What about the reassurance of feeling dry and warm in the midst of a storm, courtesy of your trusty old rain gear, as you approach the entrance to a national park you’ve never seen before? Or how about opening your kit in the middle of nowhere, remembering the times in the past when that well-chosen collection of tools proved capable of getting you back on your way?
Riding is a many-splendored thing, and the open road makes it possible for days on end. Who needs a destination, anyway? So get on with it…and don’t waste any time.
Get Lost!
August 2002
A decade and a half later, this is still one of my favorite things to do. It’s amazing how much the pleasure of solitude can be enhanced with the following method—and how much fun it can add to a group ride.
It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon. My bike is running great. The scenery is sublime. And I’ve just reached my destination: The Middle of Nowhere, aka Parts Unknown, etc. I’m utterly lost in virginal territory uncharted in my own mind, totally unfamiliar and devoid of any recognizable landmarks except for the sun’s trusty arc across the azure dome above. Ahhhh . . . I can relax now. Like most arrivals, this one brings with it a sense of accomplishment and relief. I think I’ll take a few minutes to congratulate myself at that pull-off by the stream up ahead.
Getting here wasn’t easy. I have to go farther and farther afield each time to cross the line into that neighboring State of Confusion. In order to complete the journey, I have to leave my GPS at home (or at least in the bottom of my tank bag), along with any maps or notes I might be tempted to glance at along the way. I must deliberately shut off my brain the moment I catch myself automatically analyzing my heading: Hmmm . . . didn’t that last turn just change my horizon from north to—DON’T FINISH THAT THOUGHT! And when I’m tempted to wander over and check out some vista or half-noticed signpost I think I might recognize, I have to force my eyes back to the pavement in front of me and spare no glance in that alluring direction. Achieving ignorance requires considerable self-discipline.
This is one of my favorite games. I can play it as solitaire or with teammates, and it can last a day or a weekend or even longer for those whose work and family life allow extended absences. The basic idea is to perform a certain type of alchemy, creating the gold of high adventure from the base metal of mundane routine. The catalyst is simply this: the cessation of attention to one’s route while remaining focused on all of the usual tasks of riding. This trick is more difficult for some than others. As someone who tends to lose his way even when he’s trying desperately to hang on to it, I may have an easier time with this than most—at least the first part of it. You see, getting there is only half the fun; then I have to get back. Maybe in time for dinner. Then again, maybe not.
After wandering as aimlessly as possible, the project becomes one of reconnoitering without tools and finding my way home without simply retracing my steps. This creates the possibility of genuine discovery and introduces a few risks, such as not eating on time or running out of gas. It’s enough tension to sharpen my wits but not enough to interfere with the enjoyment of the process. And, if I’m ever really in danger of not making it back under my own steam, I can always stop somewhere and do the typically unthinkable: ask for directions.
The exhilaration of such navigation is akin to an indulgence I imagine most of us have allowed ourselves at one time or another. (For some of us, it’s the only way we do things.) I’m talking about eschewing another type of direction—the kind that comes with new purchases sporting the “some assembly required” warning on their packages. What fun is it to move from step one to step two, adhering robotically to the fixed sequence foisted upon the noble end user by a completely anonymous and potentially unqualified source? Can’t we all justify diving into the project unassisted/unfettered on the basis of one bad experience with faulty instructions twenty years prior? And besides, what needs to be done is obvious from a quick survey of the parts already spilling out of the box, right? They’ve revealed themselves voluntarily, so why make them wait any longer to fulfill their destiny?
Talk about the middle of nowhere! Roy’s Motel and Cafe served up some delicious burgers for MCN writers on a seemingly endless ride along historic Route 66.
I won’t go into (painful) detail about my experiences as a would-be engineer, second-guessing or totally disregarding The Way included with various assembly-requiring items from my past. We all know that you win some and you lose some. But my point is this: plowing ahead and seeing what we can do on our own can be quite enjoyable—even irresistible—if we have the time to fix mistakes and don’t mind the inefficiency involved. It turns out that learning is not a terribly efficient process anyway because a great deal of it requires trial and error, and there are usually more ways to screw something up than to make it work properly. Much learning is a matter of ruling out what doesn’t work and narrowing down the possibilities. And, unless overly stressed or affected by some pathological process, human beings are innately driven to learn.
In the assembly process, we can break things, ruin things by performing procedures correctly but in the wrong order, or create contraptions that may function but do so without critical safeguards in place. The consequences can be very expensive. Out on the road, one is free to savor the pioneering spirit with fewer threats to health and finances. Wrong turns rarely cost anything more than time.
It’s a bit paradoxical how appealing it can be to make life harder when we usually try to make things easier. It’s actually a balancing act wherein we have to ensure that there’s enough challenge to make existence meaningful and exciting but not so much difficulty or danger as to be overwhelming. Everybody has a different point of equilibrium. A friend of mine climbs sheer cliffs, preferably encased in thick ice, with minimal safety gear and the constant threat of virtually certain death if he doesn’t execute every move perfectly. His need for challenge is greater than mine. My neighbor is content to pit himself against the terrors of crabgrass invasion. His need for challenge is less than mine. But we’re each looking for something that forces us to rally our resources, concentrate our efforts, and exert masterful skill, even if we might refer to our recreational pursuits as “relaxing.”
The mastery of challenges is not just enjoyable, it’s a necessary part of life. People who have no interest in mastery are not really alive. They’ve retreated from the difficulties of living into a state of insulated passivity, withdrawn from meaningful engagement with the world in favor of something more womb-like. Life is certainly capable of sending an overabundance of challenges our way, but there’s an ebb and flow to this process. At times, rest and retreat are perfectly legitimate needs. At other points, we have a surplus of energy and interest that must be utilized or lost; such surpluses don’t accumulate over time—they atrophy. We maintain and hone our problem-solving skills (including managing our level of anxiety) by practice. When we don’t employ them in the externally imposed demands of work responsibilities, domestic chores, and relational obligations, problem-solving skills can be developed in activities that fall under the broadly defined category of play. In any case, they are a large part of our personal identity.
Just as games generally become dull if the demands aren’t increased as our skills develop, other forms of recreation have to be made more challenging to extract maximal enjoyment. My game of getting myself lost on my motorcycle is one way I’ve found to “up the ante” and make riding more fun, but there are countless others. They open up the possibilities of disappointment, frustration, discouragement, and other negative experiences, but, with perseverance, they simply become the raw materials from which we can deliberately cultivate wisdom, confidence, and competence.
Doh! Brain Fade and the Perils of Fatigue
January
