{"id":2152,"date":"2014-09-18T16:24:04","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T16:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/?p=2152"},"modified":"2014-09-18T16:24:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T16:24:04","slug":"contraflow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/2014\/09\/18\/contraflow\/","title":{"rendered":"Contraflow"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was taught as a child that if you are walking on a road that has no pavement then you should walk on the side of the road so as to face\u00a0the oncoming traffic. If the cars are driving on the left, as in the UK, then you must\u00a0walk on the right. \u00a0This was drummed into me as a safety thing. I think the rationale is that you will be able to\u00a0see (and take action to avoid) vehicles that are coming towards the spot where you are. Walking on the same as the cars\u00a0would mean that they\u00a0could come up behind you, unseen.<\/p>\n

During my recent holiday (well, it was May\/June so it seems an age away now) my favourite route for a morning run was along the side of the Marikina river. There was\u00a0a good path, almost a road, alongside the river. Even at 6am it\u00a0was well-populated with walkers, runners and cyclists. One short stretch of it allowed motor vehicles but mostly it was car-free.<\/p>\n

\"IMAG0840\"<\/a>
\nOK, so this part of the path was a bit quiet when I took this photo. <\/em><\/p>\n

By instinct I\u00a0followed my childhood rule, running on\u00a0the side to ensure that I was facing oncoming traffic (bicycles). But it felt wrong. \u00a0Most of the other users of the path were walking or running, not on wheels. Should I be running on the same side as them, or the opposite side? I didn’t need to take evasive action against them. Furthermore,\u00a0many of\u00a0those who were on cycles\u00a0were going so slowly that I was actually running\u00a0faster than them. I was part of the same stream as the walkers, runners and cyclists, so I should stop seeing\u00a0them as a different flow to be opposed and just join their side.<\/p>\n

That’s a bit how it is for me at work just now. By instinct I am flowing along in the ‘old Institute’ and feel that the ‘new Institute’ is flowing on the other side of the road. We have had several years of taking guard against the\u00a0opposing flow (foe). Thus the habit of talking about the new as “them” and the old as “us” has become ingrained and is hard to shake off. Partly this is because\u00a0the locus of all decisions about\u00a0the new Institute is outside any management structure that I am a part of. In\u00a0a matter of months we will be\u00a0formally incorporated into the new organisation. I need to start thinking of myself as part of the same stream as the new Institute, not walking on the other side of the road. I hope that soon I will\u00a0instinctively join the flow towards the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was taught as a child that if you are walking on a road that has no pavement then you should walk on the side of the road so as to face\u00a0the oncoming traffic. If the cars are driving on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/trading-knowledge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}