Pull Over When You Can't See

In the back woods of Suches, Georgia, throttling up a damp, cold,
unforgivingly rocky Flatland Road, John Williams' orchestral version
of Hatikvah (The Hope for Freedom) echoes in my helmet.
Such a soft, deep and melancholy melody to juxtapose gripping my
R1200GS for dear life as her enduro rubber becomes more and more
useless. Standing over my saddle thoughts shift around in my mind far
faster than my shifting gears and the best I can hope for is to catch
a few seemingly incoherent ideas.

Everywhere people are oppressed or suppressed.

I was little, just like you. I looked up to my parents, elders, and
everyone was bigger than me,

They were the authority and I followed along.

There were conventions, "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts", rules and
regulations. Some of them to keep me safe from harm, others just
'because' the authority said so with no reason except someone felt
like it ought to be that way.

Little by little, personal power, choice, freedom, our innate ability
to be free and think and create authentically is chipped away until we
get along inside of an insane realm of conformity and limitation. We
end up arguing that it is all for the "Greater Good," resigning
ourselves to a life looking more like a fog than heaven on earth. We
think we can see clearly, but it is only because we have gotten used
to driving in the fog and can no longer tell the difference.

A drop of rain hits my visor. Then another, and another. A downpour
ensues and I can barely see and I don't care. I can barely distinguish
the gravel fire-trail from the gray sheets of rain. I won't be going
fast enough to kill myself and I can handle a fall. My heart is up in
my throat and that is half the fun of it. It is where excitement is.
Distinguishing subtle shades of gray and picking the one that gets you
home.

What a common justification for me.

I pull over to dump out my full gloves, zip up the not-so-waterproof
gear and I realize I live my life barely able to see, but not going
fast enough to kill anyone or hurt myself too badly. That still, much
of my life depends on my looking to others to find my way. I can't
trust my own sight, so now and then I will borrow yours to make sure I
am on track if you don't mind.

As the hockey puck screwed onto the kick-stand sinks into the muddy
trail-side, the Beamer leaning down like a handicapped bus stooping
down to make my life easier, I thank my ride, the rain, my gear and
John Williams for bringing me to another wonderful day, for a chance
to choose and think and create my life, and for the insight and
humility that comes with not having to see everything so clearly all
the time, and knowing it will all work out.

Honestly, I want Heaven On Earth back, and, for just a little while,
big blue sky or heavy downpour just-the-same, on my bike I am here.

On the Eve of The 2008 Elections

While we are mired into the Late Breaking News of the Moment to Moment
with our Special Reporter, I reflect one last time on who I may select
as the President of the United States, and what it is I want to see
done in the world and in our country.

Of course, the way our system is, the President doesn't carry all the
weight, and much of the responsibility is on the shoulders of Congress
and the Senate and the Supreme Court Justices. None-the-less, the
President is a constant drone for something, a stand for a way of
life, the voice of a future we are all calling for. The President is a
conversation that will go on for four to eight years and his voice
does carry weight. This is The voice that can bring out our voice, to
inspire us, to have us move and act to influence our representatives
to act on our behalf or suffer the consequences of being fired.

Given the weight and subsequent impact this voice can have, what is
the conversation I want to hear for that period of time?

There is a lot of rhetoric about the American Way of Life, of voting
this way or that way by opinionating we are being Patriotic or
Unpatriotic depending on who is attempting to influence us to fulfill
their agenda.

My question is 'what is best for human beings everywhere?'

Not some of us, and not in one location, not in any particular
financial position and not by any skin color or language, but for all
human beings everywhere.

Why everywhere? At this point, it is clear to me that what I do in
this country and with my business matters on the other side of the
planet. How I behave and how I create and act impact people directly
in multiple countries and I cannot deny my own influence. We don't see
it everyday because it doesn't happen right in front of us so that we
can see our impact. The little choice of what we buy or don't buy,
places we go and don't go each day matter. Really. So when I say
everywhere, it is import to consider that it has to be this way. It
isn't just an idea. We must consider our short and long term impact
from everything we do on everyone around us, even those we can't see.
To deny that we have an impact on others either individually or
collectively as a country, is to be in denial at best and sociopathic
if conscious.

We can look to a candidates history of voting, their personal
education, friends and likely cabinet members, and we will find they
are potential indicators of the kinds of conversations we can expect
if they were President. But they are only potential indicators and not
a direct indicator.

I have a view. You have a view. This view is informed by many factors
ranging from our interpretation of self to all of the collective
experiences we have had over our lifetime. The interpretation is made
by the mind fabricating what it gathers from our input sensors such as
our eyes and ears. The mind believes what it sees, calls it the truth,
acts in line with that truth and then reinforces the truth by creating
another view that has evidence it was right. This is the failure of
the human mind. A poor relationship to what is real.

But when it comes to matters of importance, my view is not to be
trusted and neither is yours. We somehow think that our collective
view, our consensus on who the President ought to be, will end up
giving us the best choice. There is the potential for us to act with
intelligence, but this occurs only when we give up our view of
something.

So here we are attempting to cause one man (in this case) to be
President with our vote and all we have is the past performance and
experiences of that man as seen by histories record of it, combined
with our own past performance and experiences as seen by our own
polished view of our self and the circumstances, and a faulty mind
that deals very poorly with reality.

And it is with this severely limited set of tools that we are about to
choose a President?

We have to come to terms with the idea that how the world occurs to us
is simply not how the world is. If it did, then George W. who occurred
as trustworthy to a majority before he began no longer holds our
trust. What changed?

Are we are poor predictors of the future? What are we listening to or
for that has us choose what we have?

Given that we must have a new President soon, what can I be listening
to, or for what, that will have me choose a man that will fulfill what
I see missing in America and in the world?

What personal process might I undergo to be clear, free from my past
and his, my view suspended sufficient to allow vision?

I'll let you know...soon.