I was running this morning and thinking.

I can’t disconnect the two activities completely.  If I’m breathing I’m thinking.

That doesn’t mean that if I’m running and I’m breathing hard that I’m thinking more than usual.

It doesn’t mean that I’m thinking any better than I usually do.

It just means that I’m always using my brain…if only at a rudimentary level.  (What did Einstein say about using 3% of our brain?  I don’t remember….)

Anyway, I was thinking about a lot of things this morning.

I was thinking about why meth heads always burn the insulation off copper wire at night and how stinky it is.

That was a temporary thing….I ran away from that thought.

That got me thinking about China spewing tons of pollution into the air and how it’s going to join with all the other pollution and how stinky it is.

I thought about where the skunk carcass went that used to be in the greasy spot in the road…and , even though the skunk is gone now, how stinky it still is.

And then I started thinking about the thing that carried me through the rest of the short run.

I thought, “How far would you go if you didn’t understand the concept of ‘far’? “.

What would limit us if we had no markers or defining measures?

It’s a weird thought, sort of.

Would I continue to run if I didn’t understand that the church was .8 miles up and .8 miles back and together it was about a mile and a half and that was a good distance to start out with and when I finished with that I would be able to stop?

Or that if I ran for half an hour…when I’m running a little longer than a mile and a half…that would be enough and I could stop when the time was up?

How far could I go if I didn’t understand that I was supposed to stop? If I hadn’t planned the finish before the race even started?

What would I do if I didn’t understand what time or an “average lifespan” or distance or “being practical” meant?

How far would I go if no one told me how far “too far” was?

It’s an interesting thought to wonder that.

We work for retirement.  At least most of the Postal workers I know do.  I don’t get the feeling that many of my co-workers consider their jobs a calling or a mission.

We push through something that’s “less” to get to something that’s bearable.

It’s the best job I’ve ever had.  I love the independence of the job.  I like driving the mail around.

Any complaining I do is really kind of crazy.  I have a pretty good thing going.

But a “good thing going” feels kind of cramped up sometimes.  It would be a good thing to be going one of these days.

I want to jump into the ocean while my knees are still up to the jumping.

This world is huge.  HUGE.

And, at the same time, small in some respects.

I wonder if I’ll ever be satisfied with not being able (yet) to experience it all?