What You Really Need Is To BREATHE

I promise we’ll get back to bikes. But I need to make a point, and it’s a bit tricky to blithely steer the conversation toward innocent recreational pursuits, as if nothing of import was going on at the moment.

In short, our world is going to hell in a handbasket with us in it. If the media and the social media are to be believed, that is. Wherever on the political spectrum you happen to fall, the images we’re shown are intense, and the conclusions we’re prodded to draw frightening. Layer on top of that warnings that this is what the end of a decaying empire looks like, and it’s not surprising that we’re all hyperventilating.

The possibility that some force of integrity and reason will rise to wrest control of this runaway train and steer it back on track to sanity looks more unlikely with each passing day. And so we conclude we are indeed witnessing an unraveling of civilization, collapse of humanity, and possibly the end of reality as we know it. Yes, we’ve finally arrived at the dark and hopeless heart of the human condition and discovered that humanity (or at least half of it) is just awful. Everything is pointless, and we’re powerless to do anything about it or create any type of change.

Whoa!

I’m not one to make light of the gravity of the situation. But seriously, it’s too easy to overlook the fact that we have any choice in how to face this encroaching nightmare belief. Like early in the pandemic, after I read this article in The Atlantic*, and walked around anxious and afraid, unable to sleep for several days, my teeth clenched, circles under my eyes getting deeper and darker, and my shoulders getting closer to my ears every day. Until I came across this revelatory statement posted by a wiser friend: “I refuse to be frightened.” Deciding not to be scared is not a denial of the scary aspects of our reality. The realization that I had a choice —even amid some genuinely scary shit— to decide how I was going to react, had an immediate and profound effect, and I believe has largely helped me maintain my sanity, and lead a relatively normal life for the past several months.

The pandemic, of course, is not the only scary thing happening right now, so it’s not terribly surprising that these soul-killing beliefs are creeping —nay, steamrolling— over our collective consciousness. Pretty soon, we all pass each other in the street with lips tightly clenched, nodding a greeting of grim common understanding that this is what we got, and it’s only gonna get worse.

But here’s the thing I’ve been thinking. If one guy can find 13 ways of looking at something as small a blackbird and find unbearable beauty, surely the rest of us collectively can come up with more than one or two ways of looking at something as large as the world around us. So we can focus on and rage against some powerful few, who are already so wealthy that it defies reason that they would need to become even more so, but who seem to treat the rest of us like pieces on a chess board. Sure, we can focus our attention on how we’ve allowed them to create the world in which we must now live, and how they’ve destroyed our environment, our neighborhoods, towns and communities, our trust in one another and our once-hallowed institutions, and our ability to flourish and grow, or even just live small but secure lives and provide for our children and elders. And those very people designed the system to keep everyone poor and divided, so that nobody can challenge…. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah….

Or, we can choose to focus our attention somewhere else. Which —mercifully— brings us back to bikes (and also hopefully blackbirds).

It would not be an overstatement to claim that last spring, at the onset of the pandemic, people turned to bikes literally for salvation. How else would you explain that this sleepy, possibly declining industry experienced what some claim was a 300% increase in ridership in 2020? If bikes didn’t save the world (yet), they sure as hell saved your ass last summer, didn’t they? We couldn’t socialize, couldn’t dine out, couldn’t work out, couldn’t travel, heck, those of us in urban centers couldn’t even safely walk outside. But, oh! a bike could carry you away from all that! And you could —safely, with just a couple of friends— socialize, picnic out, exercise, travel and be away from crowds in one fell swoop. And watch blackbirds dart in and out of dense shrubbery along the trail. And you could breathe.

Which is what I think we’ve all forgotten to do.

Clearly, it's time to get away from all this. Let the handbasket go straight to hell, while we get the hell out. Out of doors, that is**. Wherever you live, whatever you believe, whatever your job and household demands, if there ever was a time to give yourself a weekly vacation, this is it. Spontaneous, small, homemade, frugal and delicious vacation someplace nearby, somewhere that you know that exists but where you've never been, somewhere where you can move your body and free your mind so you don't go insane. Leave your decluttering, your homeschooling, your work-at-home behind. And your screens. Nothing bad will happen, and —trust me— they will still be there when you return (though you may choose to leave the screens off). Take a weekday morning, a quick overnight, or simply one glorious day off, so you can rest your mind, pull those shoulders down from around your ears, relax your face into a smile, and draw a full, deep, satisfying breath.

But, but!.. you say, —the world needs fixing. It needs us!

Maybe. Or maybe we are the ones who need fixing. Maybe we are the ones who are broken by the avalanche of messages, headlines, slogans, memes and commentary. Maybe we need to remind ourselves that those are only a handful of ways of looking at reality, and that there are so many more! That reality resists being defined, and continues to be this beautiful, multifaceted, never fully knowable realm which still holds possibilities for joy, for beauty, for love.

Footnotes:

This article by Caitlin Johnstone was my jumping off point.

*Here’s the article from The Atlantic. Read or skip, your choice.

**The CDC encourages this: “Choose outdoor activities and places where it’s easy to stay 6 feet apart, like parks and open-air facilities”.