”Look at them, riding around in his damn bus. He’s taking my ice cream money.” I overheard an ice cream vendor complaining about an old man who gave rides around a park on a small vintage bus. The ice cream man ran 5 or 6 vans and lamented the unpredictable weather. Overcast days and rain were constant difficulties. The old man with the bus was his enemy, as was the cafe, local sweet shop and of course rival ice cream vans.
The bus driver didn’t charge much, just enough to cover his costs. He had retired and liked talking to the people in the park. It gave him an interest. He couldn’t understand the greed of the ice cream man and neither could I.
That was nearly twenty years ago. This week’s set of road trips took me south to new places and some not visited since childhood. Plenty of time to think. Some places look familiar but aren’t – just like people who can remind you of others long gone.
I make plans, try to describe my ambitions to myself, shaping them in my head before writing them into a book. I want the strategy to be clear, swap vague concepts for definite intentions.
It isn’t as easy as I imagine. Vague concepts are attractive. I distract myself continually, questioning my resolve, ability, commitment. Knuckling down to decide on a definite plan involves trying to pull together a lot of random reasoning. Why do this or that instead of something else? Some choices were made years ago and the logic behind that decision became obsolete long after the habit set in.
We get to choose our motivations. Sometimes optimal efficiency has to be supplanted by less effective activity which is simply fun to do.
Moving rocks about and arranging them onto stone thrones whilst being soaked by waves was one of the most fun things to do last week. I’ve also been Armwrestling, challenged my friends to a wheelbarrow pushing competition and tired myself out doing calisthenics.
On one beach I paused my throne building to get my breath and looked around at the few hundred other people doing much different things and wondered why I was the only one training the way I do.
Then I remembered what I told the ice cream man: ”Not everyone wants an ice cream.”
See you down the road.
