Run, Walk or Hike

I have recently started running to lose weight and have been reading lots books based on the lives of running athletes for motivation.  In all these books, of all these great runners there's an underlying theme: The authors ran away or ran to something in struggle.

The story of the greatest running athletes all seem to have a common struggle, the human condition. I myself have struggled with one thing all my life, that I must say, might just be the motivating factor for who I have become.  And so for the most part it "runs" my life.

As I read about the lives of all these runners, I totally "get it." From being bad fathers, to alcoholics, to their tragedies, I can totally identify.

I am starting to understand there's no condition at all. Instead it is just Life. I believe that the human condition is not so much a condition, but the standard.

It's not a condition at all.

I believe one key aspect to live is to learn how to stay motivated and minimize the damage.

Is that the point of religion?  In the major religions it is all about being free of this condition and to being better off, but is that part of being human?

I will continue to run, not so much for the weight loss, but because I believe that running might reflect how life can be, sometimes enjoyable and sometimes not.

The human condition is somehow reflected in the very terrain of our hikes and our runs, and it is in the struggle to conquer the next hill, to reach the next peak, or our own peaks, that we can sometimes prepare for the run..... Life.

The Badger

They say that a Badger digs really deep to make it's home, and to a certain extent human beings tend to do the same.  We seem to dig really deep to figure out who we are, why we are and why we do the things we do, but, eventually we all have to make a home.

I have been "badgering" for quite a while and still can't seem to find my home. The song, "I still haven't found what I am looking for" by U2 is where I continually "find" myself and says it best.

The saints, guru's and mystics say that what we all really long for is Love, God and compassion.  Is that the home we all search for?

Is that all I need? If so, can you please tell me how or where I can get such things?

I am told that Truth is a person, but this Truth seems so distant to me. This Truth seems so irrelevant in my life at the moment.

And so, I search and dig.

I was recently told by my doctor that I have to lose weight. That I can do!  Because through experience, I have made that home before, so I know exactly how much to dig to get to it. But these other aspects of life like work, relationships, God, the universe, religion are all places that this Badger fails to find.

It seems that once you think you have it, you learn that there's something else that shifts the dirt or fills the "whole."

I don't think that we are meant to live like badgers that continuously dig and dig because it doesn't seem to be working.

I guess the saying, "Where you go, there you are" is where I am and it sure feels lonely here.