The Transportation

And then there is the transportation gang, often heard before they're seen with squeaky chains propelling haggard old bikes, for whom there is no choice...or perhaps the choice is to ride or hoof it, as the bicycle is their sole means of speedy A to B. Maybe they ride to work, maybe they're unemployed. Maybe they’re homeless, lost their license, or simply cannot afford the many hidden fiscal trappings of automobile ownership. Do they prefer to ride? No, no way; they are forced to by circumstance. To them the bike is a vintage tool, a rusty shovel among backhoes, a rake among leaf blowers, not a meaning-filled symbol or a recreational activity.

These three broad groups make up the majority of cyclists. Do they get along with each other? I don't think so. They sure don’t ride together unless it's incidental, but then again, they’re not really competing for resources, yet anyway...and that's a big "yet", I mean, if there were a world of just bicycles in the streets...would they eventually begin to flip each other off and relish in name calling belittlement? I’m all but sure this would happen, as space on the road would still be a premium and thus competed for. In fact, I was just talking to a kid working the front counter of a hotel in downtown Sacramento, Ca about his commuting on the bike I saw safely locked up out front as I checked in. I asked him how getting around town was, if the city was "bike-friendly", how the infrastructure was (bike paths and the like), and the general attitude of drivers toward cyclists. All where favorable but what he added as afterthought...musing that possibly more troublesome than the inherent hazards a cyclist's fragile body encounters whilst commingling with heavy automobiles on the street were the droves of club riders who often speed up from behind in large packs on the city's many established bike paths, rude with shouts of “on your left” and often squeezing him and his bike from the narrow pavement as they sped by.

When I heard this, I have to admit, I got a little defensive as I've been in those groups that have taken the path with shear speed and Lycra-clad numbers, but until that point never thought of my actions as rude, quite the contrary...but then again, I had never heard firsthand or imagined the consequences of my actions from another's point of view.

Think about it...just look at how your attitude changes when you sit in auto traffic. Blood pressure and Cortisol levels rise, anger creeps in, what little mindfulness you have goes out the window with an urge to shake your fist, road rage begets the “effenheimer” and the entire day starts out on the wrong foot because your once peaceful and unified "group" began infighting over a resource. You are very alone at that point, a group of one, competing with other motorists for your piece of precious pavement...


Look, here's the deal...bikes and cars? They're just two machines that got in the middle of the proverbial human condition simply by giving us another way to label each other. A human condition that's been brewing and evolving within us since the Miocene...a constant struggle between our reactive, animal brain and our thoughtful, processing, symbolic brain. For years, bikes and cars, taking the blame for something they have nothing to do with but, again, giving us another way to label one-another as different, to group ourselves, to pick sides. A mere separation of the two I'm afraid, without really understanding the root problem, will just pass the buck to a different arena.

Groupism is at the root of this problem. To solve it, I'm convinced we can, we need to see this bigger picture, leave bikes and cars out of it and work on the mess that's between our ears. Limbic System be damned...we must overcome.

Mindfulness Takes Time

I had the opportunity to go on a ten day meditation retreat several years back. It wasn't what you think–no cult, no deity worship, no fasting, no saints, no sinners, just a secular exploration of the vast expanse that is this human mind. Ten days, it turned out, without making eye contact, without speaking, without even acknowledging fellow meditators sitting right next to you. The idea was that you strictly had to be with your own thoughts and those thoughts alone for ten days straight. No television, no books, no magazines near the toilet, no diversions what-so-ever to take your attention away from what it was that was going on inside your head.

Prior to the course, I thought I knew what it was to be mindful, paying attention to my thoughts and actions. As it turns out, I knew nothing. We spent the first three days focusing on the air moving in and out of our nostrils, concentrating on how that felt. At first, minutes would go by where my mind was elsewhere, daydreaming, and then I’d remember what I’m supposed to be doing and be back focusing on my breath, in and out, in and out, then I’d be gone again for several more minutes as my mind wandered once more. My mind a chaotic ride on Boston's T. Thoughts were everywhere, in, out, and jostling my attention like a train full of commuters.

By the third day however, I could stay focused on my breath for a whole sixty minutes without interruption pretty easily. If a thought came up and threatened to pull my attention away into a daydream, it was acknowledged and allowed to move on, no dwelling on it. The busy subway car of my mind was beginning to quiet down.

After the third day we began focusing our attention to other parts of the body one bit at a time. We were trying to establish a flow of attention that began on the head and moved down the trunk to the tips of the toes then back again. This was pretty hard as some parts were easier to put my attention than were others, parts of my back in particular proved a challenge, who pays that much attention to their back? There were brief, though amazing, moments however where my whole body was the object of my focus at one time. Heavenly, really.

During the times I wasn't formally meditating, my ability to pay attention to things around me was in such a heightened state that, for instance, when I would walk to meals in the dining hall the crunch of gravel underfoot was absolutely palpable as were individual pebbles pushing unevenly on the thin soles of my shoes. Walking had slowed because that’s what I was doing, just walking, my attention was there in the act without a mind full of the future, of the past. I could eat an entire meal literally savoring every bite, feeling the meal mash around in my mouth, flavors mixing, pushed around by my tongue, feeling the mouthful of good home cooking slide slowly down my throat.

At the end of the class, I was not the same person that walked in to the facility ten days prior. I had become an observing machine. The five hour drive home was amazing and done sans radio; I didn't need the diversion it would have provided, driving was plenty. I was driving with an awareness not seen since I was sixteen and my mother handed me the keys for the first time, drivers permit in hand.

Arriving home, things that bothered me before the class, like the sound, believe it or not, of my dog licking his paws, didn't anymore. Again, I had become very objective, it was just a sound and I was just an observer. If a thought popped into my head about the sound of dog tongue on dog paws it wasn't about how irritating it was, it was more about the qualities of the sound itself and the fact that was just what the dog does, lick his paws. I was okay with that.

Today, having not kept up in my practice of mindfulness, the ability is all but gone. I hate that sound again and almost always shush my dog when I hear it. But the idea of mindfulness remains, the idea and the knowledge that such laser-like attention to my own thoughts is possible and the experience of how those thoughts affect my emotions and mood remains foundational to who I am today.

Mindfulness takes practice.

Keep practicing.

The Mantra

There are two things that need to be done to fix this "groupism". First, realize its presence in everyday life, this is mindfulness, then broaden your definition to be more inclusive…you need a bigger group. 

Make the group you share big enough and you’ll have no group at all; all will be one, the crooked tree–straight, the cyclist–just another user of the road. Mindfulness is what we have to practice if we are to become the humanity we imagine and dream of...dare I say, the humanity we pretend to be.

So that's what I've been working on lately, expanding my group. Making a conscious effort, whether behind the bars of my bike or behind the steering wheel of my truck, to actually say to myself "just another user of the road" when I see poor behavior in the street. It really helps by keeping this noggin of mine present. Keeping me from short circuiting my power of reason...keeping me in control of these often wicked thoughts and associated emotions.

Try it out, tell me what you think. I'd particularly like to hear from self professed road ragers. Does it work for driver on driver conflict?  

MH