The gigantic footrace of life

Once again I, a simple solitary sufferer doomed to failure, am lying here on my bed staring at the ceiling and thinking about life, the meaning of it all. Lately, I have been viewing life as a footrace, a gigantic footrace. As the truth arises, I suspect most of us see life as some kind of gigantic footrace. Billions and billions and billions of us plunging along, thundering along, charging forward. And there is a great cloud of dust that rises up in the sky and glints in the yellowish sun. A fantastically exhausting race. It is a race that seems to have no end at all. But it is a race, and everyone is thundering along together. And every once in a while, one or two or maybe three poor, unfortunate souls are thrown off to the curbside. Gasping and out of breath and greatly out-distanced within the next 30 seconds. This is the concept of life that I suspect is most valid for people in our world today. A gigantic footrace. Have you ever had the feeling that if you stopped to look up at the sky for a moment, that they would catch up with you and pass you? Go right on past you, thundering on by. I have this friend, who, every time he goes on a vacation, he brings his cell phone with him and has his little earpods plugged into his ears. He is connected to the office by a cell phone and a set of earpods. His boat is never out of touch with the world. Never. And constantly, they are sending messages to him. Constantly. Because he wants to stay in the race, but at the same time look at the sky. Which of course is an impossibility. You see, the kind of sky that I am speaking of is the kind of sky that has no messages being sent to you by the other runners. This is the sky that we are all afraid of. We can’t get out of touch. We just can’t seem to disconnect. And the footrace goes on. The great, thundering herd. The crashing and the roaring. You take one look at that sky and you are done with, my friend. It is over.