I've been having this on-going conversation with a dear friend lately. It runs something like this:
People have the spare time to go to the gym nowadays. Stop and think about that. People have the time in a day to go to a place (usually inside, always inside? but with really nice views of the city) to keep their bodies 'in shape'. People have time also to get drunk. People have time to stalk about and sell drugs, and to take them. People have time to go to a baseball game. Once a week. Or to watch a movie. It wasn't really that long ago that people had to work just to keep food on the table. Much of the country still does. Seriously. Either on a farm or in a factory or both, most hours of the day were and are devoted to staying alive. Spare time? Time enough to be a drunk? Time enough to be 'healthy'? There were drunks, obviously. But of a different kind. You just couldn't sit at a bar all evening every evening getting piss drunk. Lack of bars, lack of money, lack of time.
My grandfather lived drunk for many, many years. One day after he'd almost killed himself in a car crash he quit, cold turkey. That was thirty years ago. He's a farmer. A link to the old days, so to speak. You either live or you die. It's a choice. The modern world with all our spare time and extra money seems to create confusion about what's living and what's dying. There's certainly more gray area now than there used to be, at least from my perch here, feet squarely in the modern world. You can choose to be dead-in-life. What does Thoreau say (not Thoreau again, you asshole)? Something like "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"? It's still true.
What on earth does this have to do with running? Well, while out on my daily this morning I was thinking about how lucky I am to have the hour (and more!) to do nothing but put one foot in front of the other in the morning. The morning! I don't have any chores. I don't have to make sure the livestock are alive. I don't have to punch in to some degrading and pointless job, at least until a little later! Nope. For a moment I can be free (free in the Gary Snyder sense of living happily with what's uncomfortable, mutable, protean, and spontaneous) and not pay any price other than the possible random injury. I'm not going to go hungry. I'm going to be able to pay my bills this month. I have the totally unique choice to actually opt-out of working if I want to. Unique in the whole of human history for the non-elites. As just a lower middle class dude in this time and place I can just decide to live in my truck if I want to and run or climb or write or just sit there staring out the window with NO REAL CONSEQUENCE. That's unique. That's lucky. Buddhists say how damn lucky it is to be born a human (considerably more fortunate than being born a fly) in a place that provides the liberties to perfect yourself. Don't waste this opportunity. Work less. Live better. Do something today and be thankful. Or don't. You have that choice.
In the spirit of reflection, check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kCKob1YKOU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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