The Material of Running
The Mindfulness Running Project is a new project where I give myself a prompt to consider during a chosen run. This month, to help get this project started, I decided to use the book I was reading, Art as Experience by John Dewey, for inspiration. I expect the format might change as this project develops and evolves.
There is something that resides so deep within us, not just in runners or artists, that surfaces through the actions we pursue. I’d like to consider this material to be something separate from drive or motivation, but as some internal material that we express through action. It is something we pull from our self to deliver to the external. While motivation is what encourages and pushes us, this material brought out by us is what is expressed by our motivation to carry out actions; it is separate from motivation. Further, it is not something facilitated by emotion, though emotion plays a role in the act of expressing or in how the material is understood externally; emotion is not the material itself. The material becomes part of both the means and the ends of pursuing some action, for this material is an expression of self in the consequence of doing.
Mindfulness Running Project #1: May 11th, 2026
“The arts of science, of politics, of history, and of painting and poetry all have finally the same material; that which is constituted by the interaction of the live creature with his surroundings. They differ in the media by which they convey and express the material, not in the material itself.”
Response: In running, we should highlight more specifically the line “interactions of the live creature with his surroundings,” to address the material expressed by the runner. For, how often is it that the run itself is met with the internal experiences of the runner with the external environment of the run? The birth of the run is the collision between internal and external environments creating the conditions for the outcome, the run itself. This material is no different than that of the arts.
Perhaps we should consider this material to be something of life, where life is a form of the spirit. When we consider the spirit to be an animating principle delivering life to the organism, we may also know life to be an expression of the spirit. In agreement, we can also understand spirit to be a frame of mind. In which case, spirit is an expression of life. One who is expressing some material, whether it be through running or some other medium, is thus expressing either their spirit or their life. Being involved in something like running, that is a lifestyle, you are living entrenched in the expression. You are expressing the “spirit of a runner,” or the “life of a runner.” But like any form of expressing some spirit or life, it is an outlook in which you peer out the window from and peer into the window through. We discover our thinking through writing, we learn our agreements through arguments, and we realize our internal life is mirrored back to us in our interactions with the world we exist in, in the sphere in which all experiences take place. To express life is to express the internal conditions as they meet the external conditions. It is happiness (internal) running on a sunny day (external), and it is sadness running in the rain. To express the spirit is to express the outlook provided by such conditions. The spirit of the runner is shaped by the life of the runner just as the life is shaped by the spirit.
However, we should stop ourselves short of assuming we know which (life or spirit) we are expressing in the moment, the act, or the consequence of doing. It is only after the run, or upon our reflection of some act, that we understand what has been pulled out from us. Whether it be the spirit who ran (expression of life) or life who ran (expression of spirit), we can understand this material to be shared. For any experience to take place, there is a multitude of contributing materials that imply the sharing of spirit and life as they are expressed by the material produced by some experience. Through any act of doing, running, painting, or conversing, the material of those conditions that are delivered in the moment will be expressed. Reflecting on the outcome of the activity provides clarity on what was expressed at the moment. So often, going for a run and removing oneself from the devices of one's present, putting oneself into an active state and out of a stagnant state, brings clarity. It is as if transforming one to an active state of expression delivers life to oneself. One meets their spirit as they meet their life.
Mindfulness Running Project #2: May 13th, 2026
“Whenever anything is undergone in consequence of doing, the self is modified.” – Page 275, Art as Experience
Response: We are always modifying as we progress through each day. However, our self only experiences such modifications when we choose to go about the day in a different fashion. The consequence of doing is the result of our actions. Inaction in life may then be considered a lack of modifications to the status quo. A multitude of experiences await us if we so choose to take part in them. For any result to come about, one must undergo the consequence of doing to facilitate some modification. One does not become themselves by staying still.
The expression of our own life, or spirit, through the medium of our choosing is what maintains our progression through the material in which we express. Material itself can become prohibitive in our undertaking of some medium, some action. In some cases, we are externally prohibited from taking part in some medium due to accessibility. Nonetheless, modification to the self is done through our willingness to participate in our own expression. Without a will towards something, there is no path through something. So it is true then. Where there is a will, there is a way. For as long as we maintain the status quo, we are stagnated by the possibilities of it. Having some medium, choosing some form of expression, reduces stagnation and the resulting inflammation of a life not lived. To move through life is to participate in the expression of it. We either move through life, or life will move through us.
Mindfulness Running Project #3: May 18th, 2026
“Whenever any material finds a medium that expresses its value in experience- that is, its imaginative and emotional value- it becomes the substance of a work of art.” – Page 238
Response: If running is the medium of some material, we might further understand running to contain some value to the material as the act of running, like the act of painting, is an experience on its own. Thus, it may also be true that the imaginative and emotive value is something of one’s self that encourages them to perform some action (to run). This material, one of a runner, might be known to transpire for a multitude of reasons. To run for the sake of running is to be light.
