Training days

Summer decided to show up for the weekend, so I took advantage of that and went out in the Pentlands for a few hours to get up some hills and train. Considering my last two training days consisted of playing on the Elie Chain Walk (where the hardest workout was the spontaneous guerrilla gardening at Cat's grandfather's house) and a couple hours along the (very flat) Water of Leith, I thought some hills were necessary.

Chelsea and Cat on the Chain Walk

Guerrilla gardening, 1950s style

Heron on the Water of Leith

Wandering around the Pentlands with Charlotte and Penny was wonderful - we found cows, sheep, a kestral, and a nice sunny spot out of the wind for lunch. Can't ask for much more in a day out in Scotland!

Char, Penny and I

 In the natural pace of hill walking, there are moments of silence in the conversation. Either the hill is getting too steep or the path too long and talking just needs to cease for a while. It was during one of these moments that it actually hit me - I'm going to be walking, for four days, in the hills with Victoria, a chunk of bread and a sleeping bag. The amount of time to think, wonder, rethink and reflect is going to be enormous! Especially compared to the hectic schedule of 21st century life - the pinging of email inboxes, the beeping of text messages, the car horns speeding by, commuters plugged into mp3 players to zone out from their brief exposure to potential human interaction on public transport, music played loud enough to drown out our own thoughts in order to escape for a while, deadlines chasing deadlines chasing deadlines. To take four days to just be in nature, walk, talk and think... I think this is just the beginning of understanding why people go on pilgrimages in the first place.

Pentlands

the good, the bad, the fair?

Part of this pilgrimage is having the time to reflect on life, questions and the bigger issues that the soul cries out but  is often ignored due to the busy-ness, noise, stress, deadlines and alarm clocks of life. To get into the practice, here's a question that's come up in the last week or so:

If something is fair, is it then inherently good?

One might think 'yes, it's the systematic fairness that keeps society civil, functional and accessible for all.' We have queues where everyone waits their turn, prices labeled clearly in stores that don't change when you get to the cash register, anyone can access free health care (in the UK... but let's not get distracted by other issues!), and the rain that falls on my head falls on the guy's next door. It's all fair. 

But what about when the outcome isn't good even when the system is fair? For the sake of argument I'll define 'good' as beneficial to one's health or life. One example given to me was the story of St George. There was a city where the citizens had to disturb a dragon to get water. To appease the dragon, they offered it a sheep. When they didn't have any sheep they offered it a maiden. This maiden was chosen by drawing lots. A fair system, not so good for the girl with the short straw. This ended when George showed up and killed the dragon. Good to keep those saintly knights around, hey?

Another story involves Solomon in the Old Testament. Two women came to him with one baby, each claiming it to be their own. Solomon decided that to split the baby so each woman could have half would be fair. Fair, yes. Good? Definitely not from the baby's point of view!

Which leads to the question - can a system have moral qualities? Or can one only judge outcomes and results to be on the good-bad spectrum? Hmmm...

My conclusion: a system isn't good or bad, it can be fair or corrupt, based on it's consistency and lack of bias. How situations or systems or circumstances affect someone, that's where the good or bad comes into play.

Also, there's that saying 'all is fair in love and war'. Now there's a load of rubbish if I ever heard it! :)