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| At the danger of stating the obvious, Moab is is one of mountain biking's great meccas. Nearly every mountain biking magazine you might open has at least one picture of Moab and probably every third issues features an article about a ride in Moab, or some product launch, so the manufactures can cash in on the red rock cachet. I've been living in Western Colorado for three years now, about an hour and half away from Moab and have only taken a handful of trips there. Mostly because we have bombing riding in our own backyard that induces very little reason for leaving.
But this Memorial Day weekend we were inundated with cool temperatures and steady showers. "Indian Spring," I'm calling it. Considering there was a buddy visiting from out of town with the express purpose of riding, we felt obligated to get in some sort of ride somewhere. After getting rained out in the Rabbit Valley parking lot, we decided to make the dash over the state line for Moab, where blue skies are nearly always guaranteed. Joel, being the most familiar with Moab, suggested the Sovereign Trail. I'd never been on Sovereign, and am always up for something new. It was about three hours of choppy sandstone, chunky rubble-ridden washes and terrain that was never predictably up or down. I never knew whether it was worth stopping to raise or lower my seatpost; something that bothers me horribly. I hate climbing with my post too low, and equally hate having to descend with my post stuck way up my ass. Sovereign was typical of what most of my Moab experiences have been - stretches of grinding boredom linking up sections of trail that are almost interesting. It seems almost sacrilegious to speak of Moab in such terms, when it gets such glowing reviews from the rest of the world. But the truth is, I'm not that impressed with Moab. I did like Bartlett Wash, but so far Moab is still simply a place to go when everything else is too wet. And even at that, a day hanging out with friends around the grill might be just as enjoyable. | | |
| Sometimes life throws you funny little stoires. Like browsing throug the used book selection, observing the old lady volunteer muttering to herself under breath in front of titles such as "Bridge Game Strategies" and "Living with Cats."
But I had to be a little impressed later on when she asked me if was looking for something in particular. "Yeah," I said," I'm looking for a copy of Herzog by Saul Bellow."
"Oh," she replied, "I know we just had a copy come through, but I don't think we have one right now."
Props to you, cat-breath muttering lady, for being on top your inventory. | | |
| I recently took a political idealogy quiz and was a bit surprised by the result: "Very Liberal - You are about as far left as you can be before heading into Stalin's backyard." I was raised in a conservative evangelical environment. I can remember listening to Focus on the Family Radio in my mom's kitchen, and feeling a sense of elation in the Republican victory in 1994, and the sense of promise and change in the "Contract with America." At that point, I thought that left-leaning liberals were willful rebels to common sense and the obvious; people who had no other motivation than impeding progress out of perverse sense of orneriness. "Pissing on the wheels of progress
," as an Army buddy said.
Now, in 2009, nearly thirty, I feel immensely proud to have played a role in electing Obama to office, and find the Republican party has taken the place of liberals in my mind. Only it is a sadder feeling of distance now, like looking at an old friend in a tragic case of drug abuse, has drifted off into a land of absurd self-delusion and dangerous daydreams. I find it painful to listen to Republican commentary, wondering, "Do they have any idea what they are talking about? Do they have any connection with reality anymore?" The party that claimed to champion freedom and small government gave us the Patriot Act, wiretapping, and kept churning out new powers, legislation and departments to monitor and govern the lives of private citizens. And now, having made a mess and embarrassment of our country, they clamor against every step being taken to undo the havoc they have wrecked, claiming the banner of "the loyal opposition" when our country is hurting for unity.
In my ideal political environment, I prefer libertarianism. Let people alone to do whatever they choose, so long as it does not interfere in the lives of others. However, it seems an inescapable truth that as any sort of system or group grows, it inevetiably becomes more complex and the simplicity of libertarianism cannot be preserved. There will always be too many people clamoring for governance and regulation to let the independents like myself be. So I figure as long as we are to have government, it might as well be aiding its citizens rather than impeding their lives.
It's painful to feel this distance from my family and the way I raised. But I honestly feel I have arrived here by following after the truth as best I can perceive it. I hope the idealogy I was raised with and the one I find myself aligned with now find a common ground and a means to continue to moving forward.