We return to our mediums because they bring us some added value to our lives. They are substances that are a part of us as we express them. The material of running delivers outcomes that are beneficial to us in part because we allow them to be. For it is the experience of the material itself that is the reward of our participation, not the outcomes. Running for the sake of running brings lightness as it is the pure, hypnotic, unifying state of life, spirit, and self. The trance experienced is one derived from releasing the outcomes of one’s participation and being part of the medium itself.
Mindfulness Running Project #4: May 23rd, 2026
“The consequence, instruction, illumination, is one with the process. Sometimes we journey to get somewhere else because we have business at the latter point and would gladly, were it possible, cut out the traveling. At other times we journey for the delight of moving about and seeing what we see. Means and end coalesce.” – Page 205
Response: Means and end are on in the same, thus we should participate in the experiences we enjoy for the sake of the means themselves and caution ourselves from experiences that we do only for the ends. This is not to say that some ends must be met, but for those means in which we choose, we should do so for enjoyment.
So, we should not participate in our mediums for the purpose of expressing some material, but allow the material to be what it is, as one participates in their medium for the sake of the medium itself. Further, in considering that such mediums add value to our lives, we should understand the means of the medium to be where value is stored. Which is to say that the ends do not provide the value; the means do. This understanding should provide further guidance in determining the medium we use to express the materials of our existence. The runner who carries a lightness in their step is channeling the materials; they are the expression of the material of running in that moment. Whereas the runner who runs for the ends, not the means, carries with them the heaviness of external materials. They seek results from the medium, rather than the medium being the result itself. Manifestation is not the containment of some end, but the release of the end for the experience of the means. So, then, anything we do that is of our choosing should contribute to the fulfillment of enjoyment. If our choosing does not lead us there, then we are either 1) not choosing, or 2) established in the wrong medium.
Mindfulness Running Project #5: May 25th, 2026
“In existence no two sunsets have exactly the same red. They could not have it unless one sunset repeated the other in absolutely complete detail. For the red is always the red of the material of that experience.” – Page 223
Response: Every experience is unique to the materials that make up such experiences. No moment can be replicated, not even in memory, so we must make ourselves fully present, fully attuned to the materials in which we bring forth and meet.
Ultimately, our choices deliver us to each new experience, as the free will we do have, which is limited by choice itself, draws us to a conclusion based on pre-existing circumstances. Nonetheless, each new experience allows us a newness, a freshness, if we are prepared to focus on the present. There is no replication of a moment, but the deja vu of our being living in what’s been manifested. So, then, we arrive at each experience through a string of familiarity as the materials of the moment unfold as we go. Perhaps we should understand the underlying materials of any medium, of any experience, to be a constant that is readily available to be expressed, should we be mindful of them. That all internal emotions are fluctuating, yet available, and all external conditions are fluctuating, and available. The moment is birthed by the internal and external conditions, which in turn become the material expressed by that specific experience.
Material remains available, with or without conditions, as it is the binding of each consciousness to the next, bringing to us an awareness of life itself. So, our expression, through any medium, is the expression of this binding awareness, the material of animation. Each form expression becomes an example of what is possible through life. It may be true then that the only possibilities that remain unbeknownst to us are those that are possible through death. We might then consider that the material of running expresses life in an incredibly active state, one in which all parts of being are brought into the present to take part in. Further, this active state expresses life as a constant, as the united flow of the lively mind, body, and spirit. The material of running is then the result of the present life, and the liveliness of each part of that life’s being. Where running requires expression beyond action, but effort as well, to unite all forces that will deliver the experience of the material. It is true then that this material changes depending on the conditions that facilitate it. We cannot expect our body to be and feel the same day in and day out, just as we do not expect the weather to do so.
Running, then, expresses the material of the active internal life as it meets the active external life. The feeling that is experienced by their meeting is the manifestation of the material of the conditions expressed. So, when we run or express any medium, we should separate our thinking self from our expressive self to realize what is brought about naturally. For our thoughts are an interference with the material, and the material must be drawn out to understand its nature. We come to know our internal conditions not by our thinking about them, but by our feeling of them. Likewise, we understand external conditions not by our thinking about the rain, but by the experience of the rain itself. We feel the rain like a runner feels the pain. We feel the sun like a runner feels pure bliss. Our thinking about either condition, internal or external, only prohibits the true experience of the material itself. With that, we can understand that we do not manipulate the material, but the material manipulates us, which is what allows us to be changed as a consequence of doing. If we go unchanged, we have not let our thinking self be quiet enough to hear the material whisper.
