Lost Control Again

Can we run without goals? Or exist without metrics?

Hard packed, low tide sand - a beach runner’s dream. After months trapped on that hamster wheel of scrolling data, the treadmill, which I naively accompanied with hamster voices of sped up podcasts to optimize efficiency, it was time to change displays and break free.

And so I ran, cloaked in winter’s layers, those on the body and those within the mind. Pitter pattering to the west, face frozen, Spotify gods in full force, I closed my eyes. An abandoned drill from years on the track & field team resurfacing out of the blue, propelling me blindly, step by step to nowhere… yet somewhere.

Suddenly a stark drum began delineating my gait, and then with it, an accompanying voice….

“And she gave away the secrets of her past

And said, ‘I've lost control again’

And to the voice that told her when and where to act

She said, ‘I've lost control again’”

There between the beats and waves, I remembered that I actually do love running. Not the data-fication of it, but the art of it. The untold story behind each mile that reveals itself with each stride. The journey to the undiscovered that unearths itself with the courage to venture “into the mystic.”

Much like the treadmill, modern life has become a relentless measuring tape. We tabulate and track every step and breath, pulse and REM. Baby sound and adult bite, like and love. Yet this bequeathment of the perceivedly mundane simultaneously crushes the precious nature of the unknown.

The unknown that swirls with experiences and emotions, randomness and surprise. The unknown that churns with adventure and possibility, feeding imagination and creativity. The unknown that cannot be quantified, but can be innovated. The unknown that data cannot define.

Data comes from the PIE root do, and Latin dare, or to give. But what does all this data actually give us? Or are we the ones doing the giving, and even worse, giving of our most precious asset - our freedom? Freedom to think, explore, feel, evolve, and be. Freedom to not know, until we do.

Ultimately, we are each the entrepreneur of our personal enterprise, the innovator of our own path. We can confine ourselves to endless sets of numbers, or imagine what those numbers could be.

We can be a statistic, or a story.

And so I opened my eyes, the immeasurable and unquantifiable horizon that connects us alive and well before me. There were no numbers to confirm it, but I was back in control.