flâneur

Founders: #10 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

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What I learned from reading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. The best teacher I ever had, one of the finest men I ever knew, spoke of the Oregon Trail often. It’s our birthright, he’d growl. Our character, our fate—our DNA. “The cowards never started, the weak died along the way—that leaves us.” [0:35] Some outsized sense of possibility mixed with a diminished capacity for pessimism. [1:03] I found it difficult to say what or who exactly I was, or might become. Like all my friends I wanted to be successful. I didn’t know what that meant. [2:11] Deep down I was searching for something else, something more. I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know. And I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all . . .different. [2:35] I asked myself: What if there were a way, without being an athlete, to feel what athletes feel? To play all the time, instead of working? Or to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing? [4:23] The only answer was to find some prodigious, improbable dream that seemed worthy, that seemed fun, that seemed like a good fit, and chase it with a single-minded

[00:00:00] I was up before the others, before the birds, before the sun. I drank a cup of coffee, wolfed down a piece of toast, put on my shorts and sweatshirt, and laced up my green running shoes, then slipped quietly out the back door. I stretched my legs, my hamstrings, my lower back, and groaned as I took the first few bulky steps into the cool road, into the fog. Why is it always so hard to get started? There were no cars, no people, no signs of life. I was all alone, the world to myself. The best teacher I ever had, one of the finest men I ever knew, spoke of the Oregon Trail often.…

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