How far would you get if you just kept going?
It’s a question I ask myself every weekday, when my workplace hoves into view. Right now I live two lives: there’s the dayjob/half-dayjob, paying the bills and driving me gently bananas – and there’s the evening/morning job, where I put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper, and every makes sense again.
The daywork is at the opposite end of York – 4 miles there, 4 miles back. That’s my walk, Monday to Friday. 8 miles a day. 40 miles a week. 160 miles a month. Almost 2,000 miles a year.
Of course, sometimes I cheat and take the bus. I try to do this as little as possible for two reasons – firstly, a return ticket costs as much as a small semidetached British house in the early ’80s (or near enough), and secondly, thanks to a lengthy quirk of the bus route, it’s only 5 minutes slower to walk. But really, I want to walk. It’s not a great hardship, barring the initial weeks of agony while my pathetically enfeebled leg muscles rearranged themselves into new shapes, night after aching night. An education: I’d fooled myself I was still the 18-year-old gallumping up hills in search of his Bronze Duke Of Edinburgh Award. But time has crept up on me. I creak – sometimes audibly.
But with every week, I take it a little more in my stride. I’m now strong enough to play squash for a frenetic half-hour on a Wednesday, after which I find I can walk home with just a handful of painkillers and the bare minimum of uncontrollable screaming. I can’t eat enough – I simply can’t. And every day I feel more alert, more aware of my surroundings – or at least I would, if I wasn’t disappearing into the depths of an mp3′d audiobook.
But as I approach the steps leading up to work, I know that for the next four hours I’ll be stood at a machine or behind an acre of reception counter – frozen in space and feeling frozen in time as well. And while the world turns overhead and underfoot, I’ll see none of it. But I’m far from unique. That’s the universal call of wanderlust, and I’m one of millions in this regard.
And 5 hours later, I’m back where I started (in perhaps more senses that I care to contemplate).
This is Modern Life. We wear grooves in the world going to and fro, sinking into routines that keep us docile and manageable (to others; to ourselves). Yet some of us, through wisdom, juggernaut gumption or just plain luck, never stop rolling out of the paths that trap others…and keep going.
That’s the appeal of the open road, right there – it goes on and on, and when you finally comes back to where you started in this case, you’ve done a lap of the entire world. Now that’s a rut to fall into.
So I walk my 8 miles a day, feeling stronger and stronger fretting that they’re not in a straight line yet, but taking solace from physical progress in the absence of geographical. Me Strong. 40 miles a week? I’m superhuman! And then I read about Nat Severs (20 miles a day for 340 days) or Karl Bushby. (Well, I console myself, they’re obviously mad).
So I tool back and forth to work, waiting for the magical moment when my evening job brings in more money than my dayjob and makes the latter unnecessary.
And then I’ll be unstoppable.
**********
Your turn. What grooves have you made in the world?
Images: joiseyshowaa, bbjee.
Almost 12 years, sometimes 75,000 miles a year, …but my life won out and yesterday the last groove I will ever make in Chicago Corp headquarters from my Chi desk to the conference table to say, I am done.
I had desks in different cities with different phones and lots of cool toys. But I am done, and am supremely jealous of your four miles a day. I can only aspire to that—perhaps after Italy, where I really WILL walk 4-6 miles a day and then ruin it with cheese and gelato.
Holy hells. 75k? I refuse to work out how many RTW trips that is.
Congrats are in order. New life ahoy. And…Italy? When’s that happening?
Wished it had been RTW trips–mostly Chicago, DC, New York with a smattering of Dallas, New Orleans, Denver and Orlando–a city without any charm to its credit…
Italy starts 4/26 and lasts for about 3 weeks. LA-Zurich, then to Milan via train then to Udine , Verona, Venice, Florence & Rome. Cheese, Rice and Gelato. Saving Myself tour.
And I know from past experience that the first few weeks without employment are NOT really good, no matter what the 20 somethings say. Identity crisis abound, and self doubt make waste to resolution. So Italy with nothing but my little laptop and my kindle for company.
Sounds an adventure.
Identity crises – now there’s another thing that automatically gets a bad press so we don’t look any further. That feeling of WTF-am-I-doing terror? Terrifying, yes, but also a bit thrilling. You’re aware (of existential fear and loathing). It thrills you awake. so you’re spluttering and blinking and looking around, nerves shrieking.
