Cycling as Assertiveness, Driving as Obedience

Cycling is, if you do it properly, ultimate awareness. It is moving more rapidly than you would ordinarily do if you walked, therefore your awareness has to be stepped up to accommodate this extra speed. One develops a taste for distance and space and the fact that one can see things coming. This is all the more so when you are out in the countryside in the open - embodied, energized, and quiet - and there are no buildings to block your views. The cyclist thus asserts himself at every moment as he alters his speed to accommodate the space and whatever options may present themselves. This is how the cyclist tunes in to the flow and becomes wild: by never stopping, or at least when he does stop to allow that stopping to catalyze a contemplation and consideration of his surroundings and where he actually is. In this way the cyclist is 'genius' (by accommodating and harmonizing the great cosmic flow and thus sharing a solidarity with all creatures), whilst the car-driver is 'moron' (by going against the cosmic flow and allowing his self to be carried, and stopping). The car-driver is obligated to stop everywhere, and not for contemplation. He cannot escape the rigidity of traffic signals or other cars precisely because he has become outsized in his new chassis and too large for his own good. The wild cyclist by contrast is as slender as the body that powers the bicycle which of course is the slenderest creature of them all. This slender-ity allows  the cyclist to weave in and out, to avoid, to nip by, to jump over, to slip onto, without ever having to stop. Because the wild cyclist knows the secret of stopping: that to stop is to be stupid (look up their etymologies if you don't believe me), simply by recognizing a sign that is not Nature's sign, and by obeying it. 

 

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