On taking the long way round

Do you ever see or do something small and have the instant realisation “this is a metaphor for …”?

I had one of those lightbulb moments of self-awareness while I was away in Cornwall last year. I was on a walk and I’d intended to follow a certain coastal route which took me around the headland and then across a beach while the tide was low. I’d made it round the first section of headland, taking off about seven layers as I went. I’m always overly cautious about layering. The start of the descent to the beach was just some stairs followed by a little viewing platform. But then there was a series of jagged rocks I would have had to scramble down.

I stood on that viewing platform not taking in the view but trying to work out a route down for a good 15 minutes. Or at least it was enough for a father and son playing football on the beach to have cocked their heads. 

I couldn’t do it.

I don’t like having unsure footing, particularly if I’m going down, particularly if there’s an audience. 

So, instead, I headed back up to the headland and found an alternative route round – the long way. It probably took me an extra hour, perhaps more. But that extra hour of sand dunes, wildflowers and well worn paths was probably my favourite hour of walking the whole trip.

I will always take the long route. I know there’s a sea of rhetoric and advice about working smarter and not harder, about risk and reward. But I’m happy to stroll slowly, to walk a little longer or a little further and enjoy the way round. I can get lost on solid ground, but I need the ground to be solid.

Quite often I work harder not smarter – to type that feels like an exposing admission in an age of productivity. I’ve done it since I was a child. I undertook art projects of vast scale and repetition. I solved maths problems (at least once) through brute force. I learned facts I needed to wrote style.

I find there’s a comfort in working through the work.

I was reminded of that feeling at the start of this year as I sat down to make my goals for the year. This is the first year I’ve not felt myself striving to take a ladder upwards. Where I’d been following a clearly signposted route for most of my career (university, graduate training, metropolitan elite type job), now I’ve been left to my own devices I want to explore a little more. I could keep racing up, but I think I’d like to look around for a while. 

I’m not scared of falling so much anymore, in both the metaphorical and literal sense (I conquered those rocks later that same year). But I remember that headland walk so fondly that I’m not ready to let go of the idea of just trying to see what’s on the level around me, to have an experience that’s broad and full of detours where you see more.

In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit makes reference to the Tibetan word for track, shul. “A path is a shul because it is an impression in the ground left by the regular tread of feet, which has kept it clear of obstructions and maintained it for the use of others.”

There’s a sense of community in taking or even just touching on the path, the shul, well worn. Where we give ourselves time to wander more, we can find more common ground. 

There’s also an ability to clear space in your mind to explore through repetition because your regular tread of thinking has kept it clear. That’s how habits work. You wear down a clear path in your mind, then when you have to do a thing your path to the next action is clear of obstruction and so easy to follow you can do it without thinking.

There’s also so much to discover when you take the long route. While short challenges push us, long exertions give us time to look around and reflect. 

While we should carve our own tracks and I’m certainly not advocating avoiding everything that’s intimidating – fear based decisions can be so limiting. But I want to make something of a call to take the long way some of the time. 

So I’m going to keep taking the long route, not just because I don’t like jagged rocks.

Natalie