[at-l] that "why are we here?" hiking question...

[Sloetoe]

just substitute "hiking" for ultra-running in the
blurb I just saw reprinted...

Date:    Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:49:49 -0700
From:    John Lacroix <solidslam at YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Vermont 50 Report

"... Perhaps the genius of ultra-running is its
supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world
of space ships and supercomputers to run vast
distances on foot. There is no money in it and no
fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But
as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from
the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and
common sense. The ultra runners know this
instinctively. And they know something else that is
lost on the sedentary. They understand, perhaps better
than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing
open with physical effort. In running such long and
taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest
realms of their being -- a call that asks who they are
..." ~David Blaikie 

### That first line sounds awfully familiar to me...
Anybody recognize it? Thoreau? (I don't think so...)
Benj. Franklin? (Nahhhh.) It just.... I don't think it
comes [directly] from Blaikie....