My routine when going for a run is pretty much the same, I choose my shirt and shorts based upon the weather, either a hat or when it’s hot and humid like today, my reliable Bondi band that is the best thing ever to keep the sweat from dripping off my hairless dome into my eyes, then the choice becomes a regular waist pack or my Bringit neoprene belt which holds two 10 oz bottles of water (hint: when I choose the bondi band, I almost always wear the belt with the water). Then my Aftershokz bone conduction wireless headphones for safety. The last step is to choose a set of songs, fire it up and slip my phone into the chose waist belt (the reason I wear it to begin with).

Today, for no particular reason it was Dan Fogelberg’s collection The Innocent Age. When I run sometimes I zone out and sometimes I think, today was the latter.

About 1/2 way into the run the opening strains of Lost in the Sun come through the earphones, it goes something like this:

“Every night I ask myself that same old question why
And every day the answer seems more distant
I always knew the final truths lay just beneath the lies
But I never thought they’d be this hard to find
I never thought they’d be this hard to find“

Of course, that starts me thinking about all the events of the day; why, after centuries have we still not embraced equality? Racial, gender, religious, sexual and on and on. Why does it seem that for others to “have” there are those who think that will happen at their expense? What is it about the “I, me, mine, NIMBY” attitudes? Why is courtesy and common sense so incredibly difficult a policy to embrace? Honesty, truth, science, facts, empathy these are the things that seem to be very hard to find in many in power, why?

The song concludes:

“The faster we run
The further away the dreams that we chase become
Lost in the sun
Spinning and turning, blind in the burning
Light of day, we have to turn away“

While, by any stretch of the imagination I don’t run fast, I certainly hope we embrace all the necessary changes and absolutely do NOT turn away, regardless of the lights that are being used to blind us to the truths.

Sometimes music does soothe, sometimes it invigorates, sometimes infuriates, it is always a beautiful companion.