The Cyclist as Superhero & Heretic

All cyclists are superheroes, (whether they dress up in lycra or not). The super part comes from the fact that they use their own steam to get from A to B. By 'cyclist', I don't mean a cyclist who commutes to work and then reverts to the car when it suits him, or some such nonsense. By 'cyclist' I mean someone who eschews being carried and transported (like an injured animal) and who moves everywhere under their own steam.

The cyclist's superness comes mostly from this action, but not all. What the cyclist does not do is just as important. He does not pollute his environment and the people, animals and land; he does not abandon his own technological body in favor of a deleterious technology that has been imposed upon him; he does not ignore (the land and the animals) by sealing his self up in a mobile gas chamber (but navigates and acknowledges the land by moving through it originally). This is why the cyclist (like the walker or the rower) is a hero (and a heretic): because he chooses not to kowtow to the quagmire that he has been born into; because he chooses not to believe and have faith in a situation that is clearly untenable; because, in spite of the great difficulties facing him, he makes sacrifices through his doing and undoing, thus rendering the world sacred again.

This is the nature of the hero and heretic (from Greek hairetikos 'able to choose'): one who holds a doctrine at variance with established or dominant standards. One who when faced with the death of his greater self simply to please his small one, chooses not to...









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