Something's been on my mind lately, and it's messing with how I live my life. I know a lot of people over millennia have dealt with a similar issue, but that doesn't mean this is easy to grasp or deal with.

It's an all-consuming confusion that I can't very well explain. I find it difficult to get up in the morning because moving seems near impossible.

That's because it might be.

You see, I've been thinking a lot about Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, and it leads me down into an abyss of useless thought. So I figured, why not share all of this with you?

For those of you unfamiliar with the paradox, here it is (with added un-historical and un-mythological embellishments):

The Greek hero Achilles was walking down this dirt road in the middle of nowhere when he started to feel inadequate. His girlfriend had just dumped him for Hercules, and he was understandably feeling pretty down on himself. He needed a self-esteem booster, something that he would naturally be great at but not something as basic as slaying monsters or throwing boulders. So he decided on darts and turned left to head toward his local bar.

On his way there, he knocks something over with his foot. Thinking it was a rock, and having grown accustomed to throwing boulders in his free time, he lifted the thing and got into his Olympic stance. The thing, however, had a voice.

"Not again, Achilles," sighed the tortoise. He was so done with this guy, for the two had a rich backstory of disappointment.

The tortoise had places to be. He was going to a family reunion in the fall so he'd been heading to the gym to train to race his sister to whom he always lost. Then an idea crept into his little tortoise brain. "Hey, Achilles. Let's race."

Now, Achilles had already apologized and set down the tortoise, which was good news since tortoises often carry many human illnesses. He was a little confused as to why they would race, and honestly, the tortoise had no idea either. He was just trying to have a good time.

"Sure," said Achilles, in that noble voice that accompanies a Greek hero. "I guess."

So Achilles naturally gave the tortoise a 10-meter head start.

This is where it gets tricky.

The race begins, and of course, Achilles is faster and reaches the tortoise's 10-meter head start position fairly quickly. But by the time he gets there, the tortoise has moved about one meter. So Achilles runs the length of that meter, but by the time he does, the tortoise has moved again, forever and infinitely adding to the distance between them.

So Achilles never catches, and certainly never passes, the tortoise.

You see?

This can be rephrased in another confusing way:

If I need to travel two miles to get to the store, I first have to travel one mile. And before I can travel that one mile, I have to travel half a mile. And before I can travel half a mile, I have to travel a quarter of a mile. This goes on for a seeming infinity.

Which renders the concept of motion, impossible.

Have a nice day.