Good things usually follow identity crises, I reckon. On average, anyway. (Joaquin Phoenix, love the acting. The rapping, well…).
Italy’s a popular destination for finding-yourself trips at the moment. (Well, ok, for the last 50 years. Or so). Read Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love”? She has fun. I reckon you will too.
That’s really great. I do 2.5 miles a day, but then I also have to garden. As to the rest, well, I have faith you will end where you want to. Thing is, when else do we have total freedom to think what we wish? The only fly in the ointment is that you live on an island.
Indeed. But if Karl Bushby can get permission to walk through the Channel Tunnel (which I believe he’s angling for), then there must be a way off this green & pleasant land by foot. Another alternative: Pedalo. (It’s still using my feet).
Pedalo across la manica? I would pay (a small amount) to see that, Mike.
I’d pay a lot to try it.
You know, with the bare minimum in support, such as a yacht fully equipped with whisky, Mediterranean food and pliant young women sailing alongside.
So in the highly, highly unlikely event that I decide it’s too dangerous an undertaking (because nautical mishaps can happen even on the sunniest, calmest day) I can swim to the yacht and proceed in style.
I predict this happening about 20 yards out.
That’s a lot of walking!
Before I got ill (I have CFS/ME) I had a job I loved and you really can’t beat doing something for a living that you would happily do without pay. I hope your writing takes off and that’s what happens to you.
Although, once you’re a full time writer, it’s going to be a challenge to keep as fit as you are now.
Sorry to hear your ilness got in the way of doing what you love, ‘hedgehog.
How are things right now?
And yes, you’re right – a hazard of the profession is settling too far into chairs with bad postures, surrounded by sugar-laced foods and industrial-strength coffee…and watching as the muscle turns to wobble. (Orson Scott Card was refreshingly frank with his struggle against this in one of his essays – I think it was a prelude to one of his “Maps in a Mirror” short story volumes).
So I’ll have to keep walking, every day, no matte where I am. Or running when there’s not enough time to walk. Or swimming where there’s sea enough. Or maybe I should entertain lots of groupies. I mean, that’s a good workout, and it’s what *real* artists do, isn’t it?
For a while I was doing about 4.5 miles a day, going back and forth from a very dull job. The walk was the main thing that kept me sane – it may well be similar for you. There’s something very liberating about walking a familiar route. You don’t feel the need to take such notice of your surroundings, and can disappear into your own head, to think about other things. The things which you really *want* to think about.
In terms of grooves I’ve made in more abstract terms there’ve been three: the acting one (10 years); indispensible, efficient secretary (on and off for about 15 years, whenever other, more exciting, work dried up temporarily); now teaching. Who knows how long it will last, and where it will take me in the world, but I’m enjoying the prospect of getting stuck into it properly.
Yes – “autopilot” walking is good thinking-time, and a great stress-reliever. (And also a chance to try to see the familiar in a different way. A few weeks ago I made an effort to look at roofs on the way – disovered much that was surprisingly new to me, despite having walked the same streets for a decade).
I’m enjoying watching you get stuck into your new life properly. It suits you, and you’re obviously suited to it. And I hear it in your blogging voice – a renewal, a new zest for stuff. Fun to watch.
I used to have this job I hated. Every morning, I would ride my bike to work, about two miles, and as I cross the swing gate bridge, I would look across at the Matson liner — it leaves every five days from the pier in Seattle, just another half mile past the office I worked in — for Honolulu. And every day, while I had this job I hated, I would think, what if I just kept riding that additional half mile, down to the docks, and said, “Hey, Matson line! Can I tag along?”
About two months into my job, I tried to quit, then, 24 hours later, was laid off. It was a messy, awkward conclusion but I was perfectly happy about it. A few weeks later, I went to Honolulu.
That tension between the day job and the calling, oh, I know it. I know it.
Thanks, Pam.
Did you find that tension helped rack up the momentum when you did go – sent you further, faster, with nary a glance back?
