Running Past Banality and into Giving and Receiving

As I was running this morning, I was contemplating two excellent articles I had read in yesterday's Financial Times.

Susie Boyt, in her piece "I saw the world in a new light" writes "Very early on in life I planted the idea in myself that only the things I achieve without help count. Inner resources and self-reliance are to me as cigarettes and alcohol are to others. I’ve always done everything possible to avoid putting my hopes or happiness in anyone else’s hands. Yet, as I clung to this kind stranger, wholly undefended, my sense of wellbeing soared. It seemed to me suddenly that help and love are the same. The feelings I had nursed earlier of being hurt and at a loss subsided under this superhuman concern. The whole episode was very moving."

Harry Eyres, in 'The dangers of banality' writes "The danger of banality is an insidious one. Banality weakens our intellectual, spiritual and ethical muscles, rendering us flabby thinkers, unable or unwilling to chew over the difficult matter of experience and make it part of us. The connection between the banality of evil and the evil of banality is the danger of a surrender of our human powers of discrimination. We always need to be discriminating, and we always need to be working on refining our powers of discrimination, or one day we might find we can no longer distinguish between a human being and a widget."

Running, both the physical and the mental aspects, can truly become banal without a conscious effort at recognition and discrimination. In a broader sense of life, providing and receiving help can elevate one above a mere banal existence and open one's mind to possibilities, a de'light'ful experience.

Thanks, Ms. Boyt and Mr. Eyres, for a good education.