On my cycle over to the ladies pond for a Sunday morning swim in the sun, I thought about freedom. It had been a topic on my mind since Friday night, when, after a particularly terrible week, I decided to walk the one hour home from the office and thought about the application of the evolutionary concept of the “Darwinian Demon” to current life. The concept is that each species has a finite amount of resources to apply to different traits related to survival and reproduction. This means that there will be trade-offs and no species can maximise every trait (the hypothetical one that could is known as the “Darwinian Demon”). For example, in optimising the number of offspring produced at one time, a species can either have a large litter, where each individual is slightly weaker and there is a risk that some will die (e.g. dogs which can have up to 12 pups), or it can produce a smaller litter, where each individual is stronger and it is more likely that all will live (e.g. humans). The broad concept of having limited resources and needing to decide how to apportion it between different traits carries over to current life. I thought about it specifically in terms of a job. Just as the traits in litter size are (i) number, and (ii) strength of each individual, the traits in your job are, as I see them, (i) salary, (ii) flexibility, and (iii) purpose. Whilst the traits are not as antagonistic as number/strength in litter size (an increase in one necessary removes resources from the other), in most cases, you still cannot max out all three. It was clear to me which I wanted to maximise. Flexibility.
I spent the rest of the walk planning how I would do this, and was quite happy with my new rough trajectory. I polished the idea on Saturday, and thought I was perhaps done pondering it all by Sunday. And yet there I was, cycling away, squinting through the sun, mind settling on a time I felt utterly free the year before.
A time where I felt very free
25/05/2024, somewhere near Stanford Dingley
I lay on my waterproof bag cover, one leg bent at the knee and the other extended long, over the edge of the cover and onto the softly damp grass. I was wearing cream, flowing linen pants I’d picked up in Nepal. My white trainer socks were brown on the bottom from the mud. My arms were bent at each elbow and tucked behind my head, supporting my neck as I surveyed my set up. My tent stood proudly 10 metres or so beyond my toes. My bike lie next to it. There were buttercups everywhere. I sighed as I lay my head back and took in the soft blue sky, thinly veiled with clouds. It was just me. I felt so strong and so happy. The knot in my stomach which had started to form an hour before, when the safe-bet campsite turned out to not exist and I had no idea where I could camp that night, had disappeared entirely. I’d cycled on to the nearest town, following the old style road signs that were just about visible in the overgrown hedges of the country lane (I had no phone signal) and once there, I’d found a pub. I’d ordered a half of ale and asked the lady if there was anywhere I could camp nearby. A farmer sat at the bar overheard and offered one of his fields. Once we’d each finished our drinks, he drove in his truck and I pedalled hard to keep up, as he showed me to the field. He’d poked his head over the gate and said there were a few bulls in there, but that they shouldn’t bother me. He helped pass me my bike over the nettle thicket which blocked the gate opening, and I waded through getting stung all the way up my bare legs. And now here I was, all the set-up was done and I was safe and content. No bulls had emerged. I lay back, watched the clouds and smiled.
Then I thought fuck it, there was absolutely no one around, and I laughed out loud like a crazy person. My mind moved on and got snagged on a word - “reckless”. “I am reckless” I thought. For setting out from London on my bike, with the idea of cycling to Bath. For forgetting an allen key and for following a man into his container workshop for compostable toilets to see if he had a spare one. For thinking I, who could barely change a tyre at home, would be able to use the allen key to replace an inner tube on the side of the road if I did get a puncture. For having nowhere to camp. For following a farmer into an isolated field. For getting the direction confused on my gas stove and turning the heat up so high I burnt my dinner so horrifically I couldn’t eat it. “I am reckless”. I turned the phrase over and over in my mind, like a mantra. It made me so happy, so devilish, so fired up and excited, to think it was true. I formed the words with my mouth, slowly. “I. Am. Reckless.” Then I said them out loud, still hardly audible, but enough that I could feel the vibrations on my lips and through the air into my ears. I said it over and over. Slowly and then faster. Louder and louder. Until the words forced me to sit up and fling my head back and to cry them out to the sky. I gathered my knees in to my chest and crunched my eyes up, feeling the rush of whatever this feeling was move through my body.
But the point at which I really felt free came several hours later. I woke up during the night, slightly too warm and bursting for a wee. I could hear the rain outside. And that it was proper, hard rain. Without opening eyes I flung my sleeping bag off and removed my clothes, including my underwear. Once completely naked, I unzipped the tent and slipped out, padding barefoot a few steps away from the tent, eyes now slightly open. I turned and squatted down. The rain was cold on my skin, but the night was warm. Whilst I peed I noticed the moon. It was full and beautiful and sat just above the trees that were in the middle of the field, making it surprisingly light for the middle of the night. I stood up and, for the first time, was awake enough to notice the obscenity of the situation. I looked down at my naked body, lit up by the moon, the surface of my skin now completely wet from the rain. I looked up at my tent and the moon, and then back down to my toes wriggling in the mud. I smiled from ear to ear and laughter softly rippled up my body. I opened my arms to the sky and breathed in the rain. I thought about how the previous day I’d been sat at my desk in an office in London, and now I was stood naked in the rain in a farmer’s field, having just peed on the ground. I spun and twirled and danced. I felt completely free.
(Note: In case it wasn’t completely obvious why I decided to strip naked before leaving the tent - which was actually quite a good idea from my sleep filled brain - it was to prevent my pyjamas getting wet. This way, when I eventually climbed back into the tent, I could dry myself off with my little towel and redress into dry, warm clothes to finish sleeping in.)
When I feel the most un-free
There are no longer many things which cause me to have an unreasonable reaction. One notable exception is when my bike gets a flat tyre. It immediately tanks my mood. I instantaneously feel burning anger, which then becomes frustration and severe annoyance. I feel like I could kick the tyre and cry. I feel angry at my bike, at my dad, and at myself. I’m angry that my dad never taught me how to change a tyre, that I was never encouraged to cycle properly. That my brother, who hated all exercise and outdoor activity, was bought a road bike and I wasn’t. I’m angry at myself for being so useless and so weak. For not teaching myself to change a tyre, for always getting my housemate to do it and never paying attention when he tried to show me how. I’m angry at my lack of motivation to learn to do it, and my lack of patience when I can’t immediately do something new. And so I end up with grease and dirt, and even one time dog shit, on my hands. Sweating from the anger and the exertion, and getting more and more frustrated when I can’t get the tyre levers to pop the tyre off, or the pump to click into the inner tube, or the tyre to slot back in without pinching the inner tube, or whichever other step is causing me an issue this time. And even if I do manage to do it, usually after an insane amount of time (genuinely an hour), I normally get about 100 metres down the road before realising the tyre has gone flat again. Have a miraculously got a new puncture already? Did I not pump it up enough? Did I not close the gauge properly? Did I pump it up too much and burst it somehow? Usually by this point I’m too pissed off and too late to care and angrily return home to shove the bike back through the door and get the bus instead.
Beyond, or perhaps beneath, all of this anger is a feeling that I’m most definitely not free. That I’m not capable nor independent nor able to do anything. That I’m stuck. That no matter how hard I try, I can’t fix this (very simple) thing and that I’ve had to give up. The realisation is bitter.