In the last issue of TPM, I foolishly announced plans to cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groats – it’s about 1,000 miles from one end of the UK to the other. This puts me at the top of Scotland on a bike made largely from spare parts sometime in the autumn – I’m alarmed to think that’s actually the best case scenario. If nothing goes wrong I’ll be on this ridiculous Frankenstein bike, having a seizure on a freezing mountain in Scotland.
Anyway, when I started all this, I wrote something that I thought was true, but now I’m not sure:
Plato advises a careful blend of physical exercise and cultural pursuits for the children of the Republic. Neglect the Muses, and you become a graceless brute, but without the rigours of sport, the individual “melts and liquefies till he completely dissolves away his spirit, cuts out as it were the very sinews of his soul”. We ought to bring “the two elements into tune with one another by adjusting the tension of each to the right pitch”.
This split between the physical and intellectual shows up more than once in philosophy — I don’t mean mind and body, but mental and physical experiences or pursuits or something along those lines. There’s Mill’s claim about intellectual versus physical pleasures – Bach versus back rubs — that the former are “worth more” than the latter, and those who have experienced intellectual pleasures prefer them to mere physical pleasures.
As I rack up miles on my ridiculous bike, I’m finding it difficult to divide things so neatly — I wonder if both Plato and Mill failed to spot something that’s obvious to people whose legs are burning after seven hours in the saddle. Long distance runners go on about self-discovery, a kind of introspective revelation attending physical exertion. It’s there at the top of hills on bikes too. Some valuable experiences (I won’t say pleasures) seem like weird combinations of the intellectual and the physical — not one or the other, but both or maybe neither. If that’s too rich for you, maybe the right thing to do is to say that we’re just having physical experiences what we can reflect upon — no big deal.
Any pointers? Are you with Plato and Mill, or anyway the caricatures above, holding on to the idea that physical and mental pleasures are distinct, or do you think, maybe with the long-distance runner, that the two are intermingled, something not easily divisible?
(The cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groats is traditionally done for a charity. Who am I to get in the way of tradition? Shelter From the Storm do splendid things – if you’d like to offer them a donation, you can do so here.)
It has always seemed to me that one should throughout life, keep oneself as physically and mentally active as possible. Exercising the body, and the instinct of curiosity, to find out how things are, or seem to be. One soon becomes aware of one’s limits both physically and mentally; but this should be no deterrent, there is always room for improvement.
These two activities seem the only worthwhile things to do whilst I am alive. Certainly there are other things of importance, like reproducing oneself, the relationship one has with others, and on occasions just plain light-minded enjoyment of life.
I suppose the Platonic view appeals to me more than that of Mill but I hasten to add it is not easy, but I do not mean unpleasant, so often things which are good for us are of that order.
My ability to knock a few seconds off my personal best on the rowing machine is for me equally as pleasing as finding an improvement in my understanding of Symbolic Logic. This seems to contradict Mill.
All that said however I have never experienced any mental revelation when under great physical stress of effort. On occasions I am charitable and this is one of them.
You need a better bike.
If you were in the states, I’d bring you some better parts.
I stick with running myself, although my parts are getting a bit worn with the miles and years.
I find that rock climbing is an interesting combination of physical and mental challenge.
Mike – my handlebar bag just pushed out my shifter cables so much that my gears jump. I’m doomed. I don’t have waterproof trousers yet — just looked at the long range forecast for Scotland.
There is certainly value in exercising both physically and mentally but if you’re positing some kind of mystical experience that endurance athletes have I’d suggest it had more to do with a severe chemical imbalance in the brain due to lack of energy, dehydration, and loss of salts and parts of the brain (esp. interconnects) shutting down. This often allows the brain to do strange things and can seem like really deep introspective insights or oneness cf. recent studies on the neural effects of psilocybin.
It is probably worth pointing out that physical pleasures are experienced in the brain and can be stimulated artificially so are in no real sense ‘physical’.
If you sent me the boat and train fare to where you are, I’ll cycle the rest of the way for you. I think you really ought to have taken a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance with you, though. Bikes are not dissimilar, in some senses: the lack of a box dividing you from the landscape and weather through which you are passing is even more evident on a bike. I am very envious, and I know this is a slightly absurd offer, but I would more than happily undertake the trip, and abandon a life of unpaid writing and research…
Keddaw – nothing mystical is being posited. I just wonder if ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ pleasures or experiences are so easily distinguished.
Lucy, watch this alarming video of our destination, recorded Weds, and rethink your offer:
http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/player/Christian-O-Connell-Breakfast-Show/10103/Better-Than-Van–Richie-in-John-O-Groats.html
In haste — departing tomorrow and scrambling to get supplies.
James, thanks for that. Perhaps I ought to have said (although I live in the west of Ireland, where the wind frequently reaches Force 10 in the winter (and sometimes in the summer too, if those seasonal labels still apply (another story…)): I’m Scots. The offer stands. Slan!
I use to mix up between cycling and running, both need physically and mentally prepared especially when you really go for long distance.
I’m going to regress a bit and get back to the books you listed. I have probably read at least 15 on your list – I’m curious however why you did not list Rawl’s “Behind the veil of ignorance”?
On another note I would suggest a Gary Fisher bike, much sterdier. Sure its not a road bike, but why can’t we sometimes go off the beaten path?