When you climb on your bike... What is your FIRST, major and enduring thought?
All the bad things that can happen? or... Your Hunger for the Soul filling, lung expanding, heart throbbing joy that lives on the open road?
Do you spend your time worrying about dealing with all the possible lowsides, highsides and potholes of life? or do you set things up with a reasonable amount of common sense... and then, having done what you could do... Go out and LIVE?
No matter how much ATGATT you strap on; how much insurance you carry, how bright your colors, how loud your pipes, how careful your attention, how skilled your handling and how lucky you might be... at the end of the road... You Die.
Looking back, do you want to see; A life lived inside sealed rooms with filtered sterile air and non-flamable, non-toxic, non-cancer inducing padding? Eating food that is carefully created to be safe for your heart... and tasteless? Protected by armed guards and cradle to grave oversight and management by a "benevolent" government?
OR...
Do you want to LIVE, and taste all the Joyous memories you can create... until you die?
That's truly the question that sits hidden under all the noise and spin.
...and in the end... all that spin for "Safety and Security" is generally spun by somebody with something to sell or an agenda that will collect power unto themselves...
... and in the end, how much of that caution even matters? 'cause the triple check safety nuts and those who LIVE... end up in the same place... a handful of ashes in a bucket.
If you choose that imagined safety, security and predictability, Ok, that's Fine. I don't have a problem with it. The choice is yours. Where I start having "Issues" is when somebody ELSE... starts trying to impose their Values and Oh-pin-yuns on ME... How, where, when and why I ride... and How I LIVE (or do anything else for that matter)
Look. The only real question I ask myself before I take any action is... Is this all me? Can/Will this do any damage to another person or their property?
***I'm talking physical and real here... not someone's ego or dainty feelings.. grow up and get over it. The fact that you might miss someone if they check out early from their decision to take risks is YOUR problem. You've no right to try and restrict someone else's options, 'cause you don't want YOUR feelings hurt. Telling someone; "All you think about is yourself! You don't think about ME... you don't think about US! If you can't hear the double standard hypocrisy in that... I can't explain it to you***
If the only downside hits me... than it is MY choice and ever'body else needs to let go and just stand back.
That goes for Helmets, ATGATT, cigarettes, seat belts, crossing the double yellow to pass slow VW bugs when you've got visibility for 400 yards in both directions, sky diving, medical insurance, ... and on and on and on...
People need to let go, stand back and let folks LIVE. They'd get a more harmonious outcome.
Grab Your Handles and Ride
Brian
... Splitting the wind on a Motorcycle... Feeding my soul with the Healing power of the Open Road... following that twisting, Ribbon of Highway that leads me on...
1 comment:
Live and let live is my motto.
If people choose not to minimize their risks, such as not wearing a hell or seat belt, I just try and think of it more as a 'natural selection' sort of process. Thinning the herd perhaps.
I think people should be able to do as they wish as long as they aren't harming others.
What is that saying? "Your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose."
Cheers.
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