Running thoughts

Before anyone asks, the title is a play on words that not only describes how my mind wanders, but how it wanders while I'm running. The last few times I've been on long weekend runs (10 + miles), I couldn't help but notice all of the garbage (or just strange things) along the road and it distracts me from the latest Korn album that I have blaring on my iPod. To give you an idea, here are a few things I saw this morning:

• At least 20 broken bottles, most of which weren't there last weekend
• A half empty 20 oz. Mountain Dew Code Red (I guess they didn't like it)
• A mostly full 2 liter Coke
• A dead squirrel being picked at by a couple of buzzards
• A (presumably) used condom (I didn't stop to inspect it)
• An unknown quantity of Burger King, McDonald's, Sonic, and Starbucks containers
• People that don't understand that the car they are driving doesn't belong in the bicycle lane that I'm running towards them in.
• People that don't know how to look left to see if maybe, just maybe, there is a pedestrian there about to run in front of them before they merge into traffic
• A lot of commercial aircraft flying into Orlando airport.
• A state trooper that has pulled someone over (but I still say they are never around when you need one)
• Really, really fat people in really, really big vehicles
• Dozens of nails
• Dozens of very large bolts with washers attached
  

Anyway, you get the idea. Not even Trent Reznor's latest Nine Inch Nails album can grab my attention long enough to ebb the flow of thoughts in my chaotic mind.

I once asked someone about clearing their mind. She was supposedly into meditation and I asked her how it was possible to have clear thoughts. She didn't understand what I was talking about so I went on to explain to her that when I try to clear my mind, I am very aware of the fact that I'm trying to clear my mind. I go from trying to think about nothing to thinking about trying to think about nothing. The next thing you know, my inner monologue is singing the words to a song by Pink Floyd or the Offspring for no apparent reason. She really had nothing to say other than "wow".

I can't begin to tell you the number of problems this has caused me in the past and will continue to cause until the day I die (which will hopefully be before I become dependent on others to survive). The only thing I can do is ask "why am I here" and get on with my boring day.