Prayer is essentially about a state of being, and not about achieving an ulterior desire. There are no “prayer stickers.” I have never seen a car with a “3” on the back-as in I pray 3 times a day (or a “5” for Muslims). It is not the achievement that I desire, it is my search for a state of being. I run because being out on a run (or on my bike) is where I want to be. But I do not run week after week all year long in order to put that sticker on my car, or in order to run that race. I will not bother you with how many kilometers I have run over the last ten years (if we’re friends on FB I bother you with this triviality once a year). I have run many races, too many too count. It is about being out on a trail, out on a road (I do not run on treadmills). I may not have gotten anywhere, but I “finished”-you fill in the distance.īut this misses the essential point of running and many of the other most important parts of life. Stickers are a manifestation of the urge to turn an essentially non-achievement oriented activity into an activity whose success can be numerically measured. And so to signify that we have done something, that we have achieved, we need a number, and we need to let everyone know that number. But we’re usually right back where we started. We usually end up exactly where we started-back at home, or back at the car, sweaty, tired, pumped with endorphins, dehydrated, happy, sore, or all of the above. But rare is the occasion when anyone runs to get somewhere. A person runs 20, 30, 40 k a week, and some run a lot more. The answer probably has to do with the sense that every runner has at some point-I’m running a lot, but I never get anywhere. Or for that matter, why just running? Footballers do not put the number of goals they had last season, nor do basketball players put stickers with their points or rebounds. So why so many stickers on cars? Why does everyone need to tell the rest of the world how far they ran? No one puts other numbers on cars-how much money they earn, how much their house is worth, how many children they have, the record number of times they had sex in a day/week (might be interesting) or whatever. And I admit, my car has two stickers-the impressive 226 (the k’s in an Ironman triathlon, now who’s showing off) and the more pedestrian 42.2. Now if I glance over, I only risk running into the car ahead of me. I used to pass by a car with a 42.2 sticker and assume that I knew the person. Those in Israel who wish to show off that they’ve run those 42.2k on American soil stick on a 26.2 sticker, and if they’re humorous, 27.4 (I got lost). Even non-runners paste their protest post-0.0. Now they just plaster it all over the back of their cars-42.2, 21.1, 61, 100, 144 (all in kilometres), the numbers run the gamut. How do you know when someone’s run a marathon? They tell you.
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