A Good Running and Philosophy Blog

When I first started this blog, my entries were long and introspective. I thought they were insightful and poetic while at the same time readable – deluded boy that I am. J-A told me (gently) that they were boring and painful. They were too “academic.” But one of my stated goals in taking up blogging was to expand my writing voice beyond the dry one I’d developed over my decade of lying prostrate to the higher mind (I do miss it, sigh). So I set myself the task of learning how to write “breezy.”

It hasn’t been easy.

Nevertheless (I had to throw a big word in there!), I feel like over the past couple of years I’ve tossed my inner academic out of the blogosphere. I may not be any less boring, but at least I’m easy to read!

I’ll admit, though – I miss the rush of stringing together complex sentences in order to weave a rich intellectual tapestry of compelling ideas (oops – those words just slipped out, my apologies). Good thing that there are bloggers out there who still believe in striking a balance between readability and substance.

One of my favourite running blogs that digs deeper than the self-indulgent and banal ramblings of a mediocre recreational runner (should that be my blog name??) is called The Logic of Long Distance. It’s written by an academic philosopher in the southern US, and he writes very readable essays that bring great ideas and running together. His latest post takes up a philosopher’s lament about the over-valuation of “usefulness” in all aspects of modern life – and shows how running is a kind of resistance against this soul-destroying narrow mindedness in that its value cannot easily be categorized as “useful”; rather, its value – like the value of a life – is not exchangeable on the market; it is inherent in the doing.

I highly recommend keeping tabs on this blog. And maybe one of these days I’ll slip in an entry or two that is a little less breezy...