OoLNA: On Flying, and the Wright bros…
Blessings, my fellow Lunatic Naked Apes! Borrowing just a tad more from Master Douglas, “There is an art, it (the Guide) says, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground, and miss.” — D. Adams
A couple of days ago, I had the awesome opportunity to do just that!! With, of course, the valuable assistance of a commercial vertical wind tunnel! If you’re not familiar, it’s called ‘Indoor Skydiving’ although, I have to note, I don’t believe you spend much time going ‘up’ once you leave the plane, in regular skydiving… I think it might be more accurate to call this ‘Wind walking’, although, for popular recognition and appeal, I do understand why they went with ‘sky diving’. Gist of it is, you spend however much time you want to pay for in a state of simulated free fall. This is NOT a ‘ride’, but rather a commercial incarnation of the equipment NASA and the military have been using for decades to train flight personnel, and engaging the activity comes with ALL of the risks and hazards that go with. However, it’s also an extreme ‘kick in the pants’ (to show my age), well worth the relatively minimized dangers. Due to the nature of the setup, experienced ‘flyers’ (the instructors, for instance) are able to ‘float’, quite acrobatically, as well as artistically, all around the roughly 10’ diameter, 20–25’ish tall cylinder. And no, while a VR simulation might be interesting, you are NOT directly above any ‘large/lethal fans’! While there is a danger of banging yourself around the tube, if you choose to act relatively dumb, ignoring the instructors and such, with just a tiny bit of ‘good sense’ (remember last post…) it’s probably way more hazardous to cross just about any street. And, you don’t get to ‘fly’ across or around the street!!
Ever since the dawn of humanity, we have looked up at the birds with envy. How Grand it must be to be able to soar off into the ‘wild blue yonder’ at will, with the ease we find in ‘walking up the path’. To dance with the eagles and fraternize with hawks, to swim in the mist of a fogbank and race smoke columns to the Jetstream, to literally walk on clouds and bask in the unfiltered light of Sol, to glide with the Moon through the stars…!! Sure, thanks to brilliant and courageous LNA’s like Da Vinci and the Wright brothers among so many others, we have machines to help us approach this state, but as a motorcyclist, started on small dirt bikes, who has driven airport crash vehicles with tires almost as tall as me, and virtually everything in between, it is a reality that, the larger the vehicle, the more ‘disconnected’ one gets from the traversed medium. For instance, when you ride a bicycle, does it feel ‘the same’ as driving a car? Of course not, the car, both more powerful and effortless, wraps you in a steel cocoon of perceived ‘safety’ that is nowhere to be found on any bike, including the motorized ones! The same applies, from my observation, to flying. Vehicles like hot air balloons and hang gliders offer a much more personal, ‘in your face’ experience, compared to even the smallest plane, which again, encloses you in an illusory ‘protective shell’. Funny thing is, I am starting to wonder that Life itself doesn’t perhaps follow a similar mien… It is certainly possible (as exemplified by so many) to live your entire life within the ‘protective shell’ society offers, and from that seat be indemnified from most anything that doesn’t ‘shake the foundations’. However, just as with driving or flying, the limitations inherent are considerable, and they do tend to change ‘the experience’ dramatically, in my humble opinion. ‘Being safe’ is NOT what Life’s about, it’s simply a ‘common societal desire’! Life truly lived is hazardous to your health! Right off the bat, one of the only things I can guarantee about it, is that Death is inevitable, and my perception is that it’s the Quality, not the quantity wherein lies 100% of the ‘value’! Even from a psychological standpoint, existing just for the sake of existence is only a step or so short of suicidal. Pain sucks! It hurts and makes us feel miserable. Who in their right mind would want that in their Experience? I certainly don’t! But I am willing to accept it as ‘part of the deal’ while traveling through this sojourn that, at least to me, seems to match comparable levels of joy/pleasure and pain in so many experiences! It has been noted that “from the vantage point of a sophisticated conception of psychology, properly speaking, all pain is psychological”. I have found this to be true enough, and extremely useful at times of extreme pain, being able to, at least minimally, mitigate such through focused thought. The sources are real, the broken arm, the laceration, but physiologically, they boil down to electrical impulses delivered via the nervous system, which can be influenced and even, to some degree, controlled though thought (both conscious & sub) to the effect of actually ‘feeling less’ than what you might otherwise experience. Is it easy? How ‘easy’ is it to maintain total calm and composure when bullets are flying around you? Is it doable? Absolutely!! But, only those who choose to will even have a chance of succeeding!! When we ‘step outside of the box’ and open ourselves up to the ‘pain’, we are also expanding our ability to even perceive, let alone understand, Joy as well as setting ourselves up for the same!