Because in a strange, semi-masochistic way, I’m enjoying how my dayjob is making me want to focus on my writing. It’s lighting a very useful little fire under me, and all I have to do is focus on fuelling it…
Yes and no. See, I really knew I didn’t belong in that gig and I took it out of sheer terror. There was no work and it made no sense for me to turn down what was, on paper, a perfectly good job. So when I put down the phone after a very awkward call with my future exboss in which he explained to me that in spite of their protestations about my quitting, I was oh, huh, whaddaya know, laid off, when I put down the phone I realized that a person probably shouldn’t make their job choices out of terror. This is something I knew, of course, but had forgotten. Rather than flying fast and far once freed (hey, nice alliteration!) it was more like waking from a bad hangover and saying, “Oh! THAT’S why I avoid the third round! NOW I remember!”
Beautifully put (and alliterated).
That terror still twinges at me, on my 25-hr a week dayjob, pretending to myself that I’m a newly selfmade man on the way up, but really still a product of 30-odd years of cultural programming telling me I’m being a workshy layabout.
Put it this way: this is my corner of the world…
http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm
I admire your Quality of Lifestyle radar. Well-tuned, sounds like. (Like your ukulele).
I walk up and down a mountain every day to get to work…. and I’m lucky enough to have had work take me over a fair portion of the UK (once with you!) and a few places in Europe and now South Korea….
also because I have a sweet job a have a lot more vacation time than you
and a lot more easily accessible foreign place! 
For your sake, I’ll pass over the shameless gloating. Okay, so you’re in a gorgeous part of the world being pay a proportionally absurd amount of money having enormous fun and partying and travelling all the time, but just think…er…well, think about…well, think about what you could be doing in Britain right now. Just think on that.
Now that we’ve both thought on that, I’d just like to add that I’m getting on the plane to South Korea as I type this. Bugger Britain.
You walk up and down a *mountain*?
Define “mountain” before I start scoffing and pshawing at your oh-so-typical flights of fancy, sir. *flares nostrils*
And I give you!
http://cfs8.blog.daum.net/image/13/blog/2009/03/28/20/48/49ce0e6f94606&filename=IMG_1475.jpg
The view from just up the road from my school.
Sadly, I couldn’t find a picture of the actual mountain itself…. probably due to the fact that there are much prettier ones all around.
See also http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?pid=541083&id=501401193&fbid=12368881193 for evidence that my place of work is higher than the surrounding area.
And to flog a dead horse more….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%9D%91%EB%B4%89%EC%82%B0
mine is of course the red one in Seoul with no article…. but its still definately a mountain
Begrudgingly and indeed with a great deal of actual physical pain, I have to concede that in this rare instance, it’s not entirely outside the bounds of possibility that you may be somewhere in the vicinity of having something analogous to an actual point.
(I don’t need to add “don’t make a habit of it”, because I’m sure you won’t. Hence, my future comfort is assured. That’s nice).
I concur. It’s called a Mountain.
But it looks like a hill, though.
A *girlie* hill.
How long does it take you to ascend this Olympian edifice?
I takes me roughly 10 minutes, mainly due to the fact that it can’t be done in a straight line.
When you come to visit I shall make you walk up it and admire the view from the top.
Mike. Take some hard-earned advice from someone who waited. DON’T. Find a way to do what you love NOW.
The short answer: I’m not waiting.
The lengthier version:
If I was treading water, waiting for a lucky break and getting nowhere in the meantime, I’d be in trouble. I’d recognise it because I’ve been there before. But right now evening-job is creeping inexorably towards my dream income (which is fairly modest – my overheads aren’t much at all) and it’s all looking rosy. So while I’m waiting, it’s because I’m seeing progress every month at a speed that I’m happy with.
And while I’m getting the cash to travel, I’m writing – and that’s the other half of what I love about travelwriting.
But I hear ya. I really do.
Love this Mike! I find that my twice weekly run keeps me sane -even though I love what I do, I spend way too many hours in front of the computer. I think it’s a human need to get outside and feel the wind, cold, heat, whatever on our faces to be in touch with the natural world we live in. Plus being physically fit enhances life in just about every way. I don’t envy your job but I do envy that you get to walk that much every day! Chin up.
Chin most definitely up here.
That ‘nature time’ is so important. I hear ya.
I’ve taken to go on long treks around York, sometimes late at night, just to get that buzz and feel reconnected to the 3D world again. Because computers are all very well, and the Internet is how I’m making myself a new life….but it’s also a whirring box I sit in front of for 6 hours a day (minimum). And the walking to & from work only seems to alleviate some of that…
So what kind of work schedule do you stick to? How long generally are the hours that result in all the books you’ve written?
