Happy

One of the objections to Utilitarianism that John Stuart Mill takes on in the titular 1861 essay, “Utilitarianism” is the worry that happiness is not possible, “for if no happiness is to be had at all by human beings, the attainment of it cannot be the end of morality, or of any rational conduct.”

But as he points out, this is to misconstrue the nature of happiness.  “If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame.”

So, yeah, if we’re talking pure bliss all the time, then, sure, happiness is beyond the reach of human beings.  

But, as he goes on to explain, once we properly conceive of happiness, then we can see that it is an attainable, and thus, worthy, goal.  

In one of my favorite all-time philosophical quotes, he proposes that happiness is “not a life of rapture; but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing.”

Is that a perfect description of what a summer evening bike ride is like or what?

Moments of rapture, check: the instant you dive off the dock into the smooth warmth of Lake Washington’s watery embrace.

Few and transitory pains, check: climbing up the switchbacks through the trees, already done!

Many and various pleasures, check: the actives ones certainly predominating over the passive.

Not expecting more from life than it is capable of bestowing, check: on such a night, life so easily exceeds all expectations that one is incapable of expecting more than it already bestows.

Incline

According to the internet’s #RideShimano magazine, the Tour de France’s infamous Alpe d’Huez ascent is “characterized by 21 hairpins which unusually count downwards, making each turn a recognizable achievement of pain and glory. It is a 13.2 km climb, ascending 1104 m with an average gradient of 7.9% and a max gradient of 14%.”  

And yet those superb professional cyclists in the Tour, including 22 year-old Thomas Pidcock, who won the mountain stage this year, routinely make the ascent in under three quarters of an hour!

It would take your average advanced recreational cyclist more than twice as long and I’m sure yours truly would need a minimum of two hours not including all the time necessary time for stopping to hold what we used to call a “safety meeting’ by the side of the road for inspiration and analgesic on the way to the top.

But who wouldn’t do it if they had the chance, right?

Because hills are what cycling is all about.

Just ask anyone who goes from riding their bike in a place like Seattle, which affords one plenty of ups and downs, to somewhere like Chicago, where all you ever need to pedal harder against is the wind, and they’ll tell you how much they miss all the bruising ascents and thrilling descents.

Grinding uphill may be a grind, but it’s honest work, and flying downhill really is flying.  

Give me a seven per-cent grade over a twenty mile per hour headwind any day.  At least there’s an end in sight.

So, even if your climb is just several stories up a city parking garage or your descent is merely one steep block down to a lakeside pocket park in one of the tonier sections of town, that’s plenty good enough.

Gravity is our friend, whether we’re ascending or descending.

Whatever goes up, must come down, except our spirts, which keep rising with every single turn of the wheel on our bikes.

Swing

To transcend the endless cycle of death and rebirth, what the Buddhists call samsara, you’ve got to eliminate desire.  

Easier said than done, and there’s also that tricky paradox of how go about eliminating the desire to eliminate desire.

But the toughest nut to crack, if you ask me, is that it’s not just a matter of addressing the desire to avoid pain; what’s really difficult is overcoming the desire to grasp for what feels good.  

Equanimity means that we’re equally unmotivated by both pain and pleasure.  We’re able to sit in the middle of either and simply observe without running away from the former or running towards the latter.

This is why I’ll probably be back around for another go at it after this lifetime.  In spite of all my efforts (and effortless non-efforts), I just can’t quit all the delights that are afforded to us in our human forms right here on planet Earth.

Chief among these are those made available via the bicycle, which include, but are not limited to seeing your shadow animate on the railing of a freeway bridge as you soar over eight lanes of traffic on a perfect summer evening in the upper left-hand corner of the continent.

Or arriving, thanks to the kindness of compatriots with better navigating skills, at a lakeside grotto that not only makes possible the summertime holy grail of water and fire combined, but also affords ingress into submersion via a rope swing, just like in the movie version of life.

Or having more watermelon than can be consumed, even though it’s presented for consumption in multiple ways, including as a globe for individual teeth-sinking in one’s own favored longitude and latitude.

All these (and more) are why I’m pretty sure that at the instant of death or soon after, when faced with the opportunity to merge into the Oneness of All, I just don’t see how be able to pass up one more ride.