Do Not Be Still My Excitable Unamerican Heart

Did I tell you I have a high heart rate? It isn't high blood pressure, my baseline is just a high heart rate. It figures that a half Spanish, half Filipino heart would be excitable doesn't it? This quality is both  asset and liability. On the treadmill, it is a bit of a liability. Especially when doing speed intervals which alternate between intense  speeds that get your heart up to 85% of your maximum heart rate to slower more even keeled paces that burn fat at 15% of your maximum heart rate. The treadmill is constantly scolding me, telling me to lower my speed to lower my heart rate. It can also be seen as a liability in heated discussions, when am on fire - arms kinetic in gesture, inflections on overdrive I am often reminded to calm down.

It seems my tendencies to get excited, emphatic and fired up make people and athletic equipment uncomfortable. So much that they need to remind me to keep in check. As I think about this further, I realize it isn't the speed and shape of my heart that are really in question here but the standards if measures used to determine what is too much or just right. What is the measure of the heart, anyway? How can you weigh the appropriateness of one's fire? To try would be no different than counting Mozart's notes and categorically saying his music had too many.

Here's the thing. I like the pace of my heart just the way it runs. I get deep satisfaction as the cadence heightens in my chest, I know I am on to something good. So to my fast beating heart I say do not be still, do not. Rage, or not - it is up to you. Feel it all as much or as little. Electrify my entire being with your rhythm and keep me turned on with your pulsating. By our fire we will teach the feeble of heart that it is okay to feel things strongly, to race with emotion, to pulsate with inspiration. And to those who don't get me and my rapid heart I say take a chance, get fired up, reverberate. It has made me stronger, not killed me. Take it from me and Nietzsche, it will make you stronger.