Up hill or down hill?
Whatever you choose, for every journey from your house to where you are going, if you go downhill to get there you will have to return uphill and if you set out uphill, you will have to return downhill (I make this assumption because most journeys in life, except the last one, are return journeys). So, which would you rather have? Uphill on the way there, or on the way back?
The answers to this question could be interesting. We could maybe put people into different categories depending on whether they preferred to get the nasty bit over with immediately and save the down hill freewheeling till the last – like people who eat all the not-so-good bits of their dinner first so they can save the best till the end. Maybe they are the people who value successful careers and who join expensive pension schemes and stuff like that . There would be others who prefer to set off downhill – these people enjoy the good bit first and just don’t think about the hard work till it needs to be done. These could be our hedonists, the sector of the population who value instant gratification. I have to say I’m more inclined to follow the latter path, though I’d say there’s more to it than just grabbing the goodies. Here’s a wee anecdote to explain what I mean:
There was a big battle somewhere, sometime and one side won and the other side lost. All the prisoners from the losing side were being put to death while the king watched from his throne. An old wise philosopher was the next in the queue for the chop, but as the guards were dragging him to the execution block he shouted out, ‘Your majesty! Spare my life and I will show you the most wondrous things! The king was immediately interested, as he liked wondrous things and he asked the prisoner to be a little more specific. ‘Let me live for a year and I promise to teach your favourite horse to speak.’ said the old philosopher. ‘Done’, said the King.
A few days later, when the philosopher had cleaned up, had a shave, got a whole bunch of new clothes and was settled into his new digs, one of the other guys in the teaching faculty approached him and said, ‘Well you got yourself a year, but at the end of it you’re fucked.’ ‘Listen’, said the old man, ‘A lot can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. The horse might even learn to speak.’
So what I’m trying to say is there’s a bit more to it than just instant gratification – there’s also the possibility that in postponing the bad stuff, it might actually have disappeared by the time it needs to be done. This is called optimism. But you need a lot of it if you’re hoping the hill will have flattened out for the return journey...
I don’t know why I went into all that. It wasn’t the point at all. The point was really to talk about cycling.... in Almaty, specifically. I’d like to have a bike but haven’t bought one yet for two reasons: the hills and the traffic. The second reason has been, up until relatively recently, more than enough of a reason not to own a bicycle without worrying about hills. But things have got better. The traffic police still take money from drivers, but now they do it for breaking the law and not just because they can. The drivers have realised this and have begun to drive more carefully. But there’s another more significant reason why cycling has become safer and that is that it has become fashionable to cycle on the pavement. Everyone with a bike does it – not just kids. Traffic problem solved. So am I going to get a bike? Well, the city is still sloping. That hasn’ t changed. And what’s my answer to the first question - Uphill there or on the way back? It’s, ‘Neither. I’d rather take the bus.’