A Small Taste of Death

What can be known? The unknown.
My true self runs toward a Hill.
More! O More! visible.
-Theodore Roethke, "One More, The Round"

In my opinion, bluntly put, we run because we crave a small taste of death. Pressed up against a lack (oxygen) & desire (to be something more than we currently are), we are confronted with the edge of what we are capable of & more often than not we are found wanting. Because of that desire we want to hurt more, to press the outside edge of our limited, conventional world. This is not a socially acceptable place. Your boss doesn't want you to expand your concept of what you are capable of; your husband isn't keen on you realizing your body is made to move beyond his circumscribed expectations; your government wants you to vote red or blue (& what's the difference if you pay your taxes.)

Of course the indignities we suffer are not unique; what IS is our response.

Running asks you to go to the edge of your limited, acceptable, reasonable daily existence & to ask for a little more...& unlike your boss, your husband, your checkbook, your daily grind, it always comes through. Not always with the answer you want, but always with the answer you deserve. These questions ask you to risk...to die a little to gain a semblance of an answer. Frequently the answers are hard to digest or decipher or, in fact, are not even actual answers...but they do require risk.

"What can be known?...My true self runs toward a Hill."