In my experience…
As a friend once noted: ‘your glory lies outside of your box…’ Pushing your limits is one of the first definitions of ‘growth’.
So, when does pain hit us most? When we step outside of the box, of course! Yet, despite the ‘growing pains’ that so oft accompany, dancing where you think you fear to tread leads to personal flights that transcend the physical! For instance, most of my life has involved the saddle of some bike or other…
I started my riding career around 13 on friend’s dirt bikes, but my Junior year in high school, acquired my own Yamaha 175 enduro, with which I tore up the local trails and hills, as well as the streets around town a little… I used to play a ‘game’ (being a very different pre-chopper ‘era’) with local police… A side note, at the time, I actually lived next door to the then chief of police, who was good friends with my dad. My ‘game’ was to take my bike out in the hills to play and muddy up the license plate on whatever Friday or Saturday, and then on the cruise that evening, I would find someone who was pulled over, maybe for some infraction, but probably for ‘cruising’, ride a fat ‘wheelie’ past them, which usually resulted in the cop ‘tossing licenses’ to come after me. I would then proceed to lead them a merry chase around town (specifically NOT ‘high speed’), and after a while, being on an essentially ‘street legal’ dirt bike, find some convenient ‘rabbit hole’ they couldn’t follow through! Of course, being the small’ish town that it was, they knew who I was, so, part of my ‘penance’, anywhere I went around town either on my bike (when it was clean) or in my ’65 Chevy ½ ton step-side, I had the pleasure of a police escort just waiting for me to forget a turn signal…!!
Prior to most of that, however, within a few months of getting my first bike, I sort of ‘inaugurated’ my riding career by playing ‘tag’ with a light pole in the middle of the urban highway heading south out of town one fine drizzly morning! I was headed home from a motor route delivering newspapers, to get ready for school. I was cruising down the road at about 45mph, when it started to rain again… I had had my visor up because I truly love feeling the wind in my face (and hair, when I am comfortable enough with the road…). As I reach up and pulled the face shield down, one of the hinges broke, leaving the shield flapping in my face. Without really thinking, I pulled it off entirely, and got a face full of roughly 45mph raindrops. I immediately started looking down my forks, angling my head enough that the edge of the helmet kept the rain from hitting my eyes directly, while also starting to slow down, thinking ‘I’ll slow and get off the road as quickly as I can; hopefully anyone behind me will see my brake light and not just ‘plow’ into me. Even as this thought was passing through my mind, I watched the 45˚ curb of the center island go under my front tire… I was drifting left! And that’s the last contiguous memory.
I recall consciousness once in the ambulance, from the blinding pain when they set my broken arm and have been told that I got up somehow (broken rt arm, dislocated lt shoulder) and staggered around for a few steps, before collapsing again. Along with shoulder and arm, an extremely severe concussion (despite helmet, Dr’s indicated head trauma should have killed me), resulted in 4 days in ICU during an 11 day in all, hospital stay. Subsequently, due to the break about midway up the bone, I dealt with a metal pin inside my right humerus (upper arm), necessitating a stint of ‘self-taught ambidextrous’, and about three months leave from high school. Ultimately, the pin came out, but, by the time I was cleared to start using my right arm, the muscles had atrophied necessitating physical therapy (effective legalized sadism) to restore function. I do feel for my mother… during this time, first thing I did was get the bike rideable. I’m pretty sure, as I was unable to actually ride at that point, that she was convinced I was fixing it up to sell it. The first painful weeks of PT were dedicated to simply getting my arm up to ‘straight out’ from my body. I do believe that my psyche has ‘blotted’ out those memories as at least semi comparable to the wreck itself! At any rate, as soon as I could get my arm high enough to reach the handlebars, I was riding my motorcycle to physical therapy!! This honestly qualifies, at least to date, as the most bodily destructive experience in my life! However, I would be remiss in noting that, aside from my second wedding (son’s mom) and my son, motorcycles have given me my ‘highest’ experiences as well, only scuba diving being anything comparable!!