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| The term "cognitive dissonance" has been popping up a lot in my head lately. Partly because I've been reading a fair amount of consumption analysis books where this terms pops up and also because I am trying to figure out what is going on in my head. Late winter generally is my season for heavy self-analysis. It's when I find myself burned-out and frustrated with life, wondering why I feel so mired. Early winter to mid winter isn't so bad. There is the thrill of changing seasons and a meteorological justification for lounging inside. But by now I'm caught in a frustrating limbo of waiting for the snow to melt, praying, "Please, all we need is a few more days of warm sunshine." Inevitably, just as things are on the cusp of drying out, here comes another round of rain or snow. This is a necessary cycle of healing for the trails, which were dry, blown-out powder by the end of summer, totally different trails from the smooth tackiness of spring. "i was riding lines I'd never rode before," one of my buddies commented after one of our last rides of the season at the Lunch Loops. At that point, the trails were simply a web of loose rocks and powdery dry dirt that proved quite treacherous to ride. There was no picking a line, through a turn, you simply had to drift your way through. But the trails of spring will be a different story all together. The dirt will have settled down and packed in from the freeze/thaw cycle, the rocks shoved to the side. It will be a smooth ribbon of velcro, forgiving of the skills that have atrophied over the winter, feeding the stoke of spring.
But right now it is all angst and furor. I recently quit my job from burned-out frustration. It was a Sunday I was supposed to go to work and I as I sat there in my chair, staring at my bike, thinking of my friends going riding, I simply could not bring myself to put my work boots on. I texted my boss, "Sorry, but I won't be coming in to work today," turned off my phone, loaded up my bike and headed out to join my friends. As I headed out under bluebird skies, I realized that while I have never headed off for a ride with a heavy heart, plenty are the times I have headed out to work that way. Of course, there is obvious that riding is something I do for fun, not out of obligation, while work is a definite obligation, not recreation. And hence the importance of recreation - a chance to re-create yourself. I guess I've spent enough time riding lately that I have re-created myself in a new image, one incompatible with a life centered around 12+ hour days driving trucks.
Now that I find myself in the extended reality of unemployment, all the crazier for quitting my job in an economy where people are glad to have one, I find myself wondering at the stories in my head. They are playing up there all the time. I passed them off as mere amusement for the longest time, but have lately begun to realize what role they play in shaping my destiny. The things I daydream of are the things I wind up doing. Three years ago, while living in Arkansas, I was spending time I should have been studying for classes surfing the Internet, lusting after the trails of Western Colorado. When I wasn't looking at trails, I was looking at bikes, dreaming of the plushness of a full-suspension ride. Now I find myself living on the Western Slope, in a garage full of bicycles, no less than three full-suspension frames (they are not all quite full-fledged bicycles), including one from a boutique brand that visited only my most rarified day dreams. This retrospective gives me a certain measure of confidence that I will be able to move to the second phase of my dreams - full time explorer and mountain biker of the backcountry of my new home state.
I started out this post with the term, "cognitive dissonance." Cognitive dissonance, in a rather simplified manner of speaking, is the process by which we justify our decisions. I've been rather concerned lately that I wound up in my current state through a long, convoluted process of this sort. But a couple paragraphs worth of mulling over has me feeling better about where I am - that I actually am following my dreams in the midst of various bad decisions, not simply making up excuses for it all. | | |
| he internet used to be my refuge of anyomity. I started blogging because I was tired of simply writing for myself. I wrote with the same candor and honesty as if I were only writing for myself. So what if other people read it? They were simply online strangers. But as people began reading and commenting on my blog, I began to promote myself to select people. I still felt I had some measure of control over who was reading my thoughts. It didn’t bother me that random strangers were reading my intimate thoughts and experiences. After all, it is often easier to be honest with complete strangers than people you now.
I gave not a second thought to the burgeoning of MySpace as I began importing my blogs there from xanga. After all, it was mostly people my age, or younger. It was our territory, protected from the eyes of our elders by the chasm of technology and coolness. But through the linking madness of facebook, I suddenly see the older generation online. The people whom I learned my manners from, who taught me to tie my shoes and whom I deferred to at dinner table conversations. Suddenly they are here, able to read my irreverent theories, comment on careless shared bon-mots and if they so choose, able to relay it to an even older generation: their parents, my grandparents.
The most profound sign of the inexorable march of internet connectivity was when I went home this October for the first time in two years and spied a wireless router. My dad’s barn is a place where equipment and technology from the 1970’s seems incredibly bizarre and advanced. It is filled with airplanes designed in the 1930’s, tractors from the ’50’s, dump trucks from the 60’s. Only a quarter of the whole space has concrete. The rest of it is dirt floor, hard-packed from boots, tires and spilled petroleum products. The whole building could be time-warped to the Dust Bowl and the only thing that would seem out of place is a tiny, blinking box next to the door.
The internet had been like moving away to college. Here was an enormous world I could explore without supervision, and always able to edit my experiences in the weekly phone calls home with my parents. But now it as if I woke up one morning in my unfettered college town, and discovered my parents had moved in across the street. | | |
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