The Gift of Inconvenience
“The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honor our responsibilities for all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It’s our turn now, long overdue. Let us hold a giveaway for Mother Earth, spread our blankets out for her and pile them high with gifts of our own making. Imagine the books, the paintings, the poems, the clever machines, the compassionate acts, the transcendent ideas, the perfect tools. The fierce defense of all that has been given. Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offered up on behalf of the earth. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath.” - Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer. I come back to this quote often, specifically the part about giving our gifts for the renewal of the world in return for the privilege of breath. The privilege of breath! Responsibility, reciprocity, attention, time, care—one would not necessarily find these things easy or convenient. We are living in a culture of convenience and suffering, created in part by capitalism, which is quickly leading to fascism—though if we’re being honest, our country has always centered nationalism, militarism, and national interests above those of its people—the very definition of fascism. To those reading this, I am curious, do you see the connections when it comes to our running practices? Do you consider the implications of how and where we run, and the impact to our environment as our government crumbles around us?
Perhaps you think it has nothing to do with you and nothing to do with running, maybe you’re “not into politics.” Perhaps you don’t want to think about it and just want to enjoy running. And I don’t blame you. It is uncomfortable, scary, and inconvenient. Herein lies the problem and a possible reframing. Living in a culture of convenience means we can can order dinner, groceries, even our running shoes all with a few clicks and have it delivered to our door. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with that, and for folks in rural areas it is almost a necessity. However, I believe problems arise because living this way allows for the opportunity for us to become disconnected from it all. It’s as if our dinner just magically shows up at our door, but who made it? Where were the ingredients sourced? Who are the people putting their love and labor into what we consume? Are they even given time to put their love into their labor? Karl Marx's theory of alienation describes just that—the separation and estrangement of people from their work, their wider world, their human nature, and them selves. It is an interesting conundrum we have created, in living a life of convenience (to the varying degrees in which many of us do) we are alienating ourselves while at the same time searching for connection and community. Forgetting that no matter what we do, we are interconnected beings in this time and this space, which is ever changing. It is almost improbable to conceive, in this world we have created, that my joy is your joy. My suffering is your suffering. But running shows us this is in fact, true.
When we run together, we experience joy together and we damn sure suffer together. Running, too, is inconvenient. There is nothing convenient about early morning alarms going off, or post work training runs. There is nothing convenient about adhering to a training cycle for months—being tired, being hungry, being sore, the cost of running clothes, shoes, and nutrition, the risk of injury… Yet we do it. And we love it. Sometimes begrudgingly, of course—and isn’t that exactly the gift of running? We put up with being inconvenienced for a time because of all that we get out of it. It is a beautiful reciprocal relationship. If we can hold this practice within the way we run, why can’t we offer ourselves and be inconvenienced in other communities and other ways outside of running? What if we reframe the idea of being inconvenienced to a gift we are offering—gifts of time and gifts of care. This exact topic came up in an environmental educators cohort I am a part of. During a recent gathering someone joked how they don’t want to give a friend a ride to the airport because it is inconvenient. This is where the idea of reframing inconvenience as a gift occurred to me—I care about you so I will give you a ride to the airport. Or I care about you so I will learn what to do if ICE shows up at our place of worship (which is something I recently did in community where I practice meditation).
I am going to bring it back to the quote from Braiding Sweetgrass because I think it truly captures the essence of what it means to be a human being on this little planet in this time of social and environmental injustices, “Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath.” Running is such a gift. If we choose, it is a gift we can use to challenge the status quo. We can pull strength from those moments where we want to bail on a long run but we keep fucking going, and pull joy from running solo miles through the redwoods in the East Bay hills, or with friends taking over the streets where we live. Let us be inconvenienced and let us consider it a gift.
