Running with Derrida

The exact difference between running and jogging is not estab-lished in the Oxford English Dictionary, which merely defines jogging as “to run at a gentle pace (esp. as part of a ‘keep-fit’ schedule).” When someone is referred to as a jogger the re-sponse will often be to correct this, to assert that they are, in fact, a runner, the activities treated as distinct despite one being a form of the other. The narrator of the “Envois” is aware of this distinction, saying that they “cannot bear that I run,” preferring him to jog. Running is privileged over jogging.It’s not speed that separates running from jogging. There is something awkward about the motion of a jogger, expressed through its homonymic associations, jogging someone’s pen for example. Jogging is more restrained than running, often part of a schedule, something programmed and therefore predictable. Certain people prefer the narrator to jog because it “never goes very far” — a runner’s reach is greater than a jogger’s. Indeed, jogging is “only a training,” not an activity in itself, preparation to provide some wind, “the strength to live what I risk with you.”