A runner's guilt

There could have been a better title for this post. Still I'm intentionally keeping it this way, for the directional intent of where this is coming from. But it is not all negative. Go on.

As I write, I have never been in a more welcoming environment than where I am now. It's a still, cool evening. The sky is an awesome pale blue, with white patches of paper clouds here and there. A jet is tearing through the sky, leaving a trail of white fog that is cutting the sky into two. Way below that, and just above my head, all kinds of birds are heading home, the sound of pleasure in their chirps. So I'd like to think. My favorites are the cuckoo couple - the red-bead-eyed black male and the white-grey spotted female, and the innumerable companies of parrots that glide past my terrace everyday right about this time. It's a kind of serene calm now even amidst the constant chirps. So that's the setting now in which I'm retrospecting. 

I seem to be in a perennial writer's block when I try to think of a new idea or frame a new social concept or philosophy to write about. Those days just seem to be gone for a while now. I'm trying to operate on that mode of thought and feeling. If I could, I would instill a pace-maker to that part of the heart that works on these areas to beat normally! That is, if there ever is such a part in the heart like the different parts of the brain (as if I'm using those effectively!!). 

And so, the simplest thing to get me writing is to do with running. I love running, so I have no block or problem writing about it. Tomorrow would mark the first time in 24 months that I would have run 150 kms in a month. This is the second full month in the '100 Days of Running' challenge for 2019. (I ran 125 kms in May). The last time I clocked 150+ was June 2017 during that year's 100DoR. My mind went back to the circumstances of that year's challenge. It was a run-rage that I took on, in some serious testing times of my personal life. And today I reflect on how much things have changed since. Back then, the running used to cure me of negativism. Now, it keeps me composed and contained from too much positivism. In both cases, it has just helped me stay on track. And this is the guilt that has captured me now. Why is my running becoming a refuge or a neutralizer to just keep me normal? Why is my running keeping me normal and not elevating me as a person? How could I love something that is just normal? Or is it because my running cures and contains me that is making me love it more? Or to simply state - Why am I not running for the love of it, if I truly did love it?

I'm only reminded of Haruki Murakami's golden words that still keep me going about running - "I'm not a great runner, but I'm definitely a strong runner". No one could state it simpler and more powerfully than this, to keep someone like me running. By God's grace, I have never been left wanting for strength, at least when it comes to running since I picked it up as the sport for me four years ago. That strength will be enough to overcome the guilt and embrace love, my love for running. And that strength is enough to keep this lone wolf going!