A few thots on biking

I clipped images from the big batch of junk ads that arrived in our mail this morning, taped them to a paper canvas, and stepped back to ponder what I had wrought. Shaking my head in disapproval, I remarked: "It ain't pretty." Then I shared the result right here.

Dear diary,

Neighbor B. is the guy whose house is diagonal from ours. Neighbor A. is the guy whose house is directly across the street from Neighbor B. Now I've been told that Neighbor B. is an avid bicyclist. Here's how it happened:

When my sweetheart & I were mingling with Neighbor A. near the communal mailboxes (it was just before I slapped together the above collage), we confessed the fact that we enjoy riding our bicycles thru the neighborhood. This disclosure caused Neighbor A. to erupt into a spate of wise advice:

Oh! you know who likes biking? Neighbor B.!! you should talk to Neighbor B.!! — he loves going biking!!

But we're not very well acquainted with this Neighbor B.; so it would be uncomfortable to walk over to his house, ring the doorbell, and ask him to relinquish his day to us. — Moreover, I've never even seen the guy on a bicycle: I've seen him driving his truck, and I've seen him standing in his garage; but never biking. And why does anyone need to be shown the ropes, in this regard? (Before biking around your neighborhood, is it necessary that an experienced biker first take you on a thirteen-hour tour?) Can't you just hop on your bike and ride, in any direction, and keep mental notes where you went? (You can always send yourself an encrypted email.) I say: as long as you're able find your way back home, you are technically sound.

But I suppose some people are picky about smoothness of the trip. If you find a route that has loose gravel and is steeply uphill most of the way, it would be less fun than, say, a route that is freshly paved, whose ups and downs are gradual like a children's roller coaster.

But is this true? Do most folks prefer to ride over gentle green hills with sheep a-grazing, as opposed to snow-capped mountains with grizzled goats? — I kinda like the sight of a goat.

Come to think of it, WHY do goats have such a bad name!?

I blame Saint Matthew. He made Jesus use goats to represent bad, in his false dichotomy, as opposed to good. Then Nietzsche came along and said, "Good and bad are slave-terms." But Saint Matthew's heart was fat, and his ears were heavy, and his eyes were shut: therefore he chose neither to see nor to hear nor to understand this teaching of Nietzsche; instead, Matthew remained unconverted and unhealed, so he forced the following words into the mouth of his Jesus:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world..."

And he shall say also unto them on the left hand: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels!!!"

[—from The Gospel according to Matthew, 25:31-41]

In his earlier parable about the seed-sower (13:24-30), Matthew allows Jesus to tell a short story about an entrepreneur who plants wheat in his field, and then this man's competitor sneaks in and sows tares amid the wheat, as an act of corporate sabotage, so as to dominate the market. I think this is a better way to divvy the roles of morality: wheat-versus-tares, as opposed to sheep-versus-goats. (By the way, tares, for anyone born after the age of late-80s gangsta-rap, are injurious weeds that look like wheat when young.) Because everyone loves wheat: it's good to eat! whereas tares are tasteless and abusive to their beholder. But sheep and goats are not so. Sheep are cute, they lick your hand with their tongue. Also goats are cute, and they lick your hand with their tongue. So my point is that it was wrong for Matthew to cause his savior Jesus to sin by slandering an entire family of animal. He should have stuck to strictly herbivorous agriculture, where his expertise lies.

But back to biking. Bicycle riding is such a vast topic; where should we start? Maybe it would interest you to know our daily routine:

OUR DAILY ROUTINE
(with regard to bicycle riding)

Our daily routine is to bike downhill, in the direction of the pond; then take a right & stay on that road until you reach the gravelly part where all the potholes are. Take a right there, and then the first left.

Now you're on the road that leads you to the park with the circular path. I'm talking about the park where the trail starts out as a normal paved sidewalk, and then, about three quarters of the way around, it turns into a wooden bridge, and you can look to your left or your right and see water all around: & you can imagine drowning. You can also imagine sharks & seaweed; and you can imagine how cold it is down there, underneath the water.

Then, at the end of this circular route, there's a building that has cardboard cutouts in the shape of storks and other birds all over its windows; and when you walk past it, there's always children inside singing songs, & you will see one tall form looming over the children. That is their master: she's an adult.

This scene always summons the same thots to take over your mind: You wonder "Why are people still bearing children?" And also "Why are adults still bothering to teach these children?" For everyone ends up ignorant in this country; what's the use of swimming against the current? Just go with the flow. Get a job like the rest of us. Mitigate your spiritual pain by way of pills. Teach your kids to love Jesus: that'll give them something to do, till they're 30 at least. I myself was about 27 before I found my way out of that maze. And now all I do is argue with everyone. Believers and infidels alike. For nobody shares my take on religion, just as nobody shares my taste in art. — It's all good.