I used to work riduculous hours including weekends but somehow now I manage to get the same amount done by making sure I get outside everyday and spend at least one day of the weekend not working (yes I’m a workaholic). Plus now at home my computer has to be off by 6pm. It never ceases to amaze me that I get the same amount done that I did before and the quality is usually higher too. That said, I probably sit in front of the computer 7 hours a day
Travel writers, travel photographers, Paradise Island caretakers, chocolate tasters and porn stars are all allowed to be workaholics, 100% forgiven (and possibly even cheered on).
Computer off by 6pm? Self-imposed or something to do with the physical connection?
Getting the balance right = the same or better work + more free time. Yes indeed. Absolutely yes indeed. The few steps I’ve taken in that direction have certainly proven it to me. Discipline –> focus –> quarantining work and play –> enough hours in the day. Check.
There’s nothing I like more in the world than open road and a destination with time to explore along the way. Counting down the weeks. Traveling. Writing. Traveling some more.
Looking forward to seeing you out there.
Thanks, Joel.
“Looking forward to seeing you out there.”
Ditto.
“Time to explore..”
(That’s a biggie. And that’s the appeal of actually living abroad. Sightseeing is skimming, and to really know a place enough to think and write about it honestly, you’ve got to “creatively hang out” (in the words of Tom Swick at WorldHum). Travelling at your natural speed. So that’s something I’m thinking about: what’s mine?)
Loved this line: “We wear grooves in the world going to and fro, sinking into routines that keep us docile and manageable”
That’s such a strong image. Will have to chew on this one for a while.
Thanks, Heather.
I’ve fallen into too many of those grooves. But then, haven’t we all? They’re certainly appealing. It’s always more comfortable to roll around them (no bumps along the way), and we always know where we’re going next. And so round and round we go.
But – enough. You said that word, when you became a fulltime writer. My time’s not far off, I hope.
Something about this post made me think about this one: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/03/sfw.html
This has been knocking around in my head for a couple of days – I’d say it might have the same effect on you.
Heheh.
Yes, this post is PNESFW. (Probably Not Entirely etc.)
But they know my plans and they know what I want to be doing in the long run. And (I hope) they know I won’t just suddenly lumber off towards the horizon and leave them in the lurch. Never have, never would. And I’ve no specific complaints about my workplace – it’s just that it isn’t my evening job.
Of course, if they sack me tomorrow, I might have to come back in here and use some
strikethrough.Big fan of Seth – except for a few weeks back when he slagged off TV as a waste of time. That one’s definitely been bouncing round my head for a while now.
Feck it, wrong link and I can’t find the right one but essentially, his punch line is “what would you do, if you knew you wouldn’t fail”. So, Mike, what would you do…
Well, the other link worked in context as well. *giggling* (See my comment).
What would I do if I knew I wouldn’t fail?
Well, I’d probably think “oh – then I’m not aiming high enough?”.
Okay, okay. Yes. I’d go. I’d be gone. Hole in the wall, shaped like Mike.
And that’s the leap, right there. When you’re confident, you act just like that.
But my finances aren’t confident enough yet. If they were, if it was a question of faith in my ability to make a living for myself and to trust that I could remain upright – I’d be gone.
But as “Hobo” Nora Dunn says here…
http://alanrider.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/an-extraordinary-life-hobo-nora-chucks-normal-life-for-the-adventure-of-full-time-travel/
…financial clean slate first. You don’t want your old life sabotaging your new one. So that’s my focus right now (and as of this week I’m getting very serious with it).
*looks militant*
you’re like my hero. you walk 8miles/day? jeez. what about biking?
i walk up 3 flights of stairs sometimes to use the back entrance so i can avoid the banal annoying ass receptionist in front. does that count?
Bike needs fixing.
And I’m damned if I’m fixing it today in the pouring rain. (No shed, sadly – bike’s under a tarpaulin).
Absolutely that counts. That’s *strategic* walking. Extra points awarded.
[...] blog.bigbluebarry.com/2010/03/blog-contest-week-9-overvie… http://www.mikesowden.org/feveredmutterings/wһеח-tο-keep-going omis.mе/2010/05/17/аftеr-a-long-brеаk-finally-getting-bac… [...]