Riding Without Gloves

4th & University, San Diego

Much of my motorcycle riding the past several weeks has been relegated to the core of San Diego, mostly the downtown areas and the immediate neighboring communities.

I haven't done any joy riding in a while.

For one, I've spent a lot of time working on our Internet business. But two, I've been fighting off a flu bug the past 10 days.

But overall, my life has really narrowed down to working all day long and then hanging out at the bar at night. I haven't spent much time riding motorcycles with friends, not like the way I used to a few years ago when weekends seemed made for riding with friends.

I don't even pay much attention to the newest motorcycles out now. A fellow rider could talk about the newest sportbike from BMW or Yamaha, and I would nod my head as if I knew what they're talking about, but yet I wouldn't know a thing. I don't really care about the latest in motorcycle technology right now. I just want to talk about the deep philosophical stuff that only makes sense to a motorcycle rider.

Riding through the big city is a challenge enough. The traffic, the potholes, the tight turns, I never seem to get the Honda ST past 3rd gear. You can't think like a joy rider in these parts. You have to be more aggressive. You have to see yourself as having the advantage of two-wheels and then exploiting it. Otherwise, the cagers, the truckers, and cab drivers can sense the fear in you, and if they sense it you're dead.

Cafe Moto at Barrio Logan

I think somehow, that's made me a different rider.

For one, I don't seem to ride with gloves anymore. They're too bulky. I need to feel my fingers on the grips and levers, it gives me better control. I can fine tune the braking and clutching. Even when it rains, I still find it better to go without gloves.

Why I feel the need to have such fine control, I don't exactly know. Somehow, the steep hills and aggressive driving in the city just made me want to be that way.

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Are Dreams Another Form of Existence?

Often times I can't remember where I've traveled to. As the trip unfolds, it's amazing and fantastic, but yet in the end, I can't seem to remember the journey. It's as if there's a part of my life that remains mysterious.

If I'm jealous of Sash, it's that she can remember her dreams so vividly. She tells me about them in such great detail, that I'm left dumbfounded how I'm unable to recall anything. I know I dream, because I see very vague hints of what I dreamed, but still not clear enough to associate a few descriptive phrases.

"It's OK, you just had a bad dream", people will often say to each other when one wakes up in the middle of night yelling. It's way to calm someone down from thinking they are about to be physically harmed.

Certainly dreams are real. But are they reality?

To answer that question, one must define what reality is.

But reality is difficult to define because each person has their own belief of what is real. One man believes that God is real, simply because he believes it to be true. Another man may contend that physical evidence must be gathered before one can declare something to be real.

But "physical" is a conditional term. It's limited to what our five senses can detect. Are there other forms of information out there that we cannot detect?

We know sharks can detect the presence of other beings via electricity. Birds can navigate by magnetism. Bees can see objects via ultraviolet light. Mosquitoes can detect the presence of carbon dioxide. Certainly there is lot of information out there that humans are blinded to.

God and Heaven could be right there in front of us, but we don't believe them to exist because our five senses can't detect their presence. But what if our bodies possessed the mechanism to detect their existence? Wouldn't we then consider God and Heaven to be within the realm of science?

So are dreams just as much a part of the physical world? Do dreams not affect the physical body (stress, movement, vocal, sexual,)? Do we not learn and grow from our dreams just as much with everything else in our lives?

It makes we wonder if there are people who spend most of their existence within their dreams.

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There's No Such Thing as Forever

Mattole Road, Humboldt County, CA, March 2011

Since my teen years, from when I would ride my bicycle far away from home, running away from the loneliness and hurt of being an "unwanted stepchild", life has been a road. It's been a linear journey of going from one place to another and making turns down different paths.

I had grown up knowing that "forever" never really meant forever.

So when I was finally faced with the saving grace of being permanently anchored to something that I could grow from, I vowed to do something that my mother and father never made good on, honoring the sanctity of a promise.

And yet as with my mother and father, life brought me to another fork in the road, albeit 20 years later.

At least my mom and dad each recognized that you can't save a sinking ship.  And they've been around long enough to know that honoring something doesn't really get you anywhere.  I tried to be the hero that kept the ship afloat, and when people asked me how things were going I always told them all was well.  I wanted to know that I wasn't going to be like my mom and dad.

"It's about time!" each of them told me when they found out I had finally abandoned ship.

Some people have been able to remain committed to another person or to another institution or even to a specific brand of motorcycle, for the rest of their lives.  They even express that commitment by tattooing its name to their bodies.  But at what price does that commitment cost?

What other opportunities of growth and enrichment are we depriving ourselves of by remaining fixed to something?

Why do we make promises knowing that we can never predict the future?

And why I would believe that this time is different, and that this time really means forever?

If I can gradually eliminate "stuff" from my life, to the point where I become more transparent, more in touch with myself, and more reliant on my own faculties, then why do I need security?  Why do I need the promise of forever?

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