Tuesday, March 1, 2011

We Think Big Thoughts

Running is an activity best done in groups, or at least that's what all the cool kids are saying these days.  But there's a meditative, transcendent quality to running a distance alone.  Like, I wonder what Pheidippides was thinking about all of those long, lonely miles, I mean, besides, "ow ow ow ow ow ow ow...."

Which is funny because running is, by its nature, physical;  maybe it's when we're embodied in the mind-free rhythmicity of running that we're freed to think Big Thoughts.

Sample:  our memories are plastic, malleable, suggestible, not only can we forget, we can remember it wrong.  So what happens to us when our memories become virtual and accessible - does my iPhone make me less human, more than human, or just more annoying when you're trying to engage me in a conversation?  What happens to me as a person?  Are you right because you say you are?  What, or who, arbitrates the past?  Is there a threshold at which we are no longer able to opt out of a technology, or is it a smeary continuum?  When will google become self aware?  Does that just mean that google googles itself?  What happens when I forget?  How do I forget?  What happens when we can't forget?  What's Whitney Houston saying when she asks how do I know if he really loves me?

Maybe gasping for air on these runs is just making me hypoxic.

Supa-Speedy Solo Cinco Que
3.25 mi.  24 min.:10 sec.  7:26 pace.

Is It Hypoxia, or Is It Memorex?
7.58 mi.  1 hr.:3 min.:56 sec.  8:26 pace.

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