My favorite bike so far, the Shadow my first wife gave me one year for my birthday, which carried me for hours along the Sierra foothills and around Sacramento. It was a ‘hybrid’, as, having been wrecked, it had been rebuilt with a front end, airbox and rear fender from a derelict Harley, repainted the stock ‘wineberry’ (a very pretty semi metallic maroon) with no decals. The night we picked it up, about 65 miles out, riding it home along interstate 80, I was feeling good. I didn’t have a speedometer, just a tachometer, but I was just following the flow of traffic, maybe slightly higher than midway between the fastest and the slowest on the road, feeling like I was ‘loafing’… My wife, behind me in our car, starts flashing headlights signaling me to stop, so I take the next off-ramp, more or less as ‘in the middle of nowhere’ as you can get in the mid Central Valley… Once stopped on the side of the off-ramp, I walk back to car to see what’s up. First thing she asks is ‘do you have any idea how fast you were going?’ As mentioned, no speedo, I didn’t really have a clue, but, based partly on other traffic and mostly on how the bike felt, I responded with ‘what 60, 65’ish?’ (keep in mind this was back when speed limits were 55) And, that was actually more or less what I actually thought I was doing… she responded with ‘85’! Ok kids, cover your ears… I had the presence to not ‘cream my jeans’, but I definitely came as close possible to ‘falling in love’ with that machine! No, I didn’t ‘name’ her (yes, ‘she’ definitely was!!) but we spent the most awesome hours exploring the Sierra foothills! Unfortunately, about a year later, a life change that included a move to the east coast required her rehoming…
Riding a motorcycle anywhere is an exercise in risk. Urban areas, of course, are the worst for the unknowns that go with other drivers but even rural areas have their share of danger, never knowing if the next blind curve is going to put you face to face with a deer or other wildlife or even rocks in the road. But the sheer joy, pleasure, and content I feel cruising with the wind in my hair, along down a forested avenue or down a quiet country road is worth any potential pain! Of course, as previously mentioned, I have discovered a bit of an ‘adrenaline lust’ in myself that does in fact persist, as well… And, ultimately, I also see it as: being an experienced, competent rider, if I’m on ‘my game’, Dad willing, I will be up to handling whatever comes, while closest to ‘soaring’ you can get short of ‘extreme’ sports! But all of that is just me… You don’t have to entertain death-defying to get outside your box, that’s as easy as simply doing something different than you normally do! Maybe it’s as simple as wearing something you think would look good but are afraid to ‘risk’, or deciding and enrolling in that class, or even just ordering Carmel Mocha instead of the White Choc Frap! Yep, it’s that easy! The trick is simply, keep doing it, something new every day!!
No stepping outside of your box is not always necessarily safe or secure, but that’s kinda the point! Personal growth comes mostly through responding to the dynamics of life, as presented, in as positive a manner as contrivable. One of my favorite personal philosophy’s: ‘Life is challenges; Living, is overcoming them’. Mostly, it simply takes a personal decision/choice of self-definition (my next topic). Let go as much as you are able, just for a few moments, who you think you are… Consider instead, who you would see yourself as… Who is the ‘ideal you’, in your mind? Are you really one who simply reacts? Or do you see yourself the proactive, living your life as a conscious, sentient LNA? Would you be a ‘wallflower’, missing most, if not all, of the ‘dances’, or one who rises to meet Life’s song with your own wonderfully, beautifully unique ‘dance’…? Only you can decide what that looks like, as only you can decide to engage it, but engage it you must, if you truly desire to ‘live a life’!
Blessings on your Path,
my siblings, all!!
