Poem: February 6, 2019

Running

There was a time when I would tell anyone who ran
for recreation that the only way I would ever run more
than, say, a mile as an adult would be if someone
was chasing me with a knife, and even so, I know
there would be a point at which I would decide that
it would be better to just stop running and submit
to the inevitable stabbing, that eventually both options
would be equally unpleasant, so maybe I'd see what happens.
I mean, let's be honest, runners don't really sell the product.
You see a guy running along the road in summer, all red
and their face angry, the grimace and the corners
of their mouth drawn down and out, searching
for oxygen, their joints visibly jarred with every step.
Objectively, they don't look like they are having fun.
Fun looks like a shaded stroll or a sports bar. Not that.
And yet, somehow, I've become, in my own way,
that guy- pushing, pushing my protesting body
to complete an hour of cardio most days on
a treadmill, elliptical machine, stationary bike,
and frankly, I don't love it, but I accept it
as the kind of theoretical good that will either
pay dividends or not, and how will I know anyway?
Which, of course, raises the question of motivation.
What could ever drive me to commit daily
to an unpleasant process with uncertain rewards?
I don't know the answer. I don't. But a friend of mine
hit on a thought experiment that at least hints at
what is going on in my mind as I grind forward.
So I ask myself am I running away from something,
or am I running toward something else? What's my why?
(which I am told it is important that I know). The answer
is I'm inclined to do both or either depending on the day.
For example, it is sometimes satisfying to imagine
I am preparing myself for the day I must run away
from the man with the knife, the zombie apocalypse,
or more likely, the MAGA war we seem to be sliding toward.
In these scenarios, I am clearly running away from fear,
and the argument is that survival is its own reward.
Other times I do see myself running forward to a goal-
I imagine my former 20-year-old body, glistening,
abs revealed, arms and pecs and quads defined
(which, of course, is its own fantasy of manufactured memory)
and I can hear the admiring comments of acquaintances-
"How on earth do you do it? There's no way you are fifty!
I wish I had even half of your self-discipline!"
Or I picture my 120th birthday party or reaching
the moment of singularity when the doctor-technician
uploads my consciousness into my forever-machine
and I finally abandon the treadmill of organic maintenance,
which upon reflection also argues that survival
is its own reward and that we are always, always
in the process of running both to and away.