EPISODE 4: LIVING IS AN EXERCISE OF LIVING
I arrived into Kirkland, Washington last week, having driven from NY to Maine (for a lobster roll) and then crossed the Northern States over the course of the last 18 days … largely by ragtop-mediated, brownian motion. Kirkland is a small, charming, mask-wearing town on the banks of Lake Washington across from the larger, currently riotous Seattle. I arrived in order to tend to the most essential of our human uncertainties: Health. For the sake of privacy, we’ll leave it at that. But suffice to say, there is an inverse relationship between the wisdom of the brain and withering of the body that shephards it. It’s real. While that reality can inspire denial and depression, my family chooses dark humour, which shines a light into the shadows of our reality … with love.
In the next few days I’ll turn left again … this time by bike.
I will retrace the same route I took 32 years ago down the West Coast of the States. Last time my Mum remarkably followed me as my ‘support vehicle’. Because the body that carries the caring heart cannot always retrace its steps, I’ll cycle this time alone.
First I needed a bike.
The ‘Boneshaker’ was the nickname given to the earliest pedal bikes built in the 1850s and 1860s. They shook your bones because not only were their frames made of metal, so too were their wheels! How remarkable was the toughness of the people who came before us! Bikes without pedals or breaks came much earlier. The first known iteration was in 1418 by Giovanni Fontana (an Italian engineer). The design had four wheels and a rope that was connected by gears. 400 years later, a German aristocrat and inventor named Karl von Drais built a two-wheel version in 1817 called the ‘dandy horse’ or ‘hobby horse’.
170 years later I’m in Kirkland Cycles buying an evolved version of the hobby horse that couldn’t be more different: Made from carbon fibre — and therefore light, stiff yet accommodating, efficient and smooth, propelled with little effort.
On my test-ride, Huck told me to turn right, then right again, then left up a gentle hill so I could see ‘how it felt’. I did. Halfway to the top, the bike felt great. I, however, was fucked. I’d gone not more than 2 minutes away from the bike shop and I was already tired! Suddenly I discovered that my daily runs were not enough. I was (indeed am) not yet in good enough shape to complete the 1,600 kilometres to San Francisco that lay before me.
Which brings me to the point of this blog:
We don’t train and then live. We train by living.
We don’t overcome our fear of uncertainty and then step into it. We don’t first overcome our pain before stepping forward. We get in shape along the way through the exercise of living. While I’m not yet in the shape required to finish my adventure. I’m in good enough shape to start it!
Adventures are hard and at times we get sore and lost in mind, spirit and body.
My mind, spirit and body are no different, since my chosen adventure embodies this metaphor … purposefully so: The body doesn’t lie; Our brains do. It’s our actions that create and reveal who we want to become.
Each day I’ll go as far as I can. But since I don’t know how far that’ll be, I’ve no idea when I’ll stop or indeed where I’ll stop (I have a tent in the event that I have to stop in-between ‘the-here’ and ‘the-there’ — which is actually where life is lived). Each morning, the soreness will eventually pass as the slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers of my legs warm and reconstruct themselves from earlier damage. Each day will become a little easier and/or I’ll go a little further. (Keep in mind that a bit of positive delusion is also important to live with a more positive outlook — which is scientifically true actually).
In addition to delusion, another — more useful — fuel that propels us forward into living, that helps our brain to overcome the pain that seems to inevitably to recur in life … and may even help us use that pain as the reason for our cells to pedal onwards …
… is to pedal for another instead of yourself.
In this time of COVID we’ve all seen — and indeed throughout history we are here because of … those who stepped forward … first. Into the fire … first. Into the protest for the freedom and dignity of others … first. Into compassion within conflict … first. Today we call some of these people ‘first responders’, who risk themselves every day for an anonymous other in a time of pandemic. Others we call parents, teachers, friends and lovers (at least when done beautifully).
We know from neuroscience that we will all go further if it’s for the benefit of another.
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