THE RUN
A Tale of Relationships, Groups, and Interdependence
by
Charles Lamson
Sometimes he ran through an area where there were huge houses, an exclusive country club, and a private golf course. The roads in this area were wide, traffic was light, and the spaces between the houses were wooded and green. On the golf course there were ponds where ducks and geese swam and chatted. In some ways it was a very pleasant place. But it could also be troubling.
As he ran, he wondered why we allow some people to live in mansions, while others live in shacks or tenements, or on the street. He would get angry at the self-indulgence and waste that he saw in houses that were bigger than anyone needed. When he saw children in this area, he would think of how they would grow up accustomed to comforts and privileges that few people in our society will ever know. And when he saw new houses being built, he thought of the workers who built these houses but could not afford to buy them.
One time, while running through this area on a hot day, he said hello to two Latino men who were cutting grass in a front yard. They nodded to him, but did not return his greeting with any enthusiasm. He thought about his own privileges and how he must look to them. In the middle of the work day, while they cut grass, he was running 5 miles for his own pleasure. They would still be cutting grass when he was home, showered, and in his recliner reading.
A few blocks later two gray-haired men passed him in a golf cart. They were going in the same direction. He was on the sidewalk and they were to the left of him in the street. Just after they passed him, they turned onto the golf course - right into his path, forcing him to jog around them. They were gabbing away, not seeming to care that they had almost run him over, so he yelled at them "Wake up and watch where you're going!" They looked surprised and angry. These well-to-do white men were probably not used to being scolded for their misbehavior.
He had gone another mile and was now running in the road, facing traffic, when a car coming toward him slowed, and the passenger side window began to open. He could guess what was about to happen. "Where is the country club?" someone would ask, without even apologizing for interrupting his run. In either direction, the same quick answer sufficed. "Keep going straight. Turn on Lancaster," he would say without slowing down.
He did not like being interrupted while running, and having nearly been hit by the men in the golf cart, he did not feel charitable toward lost country clubbers. So when the car slowed, he just waved and kept going. "You aren't really lost," he thought, "Just keep driving and you'll find your stupid clubhouse in a minute."
The driver realized the running man was not going to stop, and started to pull away. The runner glanced inside the car, and saw that the driver was a middle-aged black man; the passengers were three plainly dressed black women. It was unlikely that they were country club members. He felt ashamed for not helping them. Thinking, that to them he must have seemed like one more white man treating them with disrespect, made him feel worse.
When he got home, he thought about how his feelings depended on what had happened during his run. His experience of the run was affected by these brief interactions along the way. He realized that much the same thing occurred whenever he went out. Whether it was to the post office, the grocery store, the coffee shop, the movies, or wherever, interactions always shaped his mood. No doubt his behavior - a hello, a scolding, a snubbing - affected others' moods as well. How might this in turn affect the rest of a person's day? Much could depend on these brief encounters between strangers
The interactions that occurred during his run were not the products of personalities. Inequality intruded in each case. The Latino men reacted to him as they did in part because of inequalities in their economic positions, and because of inequalities between Anglos and Latinos in that city. The men in the golf cart might have been merely careless, but he suspected it was their social class that led them to expect others to yield the right of way without complaint. His impulse to yell at them. and the pleasure he took in doing so, could probably be traced to his own working-class roots.
Inequality also made a difference when he did not stop for the people who needed directions. If the people in the car had been white, or if he had been black and they white, or if the neighborhood had been different, his passing by would not have had the same meaning. But because he was white, and because of how whites have mistreated blacks in U.S. society, his behavior could have been interpreted as another instance of disrespect. Knowing that his behavior had maybe hurt the people in the car, is what made him feel bad.
Sociological mindfulness can help us see how our feelings depend on what happens in encounters, like those on his run. It can also help us see how our emotional responses to these encounters are affected by history, culture, and current social arrangements. We connect with others as we do, in other words, because of the context in which we do. If we are sociologically mindful, we see that we cannot go through the world disconnected from others. No matter how alone we might feel at times, even loneliness is a feeling that depends on the state of our relationships with others.
The story of The Run is about emotional interdependence, though it also illustrates other kinds of interdependence. He would not have been running at all if he had not learned from someone that running is good for his body. He also depended on shoes that let him run without injury. The briefs, shorts, socks, T-shirt, glasses, sweat band, and watch he wore, also helped make his run possible - as did the sidewalks, and roads on which he ran. And if there had been no clean water coming out of his faucet afterward, he might never had run again. Even though he was running by himselff, he was still connected to others.
We are able to do what we do because of what others have created for us to use. Not only our special activities, but our everyday survival, depends on getting things through our relationships with others. Even our most creative acts build on, or make use of, ideas and materials that we get from others. Likewise, others depend on us for what they need to live and thrive. Part of being sociologically mindful is paying attention to how these connections are made, and to what happens because of them.
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