The Why

Why do we run? Thousands of people around the world put on their shoes and pound their knees and collective wills to pulp on harder than rock roads...one of the eternal questions....why do we do what we do? What is the driver?

A thought struck me now as I stretch after a 1 hour jog...limbering down. As much as I'd like to deny it or admit it guardedly, inherently I have a wide spiritual streak. Maybe you're born with it...maybe it was parents, maybe Catholic schools...I don't know. But the fact remains that I tend to view my actions and critique them not just from the prism of rationality but also from the prisms of humanity and Karma. And being disappointingly human, I commit what the great sages might call a hundred offences a day...OK maybe a few less than a hundred but I still do...from one perspective at least. The books of old have everyone from Kings to the common farmers partaking in one form or the other of penance. So is driving my body over 10, 20, 30 and maybe even 40 KM my own chosen form of penance for the offenses committed, whether they are of omission or commission? My conclusion is that, endorphins aside, I feel strangely calm; at complete peace with my surroundings, my pains, my troubles, my expectations, my desires...after a long, coordinated and gliding run.

Maybe this is how the human body is meant to be used...maybe running or exercise is like much needed maintenance on the engine of life....but I think I am treading dangerously close to territory best explained by Aurelius and the likes. For now, maybe this is my penance. But J Krishnamurti & Sigur Rós never felt better together.