Thursday, July 28, 2011

Regarding trails and Tatooine

In high school one of my favorite pastimes was jumping on a mountain bike and going riding. There was something about the freedom it entailed, journeying into the unknown, completely dependent upon oneself for both direction and momentum. The one standard for defeat on a ride was having to turn around and go back the way you came. To this day I hate turning around, my one comfort being the wise words of Lewis,  with my rough paraphrase, "If one is going the wrong way, the quickest way home is to stop what you are doing and go back".

Still, Lewis aside, the purpose of mountain biking is the journey itself, and so with my single law in place, the ride would begin.

The second guide wasn't so much as a rule, but more of a preference: when the path divided, take either 1) the one that leads farther from the known, or 2) the one you have not yet traveled. Frost knew what he was talking about. At least in the context of mountain biking.

Pulling back to the larger context, its somewhat frightening how my temperament in a temporary hobby serves such an accurate overlay for the path life has taken me.

The predictable life has always seemed contemptible to me. In part, I blame my parents, who never seemed to place stock in doing that which people expected, or falling in step to rhythm set by the drum of society. The rest of the blame lies in Luke Skywalker, and after living in Elkton of Tatooine, the contentment of the rooted seems, well....rooted.

Bleh. I've got no point to this, other than the fact that I haven't written about it before. Hence the name of the blog I suppose.

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