

Legend has it that the Greeks defeated the larger Persian army because the Persians were sent into a panic and ran blindly off the cliffs, which the Greeks attributed to Pan.

Legend also has it that when Pheidippides dropped dead at the gates of Athens, there was a smile on his face. I think this because the voice of Pan was finally silent in his head. Pheidippides had his life back in death.

Jani is running, and so Susan and I run with her. We are getting Bodhi his own apartment so he doesn't have to run all the time, so he can have moments to rest without hearing the voice of Pan.

We run because we have to. We have to be there when Jani finally reaches the gates of Athens and stops running.

Nenikekamen!

We have won.