Why We Run

    

Runners are intelligent. Optimistically we think this, knowing for instance that runners are the only species that wilfully damage themselves to the point of bone fracture as in stress fracture. But overlooking this occasional lapse of cerebral-acuity lets agree that runners are smart and by definition this begets a little curiosity, a little questioning. Runners generally, are searching … for something.

Contrary to popular self-help schmaltz runners are not seeking space, nor peace, nor quiet ... nor introspection nor reflection. Sure, these worthy benefits may descend upon runners temporarily blessed with a “runners high”. But even though we may not know this, runners are searching for something else.

In the shallow waters of pop-psychology running is also an exploration, a pursuit of limits, an embrace of boundaries, a discovery of vitality and exhaustion, of purity and venom, of exuberance and anguish. Yes, running is all of these things that bloggers and cheap health-literature eulogise. But this is not all. More than all of these running is simply a search.

sandal running johanneburg natural zones - south africa

Running is a search for a touchstone, a point of reference. Runners are looking for something .... an anchor; something that may even obviate the need for additional running.

When our creativity evaporates and we struggle to communicate coherently and our efforts feel futile and pointless, and we basically drop below par, we run. We look for renewal.

When feeling distanced from communities and faced with vacuous social convention, we run. 

The tedium of repetitive anecdotes from dull unchanging people drain our enthusiasm and drive us to run. When we need a break we run in search of spirit.

When friends are mildly or strenuously tiresome and warm authentic conviviality disappears, we run. (Sometimes we have to take care of ourselves first.)

When families test our limits and challenge our sensibilities, when we need a counterpoint to the noise of close blood we run to reclaim wholeness. 

When we question a god or anything close, perhaps unknowingly, and we nurture doubt about issues we cannot fathom, we run in search of our soul. 

As runners we know that we don’t know. There are big questions, really big, for which we do not manufacture or contrive a response, even though others might. This brutal honesty is manifest in our chase. We search for absent endpoints, we hope for certainty in pervasive doubt. We hunt an ephemeral truth. Runners move beyond the comfort of knowing, we debate, question and search. We move closer to an emptiness that others avoid or deny. And through this, our search itself becomes an anchor, our running defines the absent goal. 

We run in search of truth and the run itself becomes that truth … even though we may not know this.

thanks to tallguysurfing.blogspot