UnFamous

April 20, 2026

Greetings from obscurity,

I am not famous for anything, not in the generally accepted definition. I don’t have a Wikipedia page, I am not a brand, not an influencer, I don’t rub elbows with celebrities or politicians.

I have thought carefully about this, and I don’t think I want to be famous. In case it isn’t already obvious, that’s an easy choice, since it so readily meshes with my reality. But there is this other thing, this companion thought.

One morning, maybe a decade ago, I was getting ready to go for a run, just before dawn. I was walking down my driveway when a car pulled up, someone was delivering newspapers. I didn’t have a subscription then, so it was curious that the car was idling at my mailbox.

He stopped there, his headlights making a pool of yellow light, I could hear the lifters in his engine tapping out an SOS in Morse code.

His window was rolled down, a cigarette in his mouth. We exchanged a one-word greeting.

Then:

“I don’t deliver here anymore, haven’t been for a while, I’m just filling in. You that same guy I seen running all these years?”

I didn’t think long, since the evidence was easy to assimilate. “Yes.”

“You a Navy Seal or something?”

That made me laugh. “No, I just like running.”

“You must.”

This was a man who, before this moment, I had never spoken to. But I was known to him.

On birthdays, at Christmas, Father’s Day, I get running gear, usually without being asked. Socks, a hat, occasionally some shorts. Looking at nearly fifty years of experience, it’s a safe bet. My family knows that, other than perhaps color and size, anything I’m given that is running related, will be welcome.

There are people who have recently moved onto my street that I have not met. The only thing they know about me, other than perhaps my lackadaisical lawn care, is that I am a runner. At some point, soon, or in several years, when I finally introduce myself, they will say “You’re that guy who runs, right?” I am more consistent on our street than the dog walkers, the parked cars, the garbage trucks.

Running is not all I do. All the years of my life I have added and subtracted things, some stuck. Writing and biking and telling stories and looking for adventures, wandering through nature seeking the most interesting things. Some of these things stay in my life and have become important, others faded then disappeared. Among all these experiences, the transient and permanent, this one thing never changes. I am a runner.

“Are you still running?” Anytime I cross paths with someone I haven’t seen in a while, this is one of the opening questions. It’s a safe conversation starter, given my history. But from a few people, I hear the question as “Are you STILL running?”

The years pile up, and it’s not like I am an unaffected bystander. Running takes a toll, along with other insults that come of the passage of time. Many of the people I ran with have hung up their shoes, some due to injury or age, others just lost interest. It could happen for me in the future, but I can’t imagine that reality.

I’m not famous, and if the trajectory persists, I won’t be, and I am content with that. Not that I never wanted to be famous. I’m sure when I was young, there were daydreams about my secret superhero qualities, or my even more disguised genius. Whatever aspirations I had in that avenue, I have long forgotten them.

I don’t mean to disparage famous people or make guesses about their motivation or quality of life. Some get there by various achievements, others are on the treadmill of being famous for being famous. All of that is on the other side of a wall for me.

Fittingly, I’m not famous as a runner. I haven’t broken any records or won important races. I don’t have shoe sponsorships, or a renowned training plan. None of that ever crossed my mind, or if it did, dissolved in the sweat of a long run. It is not a reflection of low ambition, or a lack of imagination. It simply didn’t mesh with why I am a runner.

It’s hard to explain why I am writing any of this without telling you about yesterday. I ran in the farmland, a twenty-mile rectangle through bare fields, soupy with spring rains. Sometime in that effort I realized how many times I had been down these roads, more than I could guess.

In the hours that I ran the slivers of pavement dividing the world, padding along under the arc of a blue sky, it dawned on me that this is one of the ways I know myself. I am known. This running for the pleasure and challenge of running is built into my DNA, and in almost any angle I see myself, I see that I am a runner. This morning I feel the ache of the miles, not just from yesterday but from the countless mornings in all of my life where I laced up my shoes and ran into the world. It is more than my history, it is who I am.

It is unlikely I will ever be famous, but the reason I am largely indifferent is because I have learned the value of being known. Through my stories, my writing, the way I treat people around me. And running.

Running is one of the ways I know myself. And now, as much due to time as persistence, it is how I am known by others.

Hope this finds you sharing who you are,

David

This essay was written by the author and does not include Ai content.

Copyright © 2026 David Smith