On the Treadmill

Opinion journalism On the Treadmill ΕΞ ΑΦΟΡΜΗΣ ΣΑΒΒΑΤΟ 22 ΑΥΓ2026 Relevant News On the Treadmill 22 August 2026 Investigation continues after death of four-year-old Marios 22 August 2026 Indonesian students and teachers celebrate Independence Day 22 August 2026 Marios Demetriou 22 August 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber I watch the cars go by as I walk in place at speed on the gym treadmill, going nowhere fast. Not my usual gym, mind you: that one shuts for a few days every August. This is the emergency stand-in, the one built right on top of the motorway. The running machines all face outward, towards the glass front of the building, so you can walk or run on the spot while watching the endless stream of traffic pour past in both directions. None of my usual gym mates are here to trade jokes and jibes with, so instead I find myself enjoying this solitary moment among strangers, all of us sweating side by side, none of us saying a word. It strikes me that we spend a whole life going back and forth like those cars streaming past, when really, we might just be marking time on the spot. And marking time on the spot, as it turns out, is a rather good moment for self-examination. Not in the gym’s communal mirror, but in that other one, the one only you can see. As I keep pounding away on the electric treadmill, I find myself composing this piece in my head, and there’s something genuinely terrifying about it, if I’m honest: the sheer nerve of sitting down to shape the opinions of people you’ve never met and probably never will. It takes a certain gall to override whatever natural reticence or modesty you might have, as if some higher power had personally signed off on the idea, handing you a licence to beam your own logic into other people’s heads and expect them to understand it, swallow it, and make it their own. Yes, journalism is a kind of power. A kind of authority. And, in its way, a form of vanity, one that likes to dress itself up as public service, as political and social conscience. Strip away any genuine care, any real love for the thing, and it’s remarkably easy to slide into pure self-obsession, a sort of mental lock-in that lifts you clean off the ground and drops you into a cloud of your own self-importance, drunk on illusions of superiority. In the meantime, my half-hour on the machine is up. Time to step off, head to the changing rooms, get out, cross the road and fetch the car from the other side. Soon enough I’ll be back out on that motorway myself, one more car among the rest. My steps on the spot are done, and it’s time to go. Where I’m actually headed, and whether I’ll get there, is another story entirely. Either way, it occurs to me that the point was never really about arriving somewhere. It’s about wanting to go somewhere at all. Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Investigation continues after death of four-year-old Marios Indonesian students and teachers celebrate Independence Day Apollonio disputes SHSO account after patient’s surgery succeeds Cyprus fuel prices dive as EU-wide costs rise On this day: Henry Kissinger was named U.S. Secretary of State in 1973 Mazotos residents go to court over desalination unit DISY power struggle brews between Demetriou and Neofytou Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.