
So my purpose is starting from particular to get open, if it's possible, to more general considerations.
My topic doesn't intend to be my personal praise of laziness. I have a kind of reverential admiration for all the people who are ready to run and jog every day with all kinds of weather. They gloriously sweat in summer and bravely face the icy wind in winter. They usually run alone, all concentrated in their own surely rewarding effort. Sometimes energetic mothers include in their healthy activity also their unaware babies, who are installed in technological strollers, probably made of tungsten or some other mysterious material and are pushed at high speed nicely shaken by all the ground bumps. Maybe they like that, probably they do. Babies like to be shaken, well, with moderation anyhow.
A common feature, which practically all runners and joggers share, is that they carry an iPod or an iSomething, well, shortly, a reader of music files and they have their ears well plugged by the earphones of the little omnipresent device.
They are in a private world full of their own music, probably loud, and they run, indifferent to the sound and the noise of the real world which surrounds them. You know what I mean, banal boring sounds like the song of the wind in the leaves, the cries of seagulls, the call of hidden little birds, the pastoral symphony of cows' bells ( sorry, this is just a Swiss matter, I'm afraid). In a word all what make the environment vibrant and real and make you feel part of that with all your senses.
Also running mums wear earphones. I saw one, crossing the road, a few days ago, beautiful and fit she run at a speed that I could keep only for 5 metres, and only when I feel in particularly good shape and she seemed to barely touch the ground. Her baby, comfortably installed in his stroller, looked in front of him, because he was turned that way, considering probably his mother like an engine which he could neither control nor see. The baby bumped lightly when his stroller was pushed over a little imperfection of the road, his little head followed the rhythm of the run. Nobody spoke to him, but fortunately he didn’t wear any small earphones. I'm sure that the birds' songs were a good company for him.