Sweet

A one-log fire is still a fire (even if the “log” doesn’t come from a tree, but from a factory where sawdust is pressed into log-shaped “logs” and wrapped in waxed paper).

If you douse it in enough lighter fluid while it’s already burning, so that the somewhat vile-smelling flames rise high enough to light up your impromptu firepit, you can manage to eke out a little warmth and enjoy the experience, slightly augmented, elemental to the human experience, of congregating around a heat source at night to share observations and stories.

A short bicycle ride is still a bicycle ride (even if the “ride” includes standing atop a newly off-limits parking garage for just as long as it takes for the rather accommodating security guard to shoo you away for not even one in your midst being an employee of the organization for which said garage is meant.)

If you navigate the upward chicane, slip through the open gate, and spin around to the top, the city opens wide; it just takes a little imagination, trust in wayfaring, and willingness to put fun in front of perfect behavior.

And a relatively small group for such a mild and colorful spring evening is still a group, (even if the “group” grows smaller pretty quickly and disbands fairly early; like an argument requiring only two statements, one of which is the conclusion, the other being a premise that purports to support said conclusion, it doesn’t take much to fulfill the criteria and thus imply, as does an argument, a logical (or, in this case somewhat illogical) relationship between what is being argued for and the alleged evidence for it.

All of which is to say, (and which has likely been said before), that having fun requires a bit of effort, but in fact, and where two-wheelers are involved, not really that much.  A one-log fire, a short bicycle ride, a small group and there you have it: sweet.

Lagniappe

You want a space where mistakes are jokes on yourself that you can laugh at on purpose.  And here it is, right in the middle of it all.

One can’t help but notice how wholesome everything has gotten, which seems like a little too much evidence for the Simulation, especially since the alleged brew pub is in a building labeled “Google.”

The past is the present is the future, as well, and even though appearances can be deceiving (as later in the evening, farther away from the visible attests to), it’s remarkable how quiet the town square is—except for the entrance and exit of the long-lost music bike which never fails to astound.

It felt like the greatest party song ever, if only I could remember what it was; suffice it to say that all along the route, the love was spread no matter who or how it turned out to be.

And then that little gift: right after the electronically-produced sonic bath went away, there it was: human beings making a racket acoustically!  Who couldn’t slow down the rush to enjoy?

It’s a little surprising how far it is to the farthest reaches of oldest pioneer Seattle, in particular, when you take the flat route; it’s a little puzzling to imagine how that turned out to be Columbus’ India; on the other hand, there is no better place to stand and observe the islands.

The promise of weather is often more powerful motivator than the weather itself; how about that for being human beings in the 21st century?  Or probably the 5th century, too, just in a different way.

And many hills are not as steep in reality as they are in one’s predictive mind; this could be, in part, due to the change in conditions between predictions and results, specifically when it comes to definitions like “steep.”

A little of a lot is still a lot; a pinch goes a long way to life.

Value

The sub-field of philosophy that wonders about the nature of value is called Axiology, from the Greek axia, which means something like “worth” or “of equal value.”

The sub-field of Axiology of most interest to philosophers is ethics or morality (in academic Philosophy, those words are typically used pretty interchangeably), which examines the nature of moral value.  Ethics is concerned with questions like “What makes acts right or wrong?”  “What is it to be a good person?” and (as TV comedy writer and amateur ethicist, Michael Shur, explores in his wonderful book, How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question), “Am I obligated to return the shopping cart to the cart corral in the supermarket parking lot?” 

But there are other sub-fields of Axiology, most notably Aesthetics, which explores the nature of artistic value, with questions like, “What is art?”  “What is beauty?”  “Is it okay to value works of art by morally-problematic people, like Picasso, or Woody Allen, or Kanye West?”

Many people contend that ethical judgments are subjective, mere matters of taste, like preference for ice-cream flavor.  But there’s a lot more support for the position that morality has at least some objective basis—(for instance, everyone has to agree that it’s always wrong to torture an innocent human baby just for the fun of it)—than there is for the view that aesthetic judgments are anything other than expressions of subjective preference (“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and all that.)

The ancients had classical standards for art and beauty but ever since Dadaism in the early 20th century, those have essentially gone out the window.

Nevertheless, it seems hard argue that the natural world—especially when a soft “Simpson’s sky” illuminates multitudes of flowering trees set against a backdrop of snow-covered mountains across a scintillating body of water—isn’t objectively beautiful.  

And when you get to savor this beauty while out on two wheels, that’s for real.