No piece of writing better encapsulates why I run like George Sheehan’s “Why the Runner Runs: He Must.” Published in the New York Times in 1976, the short essay, ostensibly about why runners run, reads more like a manifesto about why the human lives. The entire piece is quotable, but I’ll call out a few opening lines since they are pertinent to this piece:   

[The runner] doesn’t run to lose weight, or become fit, or to prevent heart attacks. He runs because he has to. Because in being a runner, in moving through pain and fatigue and suffering, in imposing stress; in eliminating all but the necessities of life, he is fulfilling himself and becoming the person he is.  

There’s a lot to unpack in two short lines. To suggest that fitness is not the goal of running may sound perverse to the non-runner, as does the imperative of “moving through pain and fatigue and suffering.” And why would anyone impose stress upon themselves when so much of it seems imposed on us? What does Sheehan mean that the runner runs because he (or she) has to? Can’t they just walk? What are the necessities of life? Why does anyone need help becoming the people they are? Aren’t we already who we are? If not, then who are we? 

In considering the above questions, I think of a quote attributed to (though likely not said by) Michelangelo about how he turned a slab of marble into the statue of David. He said, “All I did was chip away everything that didn’t look like David.” Sheehan’s piece and the quote’s conceit speak to something most of us intuitively know: that each of us has an ideal self, but contrary to popular notions, this ideal self is not realized by addition —more fame, fortune, a faster car or bigger home—but through subtraction. Our ideal self is not when we are puffed up and blinged out, but when we are stripped down, freed of superfluous concerns, habits, and beliefs, until all that’s left is who we truly are, using only what we truly need, and doing only what we’re meant to do. 

What Is Minimalism? 

It could be said the above ideas align with “minimalism,” a lifestyle movement focused on “eliminating all but the necessities of life,” to borrow Sheehan’s phrasing. A big focus of minimalism is removing unnecessary material goods, with the idea being that in the absence of unnecessary stuff, we are freed to pay attention to what is necessary: hobbies, interpersonal connections, etc. Or, to repeat a minimalist axiom, “the best things in life aren’t things.”

For economic, ecological, and existential reasons, I’ve always gravitated towards minimalist living, though I’m reluctant to identify with any one ideology. I’ve just found that life feels more flexible, focused, and free the less stuff I have. Though most of my minimalism occurred in private whilst washing ziploc bags, some high profile media thrust me into the minimalist camp. The first happened in 2009, when I was featured in a New York Times piece about bachelors taking on unconventional living situations. I was living in a dilapidated townhouse in Brooklyn with few possessions. Rather than “identifying with my apartment,” as I told the Times, I placed “a higher premium on living a rich life, rich with experience,”  which the townhouse’s negligible rent and great location supported.   

Then in 2014, I appeared in a documentary entitled, Minimalism: A Documentary about the Important Things. I was working at a startup focused on micro-apartments  and a bit part of my job was preaching the “the luxury of less” gospel, i.e. a life free from unnecessary space and stuff created smaller spatial and carbon footprints and freed minds for loftier pursuits. I assumed the documentary’s distribution would be limited to film festivals, but it ended up on Netflix and became something of a cultural sensation, at least partly responsible for millions of folks ditching their stuff and moving into tiny homes, vans, and other varieties of low-overhead living.       

Running and Minimalism

There are few activities more minimalist than running. The sport requires little stuff outside a pair of shoes, and barefoot runners would argue those aren’t even required. The runners’ equipment is their bodies, performing their most elemental movement. There are no pedals to push, strokes or moves to learn, or postures to remember. But running’s minimal material requirements is only one way it is a minimalist endeavor.

Running, as Sheehan suggests, can fundamentally reveal who we are. Buddhist monk Pema Chödrön said, “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.” There have been many runs where my mind insisted my body could not keep running; the “pain and fatigue and suffering” and “imposed stress” Sheehan refers to. In continuing to run, in subduing my mind and perceived limitations, in exposing myself over and over to annihilation, I found that which was indestructible in me. I became who I truly am, not as my mind and past said I was, but as my body and present movement proved I was.              

Then there is the physical aspect of running. Sheehan writes, “the runner does not deny his body. He does not subdue it, or subjugate it, or mortify it. He perfects it, Maximizes it, magnifies it.” The runner’s body is not concerned with looking good or performing arbitrary tasks like bench-pressing. It’s a body stripped of anything that does not support its mass moving forward through time and space.  

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My life has changed a lot since the Times’ piece and the documentary. Many of the things that once grounded me  have been removed, sometimes by choice, sometimes not. In the midst of “repeated annihilation,” I returned to running. Running brings fulfillment and a way to become the person I am, even when the world is not what I want it to be. Through running, I have gotten closer to that stripped down, ideal self. Through running, I have learned that what I need is, “One friend, a few clothes, a meal now and then, some change in his pockets, and for enjoyment, his thoughts and the elements,” as Sheehan put it. And through running, I have realized that what I’m meant to do is move…a lot, and preferably in a swift manner. Everything else is probably stuff that is not David.