philosophy by bicycle

On Saturday I cycled around London with a group of other people, sporadically indulging in light philosophy.

It was a 'holiday' created by The School of Life, an organisation I mentioned last week.

Signing up for this was an unusual thing for me to do and while it might sound a little pretentious, it really wasn't. Unless the idea of a light lecture on philosophy is pretentious to you. In which case, this was as well.

Here's the route we took:


Although the 'philosophy bits' were interesting, they ended up being merely lubrication for simple, human interaction. The reason I type that with a sense of surprise (if you can detect the force and speed of my key-tapping) is because I'm not someone who thinks of doing 'activities' with 'strangers' simply to socialise. I have - you know - friends and that.

I only realised retrospectively that the best part of the day was mixing with interesting, nice people. (Is this like the part where Pinocchio realises he's a real boy?) The philosophy thing ended up being just a prop or excuse for chatting. Bringing people together and giving them something to do. I suppose the unusual event structure pulled me out of my comfort zone and plonked me somewhere I didn't expect to be - and wouldn't have thought of pursuing. But I'm glad I landed there.

OK - In an attempt to drag this post out of being just a bit of dull psycho-self-analysis - a lovely phrase was mentioned during our outing that I will share with you. Next time things aren't going well for you just think of it as "the resistance of the world to your wishes". I quite like that.