Serendipity

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, serendipity is “a word coined by Horace Walpole, who says (Let. to Mann, 28 Jan. 1754) that he had formed it upon the title of the fairy-tale ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’, the heroes of which ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.’”

Well, if you remove the “sagacity” part, that pretty much describes what many a Thursday night ride has historically involved, and it’s a pleasure to note that it’s still possible, by accident mostly, to discover things you didn’t know you were looking for, but are delighted to find along the way.

Like, for instance, who knew that what appeared to be a walkway down to the water would turn out to be an outdoor terrace filled with diners who remained, all things considered, sanguine about the arrival and quick departure of a score of bicycles in their midst?  

And haven’t you always been seeking a car-free East Marginal Way to enjoy on a sun-drenched early evening?  Isn’t that the definition of serendipity that it was there, the object of your questless quest all along?

Sometimes a stated destination is just a way to get things rolling in the right direction and it turns out that where you were really headed was where you meant to get to anyway, especially even before the sun set—with an unexpected little bike path to be found, as well!

And nobody really knew that you’d end up with a fire after all, although the quest for that was surely portended in some way by the bringing of accelerant, both literally and figuratively.

I suppose it’s not really a surprise if you expect to be surprised, but it’s nonetheless a serendipitous state of affairs to be granted that which you didn’t know you were looking for but probably had in mind right from the start.

Thanks, Universe, for another swell gift, undeserved and unsought.

Electric

“Time marches on,” they say, but it’s less of a march, I think, than a cascade.  

It rolls forward, like a wave; it undulates and somersaults; it speeds ahead and rises up; it covers what was with what is and will be; it arrives where it’s going and keeps on going, carrying you and everything else along relentlessly, inevitably, and forever.

Come to think of it, time is pretty much the same as a bike ride through the woods over twisty trails at night.  And come to think of it, that’s just what’s been happening for a long, long time on Thursday nights up the upper left hand corner of our continent.

And yet.

There’s still the never-before-assayed experience to be had, even though, in the Yelp review version of the accounting it would be pointed out that pretty much all of the places had been gotten to previously just not via those same sylvan routes nor all in the same evening.

Moreover, the combination of high bridge sunset and open-air meat market with tree-lined corridor alongside massive industrial public works project was a first to be sure, as was the final destination, thankfully arrived at via tarmac rather than wood chips.

There will come the day, to be sure, when pure legs succumb to electric assist, and even now, a hand in the small of the back impelled by happy electrons is not to be scorned, but as long as walking and pushing is allowed you can hold it off for a little bit longer in spite of the temptation to flatten the hills.

“Analogue,” (as it’s apparently referred to) still carries you forward, just like time itself, heading up, down, and all around, past apple-chunking colleagues, sun-drenched horizons, fish-netted flesh merchants, spooky-looking footpaths, quickly improvised fairy rings, and heartily-welcoming watering holes.

No need to put a motor on temporal passage, not yet anyway, it’s still getting us all where we’re going right now, just in time.

Peak

If there’s a luckier, more fortunate, more blessed human being than me out there, I’d like to see them.  Because it’s hard to believe that there could be anyone anywhere who gets to enjoy even a modicum of what I get, much less an excess.

You tell me who else is allowed to spend the day with about four dozen friends, family members, and new acquaintances on a perfect spring day for an overthought out and intentionally stupid bicycle “race” featuring traditional ascents and descents in our fair city while also taking the occasion to imbibe, hold forth, and kick back all afternoon and well into the early evening, and not only that, but also to receive about that same number of hand-written messages on beer-carton cardboard cut-outs with advice and admonitions inspired by the celebration of one’s birth, okay?

Who else, I ask you?

If reincarnation is really a thing, I must have been an awfully good person last time around to have earned an opportunity like this; I hope I’m not squandering my karmic riches by having so much fun this time around, but if so, it’s certainly worth it!

(And we did raise over $300 for Planned Parenthood and the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, so perhaps the debits to my account are slightly reduced.)

In any event, whatever the source of such good fortune, I gratefully acknowledge it in giving me the opportunity to:

• Congregate at my favorite bike shop drinking beer and whiskey while one after another familiar face appears
  
  
• Hang out in my backyard while those same familiar faces show up on bicycle to reapportion the excess canned water and write pithy messages to yours truly
  
  
• Reassemble in the courtyard of a local favorite watering hole to acknowledge the efforts of said faces (and legs) for several more hours of fun, jollity, and awe at a real-live bicycle racer who shows you how it’s done without hardly breaking a sweat.

Lucky me!

Hesher

Here’s how time is (or, at least time periods are) an illusion: If you’re doing the same things, talking about the same music, and modifying your consciousness in the same way as you did half a century ago then, for all intents and purposes, now could be then.

If you didn’t know that it was the end of the first quarter of the 21st century rather than nearly the beginning of the last quarter of the 20th, you couldn’t tell merely by observing when what was happening and who it was happening with was happening.

Sure, there would be clues: the bicycles would mostly be sturdy gravel bikes instead of scrawny ten speeds; the conversations about the music would be informed by being able to listen to it anywhere, all by yourself, piped directly into your years instead of having to be in someone’s bedroom sharing the vinyl experience together, and the consciousness-altering delivery system would be hash-infused pre-rolls purchased from a retail establishment rather than seedy ditch weed rolled in American flag papers at your high-school desk, but if you removed all those frames and simply examined the shared consciousnesses, who could tell?

