The Bikin' Fools

Rainy Days

Gosh, it is amazing the difference in psychology between a sunny day and a rainy day. It seems easy to get going on the sunny, warm, bright days. When it is raining the energy seems to wane and go flat. Why is this? I don’t know. Maybe you do. What I do know is that our system doesn’t allow for flexibility. One is required to get out of bed, get up and go to work no matter what the weather is doing. It is a far and distant cry from the natural order of things, the order that permits one to ebb and flow with the energy at hand.

On Saturday of this week, Tone and I did a hearty road ride, one that resulted in a serious ebbing of energy in the following days. Those days happened to be rainy. I have wondered if I may have had more energy if it were sunny following our fifty mile outing. This is where the D (discipline) word comes into play. It seems that one must pull on the bootstraps to get through those days when the energy simply isn’t there. For myself, that is a tough call. I am more prone to simply go with the energy at hand, whether it be great or little.

So this week’s work is to overcome the lethargy naturally associated with gray skies. It shouldn’t be hard simply because the skies will clear. It will be sunny and hot soon. None the less, I have to deal with the same dilemma that everyone does: Overriding the natural energy throttle that governs our waking state. The industrial complex that we now call "life" likes to see a nice, steady flow of things. This makes life predictable and good for business. Without this ‘order’, it is assumed that our living will descend into chaos.

I’m not entirely sure that chaos is such a bad thing. When one looks at the madness required to maintain our western lives, I often wonder if this system is great at all. When one begins to question the most basic elements of our lives, the logic and sense of order begin to fail. One only has to look at the divorce rate. This indicator reflects the fact that our culture has been driven apart by this so-called modern life. This statistic only hints at the separation of bonds in our society.  Sure, we have it easy with regard to staying warm and dry. But more and more people are missing the human element of family, friends and close relationships that are increasingly hard to maintain.

What does cycling have to do with all of this? No much. The bike only allows the user a window on the world that offers little snippets of relief from the storm. The material juggernaut runs roughshod over the more important values of our short lives. The bike is a vehicle to a place of good health that allows our vision to be momentarily clear. In that clarity, many mysteries melt into the stream of the cosmos, the river of life. Rain or shine, the river flows on...