Wednesday, May 26, 2004
MINDFULNESS
There is no such thing as a mindless bike commute, sometimes that bothers me. Sometimes I want to get lost in the moment, in the flow of the experience. You can't do that on a bicycle or you may regret it. You have to pay full attention all the time, and I do.
Driving a car is the same thing. No room for errors of mindlessness, but more people do it, lost in thought during the crawling commute, staring off in the distance during the freeway conveyor belt, and they often are involved in accidents. I read recently that more than 1 million people die yearly from automobile accidents (anyone have a reference to check this for me?), that's some lack of mindfulness. Just imagine how many more accidents there are out there that don't result in death. There's not that room for error on a bicycle.
I think sometimes that prevents me from riding more than anything else when I make that decision to drive in to my secret spot, park and walk the 20 minutes to the office. Sometimes I just don't want to have to think about the trip in, just want to get in the line of traffic, and walk the safe sidewalks as a pedestrian, not worrying about signalling a turn, or the taking of a lane, or the passing of a ped, or the adjustment of my helmet. Just sometimes...
On another note, I met Mike today. Another fellow commuter, who lives near the Lemoyne interchange with I-83, and who bikes to the naval support center south of New Cumberland (about 2 miles he tells me), but not if its raining in the morning. Maybe we can get Mike to change that someday. Leaving an extra five minutes is all it would take to make sure of enough time for changing from wet to dry clothes and wiping yourself down. But really it's only necessary to do so if caught in a full rain, and that happens so rarely, especially during a 2 mile commute. This morning, the rain was coming down while I lay in bed waiting for the next snooze alarm, and threatened until I left the apartment, but held off during my 20 minutes into the office, as it often does.
Song of the Day: "Dice" by Finley Quaye w/ Beth Orton
Driving a car is the same thing. No room for errors of mindlessness, but more people do it, lost in thought during the crawling commute, staring off in the distance during the freeway conveyor belt, and they often are involved in accidents. I read recently that more than 1 million people die yearly from automobile accidents (anyone have a reference to check this for me?), that's some lack of mindfulness. Just imagine how many more accidents there are out there that don't result in death. There's not that room for error on a bicycle.
I think sometimes that prevents me from riding more than anything else when I make that decision to drive in to my secret spot, park and walk the 20 minutes to the office. Sometimes I just don't want to have to think about the trip in, just want to get in the line of traffic, and walk the safe sidewalks as a pedestrian, not worrying about signalling a turn, or the taking of a lane, or the passing of a ped, or the adjustment of my helmet. Just sometimes...
On another note, I met Mike today. Another fellow commuter, who lives near the Lemoyne interchange with I-83, and who bikes to the naval support center south of New Cumberland (about 2 miles he tells me), but not if its raining in the morning. Maybe we can get Mike to change that someday. Leaving an extra five minutes is all it would take to make sure of enough time for changing from wet to dry clothes and wiping yourself down. But really it's only necessary to do so if caught in a full rain, and that happens so rarely, especially during a 2 mile commute. This morning, the rain was coming down while I lay in bed waiting for the next snooze alarm, and threatened until I left the apartment, but held off during my 20 minutes into the office, as it often does.
Song of the Day: "Dice" by Finley Quaye w/ Beth Orton
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