The Logic of Long Distance

A running life is a collection of memories. 13 years old, Fall, 1990, Junior high XC 2 miles XC It is hot out. He always wins, the guy from Bradley County. I am always second. Today I have decided I will follow him out as far and as hard as it takes. I want to beat him. We go out, and it's hard as I expected, just the two of us. He must know I am there, and he is going to break me. We round the curve by the baseball field, only 600 meters or so into a 2 mile race, and I feel the lactic acid coming up into my arms. This is not good. He is still running strong. I can't do it. 17 years old, Spring, 1994, dual meet vs. Brainerd High under the lights 4 x 400 I felt the prickly feelings in the back of my neck as our #3 leg came straining down the track, a couple strides behind. My whole body lit up the way only a teenaged body can. The other guy grabs the baton, then the quick fear of the exchange, reaching out for a slim piece of metal among all the flesh and the heat. My ea

"Feverish love of anything as long as it is a change which is distracting, impatience, unsettlement, nervous discontentment, and desire for excitement, are not native to the human nature. They are so abnormal as to demand explanation from a deep seated cause."  --John Dewey, "The Lost Individual" Dewey wrote these words in 1929 -- nearly 90 years ago -- in a past which we probably think of as more stable and calm than our present. Yet if we read this text [Chapter 4 of this book] , Dewey's thoughts feel more pressing than ever. The soul of America is yet to be healed. If anything, despite the tremendous advances that the 20th century brought, this malady of anxiety, nervousness, and distractibility has grown deeper. The source of this abnormal angst, Dewey speculates, is in our inability to find stable projects which rest on stable values. We skid about on a surface of life which lacks friction, always sliding forward, feeling out of control. Today we do mo