The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-447 – Mental Health in Lockdown – Dr. Sarb  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4447.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello and welcome to episode 4-447 of the RunRunLive podcast.   Here we are, the middle of January and I’ve got a lot to talk about today.  Which is good, because one of the things that bothers me about house arrest is that I don’t get enough experiential input.  I’m not out traveling and running races so I have less input, less to talk about.  I had to take a week off from running last week.  I managed to give myself an infected toe.  I’ll talk about that in Section One.  It’s better now and I went out for an hour in the trails yesterday.  It seems to be ok.  I’m a week into a course of antibiotics and that seems to have cleared it up.  The good news is that I’m not going to die a slow painful death from gangrene.  The bad news is that I lost a week of training and I had to take a course of antibiotics.  I don’t like taking antibiotics.  IT wipes out all the helpful and friendly bacteria in your body as well as the cantankerous buggers living in your cuticles.  The antibiotics mess up my digestion, especially with my diet that includes a lot of roughage.  It basically gives me the digestive system of a Canadian goose.  It also compounds the dry skin I get this time of year.  I think in general we underestimate all the helpful things that a community of symbiotic bacteria do for you.  Today we’re going to talk to Dr. Sarb. I’ve ‘known’ Dr. Sarb for many years from the online running community. He’s a New Zeeland based psychologist and is just now putting out a book about how to survive the Covid.  I had some tech problems and had to cut him short so I had him send me a preamble which I’ll stick on the front of the interview.  By the way why is it called New Zeeland?  Doesn’t that imply an Old Zeeland? Isn’t this a British colony? Zeeland isn’t very British.  In fact the is an old Zeeland and it’s north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  The first people to ‘discover’ what would become New Zeeland were Dutch.  Specifically a dude named Abel Tasman.  Yup, that’s how you get Tasmania.  At the time he thought he had run into Argentina.  His GPS must not have been charged.  Anyhow, subsequently the Dutch thought, hey, this place is made up of islands like Zeeland, which in old Dutch means “Sea Land” and so you have New Zeeland.    In section two I’ll talk about living life like it’s improvisational art.  … At the risk of being the crazy old etymologist, I want you to think about the word ‘compassion’.  It’s a good old Latin word.  The first bit means ‘with’ the second bit means ‘suffering’.  Having compassion means the ability to understand and feel another’s pain and suffering.  “With Suffering”.  At this point most writers will go off on a screed about how you have to suffer for what you want.  How passion is the ability to suffer for a goal.  I’m not going to do that, although it’s a great screed.  Very biblical.  Has the smell of ancient empires and codes of honor to it.  Unsurprising it’s Roman in origin.  I’m going to talk about having compassion for someone else.  Understanding and appreciating someone else’s suffering.   If you think about anyone you know, live with or work with – to some extent they are all suffering.  Whether they show it or not.  And the ones that are suffering the most are the one’s that are the hardest to have empathy for.  Because they are typically externalizing that suffering in ways that are negative.  It doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. It doesn’t mean you have to like them.  It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable.  It means you understand their suffering.  This is important because people who are suffering tend to externalize that suffering.  They lash out.  They act out.  It is in our nature to suffer.  It is in our nature to be passionate.  It