The Desire Path

Although I'm only just approaching mid-life, I've already had my fair share of mid-life crises.

The first, and most serious, I blame squarely on 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', an album that, like myself, is 50 years old this month.

It was the summer of 1995. I was in the middle of a thousand mile run from John O'Groats to Land's End, and in the midst of an all-encompassing Beatles obsession that had been prompted and tweaked by the meteoric rise of BritPop.

Living out the back of a knackered VW LT van with a rainbow painted on the back doors and 'WILMA' emblazoned on a translucent green sun shade strip on the front windscreen, my daily routine consisted of running 30 miles and spending the rest of my time poring over Ian Macdonald's excellent 'Revolution In The Head' and listening to 'Sergeant Pepper', 'Rubber Soul' and 'Abbey Road' whilst consuming copious amounts of tea and Kellogg's Frosties.

Modern studies suggest that forward motion at a slow pace promotes discerning thought. During that summer, I had plenty of time for thinking. For the six weeks of that run, my thinking tended to center around two main subjects:

1. When The Beatles split up, Paul McCartney was 27 years old. I was now 28.
2. What the fuck am I doing with my life?

After treading the tried, tested and, frankly, miserable path through 'O' levels, 'A' levels and university, life in my early 20's had showed a little non-conformist promise with a string of dead-end, but entertaining, manual jobs and a couple of years of traveling and dossing about. But then I'd shacked up with a girl who'd later dump me a week before our planned wedding, and started doing the things that society labels as 'making a success of your life'. I'd secured a full-time teaching job. I'd bought a one-bedroom flat with a riverside view. I'd got my hair cut.

The more I ran that summer, the more inspired I became by the stories of The Beatles blazing a trail that other bands never imagined existed ( 'She's Leaving Home' - a gorgeous pop song backed with harp and strings - no guitar, no drums, no bass, just harp and strings!), the more I realised what a dick I'd been.

Things were grim, but this trip showed promise. There was not a lot I'd least be doing than working in a job I didn't particularly like to pay for a flat I didn't particularly want, but not a lot I'd rather be doing than running for the majority of each day and living in a van with one rucksack of belongings. By the end of the run, my mind was made up.

Months later, I'd find myself running 45 miles a day through Africa, surviving on a spare but wholesome diet of warm water, pasta and pancakes, and sleeping each night on a camp bed under the stars of a desert sky.

In following my heart, I'd packed in the job, thrown away most of my stuff (except for the 'important stuff' that I'd boxed up and stuck in my Mum's loft - so 'important' that it's still there, unopened and untouched 22 years later), and rented out my flat to a French mature student.

In following my heart, I'd found where I wanted to be.





Once you're aware of their existence, you'll notice desire paths everywhere.

My favourite definition comes from Nick Crane in his book 'Two Degrees East':
'(desire paths were)...the imprints of 'foot anarchists', individuals who had trodden their own routes into the landscape, regardless of the intentions of government, planners and engineers. A desire path could be a short cut through waste ground, across the corner of a civic garden or down an embankment. They were expressions of free will, 'paths with a passion', an alternative to the strictures of railings, fences and walls that turned individuals into powerless, apathetic automatons.'

That summer of 1995 was when I stopped being a powerless, apathetic automaton and started treading a desire path through the rest of my life. The time when I stopped going where I was told I should go and started heading where I wanted to go.

Since then, that path has seen many twists and turns, as many downs as ups, but 20-odd years later, in any given week, I'm still able to spend more time doing the things I love (running, walking, hanging out with my wife and kids...) than doing the things I don't really give a toss about (work, shopping...), and that feels fine.

I guess that the desire path isn't for everyone, but if you're unconvinced that this is the right way to go, well take a look at Micah True, the fabled Caballo Blanco of 'Born To Run' fame.

An inspiring but unconventional life spent following a unique path came to an end during a long run in the New Mexico desert. Stopping for water at a creek, he suffered a fatal heart attack as a result of an undiagnosed cardiac abnormality.

In the documentary of his life 'Run Free', his soul-mate Maria Walton said this when talking of his death:
'People say, 'Well he died doing what he loved', but I don't like that expression. I just know that he lived doing what he loved.'

'He lived doing what he loved.'

Surely we all deserve an epitaph like that.