And frankly, who would want to?

If we can time-travel by bicycle back to “simpler times” (that, really, weren’t all that simple what with way more street crime, lakes so polluted they caught fire, a US President resigning for complicity in a crime and its cover-up, plus bike tires that weren't nearly so flat resistant as today’s, even for those who have yet to make the conversion to tubeless), then shouldn’t we take that opportunity?

Even if it means that the “fire” is made from aluminum cans and Girl Scout water instead of driftwood and deadfall; even if it means that the ultimate expression of the irrational number is arrived at too late to do so.

Because that still means that then is now and now is then and all there ever is is.

Theme

I miss the old days when nostalgia was so much sweeter, don’t you?

In other words, we used to be so cool, didn’t we?

Remember how a Thursday night ride used to take you to the farthest reaches of county, through a hidden riparian zone or up some spookily forgotten bluff or over a decaying bridge to a place you’d never even heard of, much less ridden your bike to near midnight and well into the wee hours of the morning when the birds began chirping at the rising dawn?

Nowadays, a little wiggle in and over a familiar wooded trail and up and around to what just might be the watering hole that, in terms of elapsed time, you’ve been going to for longer than any other one in the whole darn town, is sufficient for a first act, and then, the usual back way to what’s become, more or less, the default spot in our fair city for tidy little bonfires, makes for a perfectly satisfactory Act Two in the overall production that, while it may not win an Academy Award this weekend for Best Thursday Night Ride ever, certainly gives you your money’s worth in thrills and chills, not to mention LOLs and chuckles, plus a few poignant reminiscences, as well.

And that’s fine, really, because another benefit of having done a thing for so long is that any comparisons one might be compelled to make with the past are shown to be no more relevant to present satisfaction than are tomorrow’s aspirations to yesterday’s joys; it’s all water under the bridge or sand through the hourglass or whatever other metaphor you want to use; what matters, really, or all that there is, as a matter of fact, is the moment you’re in and if you’ve gotten there by bike, and it includes fellowship and libation, then who cares if it isn’t what it was because it is what it is and that’s plenty.

Sprinkle

One of the most important dispositions to cultivate in Philosophy, (and in life), is what we usually call “epistemological humility,” or “epistemological humbleness.”

It’s the attitude which recognizes that even if you’re relatively sure of your belief or position, you could be wrong—an appetite for being shown that one is mistaken and a willingness, even hunger, to change one’s views as a result of new information or evidence.

In some ways, it’s the mindset of a scientist, who looks forward to their hypotheses being falsified, since that’s where real advancement of knowledge takes place.  

As the 18th century British Empiricist philosopher, David Hume, reminds us, we can’t ever be certain of the predictions of inductive reasoning, but we can be sure when we’re shown a counterexample that disproves the principle upon which our predictions are based.  

That’s why even the most settled scientific claims, like evolution, or plate tectonics, or even gravity, are called “theories.”  If someone comes along and finds human skeletal remains in the same fossil strata as trilobites, then, all bets are off, Mr. Darwin, and we’ve got to revise our thinking. 

Anyway, with that in mind, you make an effort to not be overly dogmatic.  Sure, you’ve got an end in mind—even if it’s one that apparently was a destination not too long ago—but that doesn’t mean you’ll only accept one way to get there.

And if the route upwards includes a double-helix shaped corkscrew to the concrete front yard of some big-city condominiums, well then, all right.

And if it also involves a beach “fire” that’s pretty much just the ignition of lighter fluid from a squeeze bottle on top of some sticks, sure, that’s fine, too.

Not every rain shower has to be a downpour (thankfully); sometimes a little sprinkle is all that’s needed.

And if the “ride” is mostly hanging out in a beloved (albeit recently visited) watering hole and making new friends, that’s plenty, as well.

Hooray

Of the four traditional elements—air, fire, earth, and water—it’s only that second one which inspires human beings to dance around and cheer.  

(Oh, I suppose there could be times when a dust devil or tornedo might give rise to happy feet for air; and maybe a waterspout or big wave could inspire frolics over water, but you know what I mean.)

Perhaps it’s because, among the four, it’s only fire that is manifested through human endeavor.

(And sure, flames can also arise without the help of homo sapiens, through lightning strikes or volcanic eruptions, but you see my point.)

In any event, it’s clear that when human beings do create fire—admittedly with lots of help from air—especially when near a grand body of water, (especially on a night when the earth beneath that water is especially apparent), and the flames from that conflagration rise to great heights, and the sparks from that blaze scurry over the ground to turn a duck pond into a celestial light show, that it’s impossible for men, women, children, and everything in between, not to cavort merrily, even if that’s only on the inside, while others can’t help vocalizing their joy, exclaiming “hooray,” “huzzah,” “yippie,” and “wow.”

Of all the holiday traditions, maybe the best is the one where you mark the end of the holiday season by setting ablaze the remnants of the holiday season.  

There’s something marvelously cathartic about witnessing dozens of artifacts, which only a few days earlier, had been the centerpiece of a family’s festivities, give themselves up to the process of oxidation, releasing heat and generating combustion products to the great amusement of all the assembled humanity.

The chilliest night of the year so far becomes almost too warm for comfort, and if that’s not a metaphor for our shared aspirations, I don’t know what is.

(Well, perhaps gilding the lily with explosives atop the coals, but there are limits, even though often exceeded.)