Forward is an honest direction

More sordid Epstein revelations have surfaced. A former prince was arrested. Iran braces for possible war with Israel and the United States. Gazans continue dying on the eve of Ramadan. Russia keeps bombarding Ukraine. On the local front, a senator remarked that the murderous ex-president charged with crimes against humanity should “ideally” be tried in Philippine courts.

This past week has felt like a ledger of everything that can go wrong in the world.

One cannot help but feel forlorn amid this seeming downward spiral of our species.

Yet again, I find solace in running. Doing honest effort these days feels almost subversive — an antidote to the age we live in.

We have imbibed a culture extraordinarily skilled at explaining itself. Failure is rebranded as a process. Inaction is called deliberation. Contradictions are framed as “nuance.” Public language has grown elastic enough to mean almost anything — except measurable progress. We hear motion described constantly, but rarely see it.

Running is immune to such ambiguity.

On the road, progress is literal. You either move forward or you don’t. There is no rhetorical substitute for distance covered. No institutional authority can declare a kilometer completed on your behalf. No amount of influence shortens a hill. The body does not recognize spin; it recognizes effort. It demands work, pays out results proportionately, and exposes pretense almost immediately.

There is a kind of moral clarity in that transaction.

The road does not care about your intentions, only your actions. Stop halfway, and the distance remains unfinished. Start too fast, and you will pay for it later. Neglect recovery, and fatigue will collect its debt without negotiation. The feedback is immediate and incorruptible. Gravity applies equally. Heat discriminates against no one. There is fairness — not the comforting kind, but the honest kind — that feels increasingly rare elsewhere.

And perhaps that is why running has begun to feel less like exercise and more like refuge.

Not an escape from the world’s problems, but a place where cause and effect still function as advertised. In public life, accountability can take years or never arrive. On a run, it arrives within minutes. Your breathing tells the truth. Your legs tell the truth. There is no proxy, no workaround, no carefully worded explanation that counts as stamina.

Responsibility lands squarely where it belongs: with you.

Something else happens out there as well. The noise that dominates the day — the outrage, the commentary, the exhausting churn of events you cannot control — begins to recede behind the rhythm of movement. Step after step, the mind simplifies. Forward becomes enough. Not symbolic progress. Not debated progress. Actual, physical progress measured in distance covered.

Running does not repair broken institutions. It does not resolve wars or undo injustice. The headlines will still be there when you return, just as complicated and unresolved as when you left.

But it reminds you that motion is still possible.

That effort still translates into results somewhere in this world.

That while entire systems may stall in argument, an individual can still choose direction.

In running, forward is not a metaphor. It is a fact. And in an era when so much of public life feels circular — revelations without closure, crises without resolution, words without consequence — there is quiet reassurance in choosing an activity where movement cannot be faked.

You lace up. You step out. And you go.