The Runner and the Path, An Athlete's Quest for Meaning in Postmodern Corporate America

To find the substance of life, he runs. He runs on trails and roads and beaches, every day, alone or with friends, constantly challenging himself physically and intellectually. During these runs he re-evaluates his relationship to work, his use of time, his marriage, his bond with his young son. He peels back the layers of hardness from his heart. He finds a new balance in the forces of family, work, love, solitude, money, and time.

His conversations with running "mystics, sages, and philosophers" each become a chapter. The run along the beach with the friend who counsels him on marriage: "Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?" The glorious muddy run in the rain with Marc, who declares, "Each wet sock is a stinking foot soldier in the war against postmodernism " The run with Big Jack, a senior executive of his company, who teaches him, "Before you speak, examine your intentions. If you can do that you'll come to meet yourself, and it will transform you." The run with the friend who tells him "The famine of time in our lives is really a famine of meaning." And this leads to the philosopher who advises "that merely by pondering the question of meaning in our lives, we begin to find meaning." Dean Ottati's quest take him on a fascinating path toward a common-sense, workable enlightenment.And he teaches us to find our own path.

Dean Ottati lives in Walnut Creek, California.