Picture this: You’re flying down a mountain at 25 miles per hour, the clean cool breeze at your back. A serious piece of machinery- known colloquially as a full suspension mountain bike is your throne and your companion, sandwiched in between your legs. As you go over branches, rocks, steeps- it absorbs impact. Dust flies up in your trail but by the time it settles again you’re miles away. Fully upright, standing up, you’ve got the best vantage point possible to experience the view and the thrills. And you find yourself for a moment forgetting…- what your chores are, the day-to-day stress and any poor aesthetics that were previously pissing you off on your last scroll. There’s nothing to do other than ride, Strava will capture the data to tell the tale.
In so many words- unburdened. Your third run of the day- first was a pre ride, then a re ride, and now you’re here- a glorious free ride. Now do it again and again.
Photo Credit: The Loam Ranger
Welcome back to caught up.
So where were we. I've had time to meditate during my month-long break from writing to you. I miss the connection- daily texts and comments and hearing what resonated or has been on your minds and with some of this empty space I’ve naturally found more time to fill it with clutter. But if I’m being honest I’ve also been generally dealing with feeling pretty overwhelmed lately. Not trying to pile on as I really want this space to be one that is not just a commiseration zone- joy shouldn’t be crowded out in our short and precious lives. But the world at times feels like a wasteland.
Technology-laden, resource depleting, violent in places- turbulent yet a dustbowl. However, this characterization omits probably the most critical thing. The humanity. & the role it plays in the bigger picture.
Us.
We bring life to the wasteland.
Reenchanting the Wasteland
I was deeply inspired and felt seen by Knausgaard’s great new essay “The Reenchanted world” (which you should definitely read) here on how he understands this current moment- full of technology, intelligence, and in certain respects lacking meaning and magic. It comes with a guide of his own- on bringing life to the wasteland.
One thing Knausgaard articulated so well in his piece - and that I believe we collectively struggle with - is an onslaught of images- which in themself have a lack of connection to the divine, and often lack new exciting experiences. Understandable with the average person struggling to make ends meet that they aren’t seeking out a zen retreat or learning to parasail. But Perspective is also a key part of this. What we are oriented towards and what we see. With my own flavor of this malaise I’ve leaned into a bit of an extreme to heal myself.
Sometimes we just have to learn best by doing things. & at risk of sounding all ‘touch grass’ it heals our fucked up digital world:
While knowledge has no particular time or place and can be transmitted, experience is tied to a specific time and place and can never be repeated. For the same reason, it also can’t be predicted. Exactly those two dimensions—the unrepeatable and the unpredictable—are what technology abolishes. - Knausgaard
Knausgaard captures this accumulation of experience beautifully in his own transformation - describing how he spent years of walking past his dying garden without truly seeing it, to suddenly finding deep meaning through the simple act of planting and tending. What changed wasn't the garden, but his willingness to engage physically with it.
From the chaos and clutter of my own modern day I’ve been looking for a solution and like so many others have gravitated to the outdoors. So I’ve been learning to mountain bike. This has helped me, in so many words navigate the wasteland and find a way to embrace both the unpredictability of it all and true presence.
Here is a list of lessons from on & off the trail:
7 Trail Lessons
When you’re staring down a brand new downhill section to ride it’s best to employ a pre ride - re ride then free ride mentality. Let me explain:
The pre ride is a cursory review of the terrain- you’re going slow, you’re taking in the technicality of the trail for the first time, the slope, the features and your role it in. Re ride is a faster version of that. You’re starting to get comfortable. Pick up a bit more speed. Then the free ride- your full throated exploration - full permission slip to ‘send it’ down the mountain. One bit of practical advice I’ve learned is that the free ride- often seen as an ideal is merely one step in the journey. You will get there. Patience and attention on the pre ride and re ride sets you up for success on the free ride.
& Whatever stage you’re at- “be” on the trail- don’t just absorb knowledge about what seems to be important like you would through a screen or leaflet or podcast. Take it in. Physically go to where that thing is. Get your body involved. Be a part of it and the world opens up.
2. When you’re on the bike going downhill, stand up. Standing up gives you more control, brings better sight lines, and enhanced ability to balance. If you’re flying down the mountain, do it upright. Duality is at play here- though the language common in our society of ‘you should be seated for this’ - standing up on a downhill trail actually helps you with poise, absorb impacts and have control. Stand up right. Don’t be afraid to be a mountain of your own as you face natures’.
Out there, in here- That can begin to heal yourself. You’re a part of the world. The world is fucked because we are fucked. Heal yourself and you’ll heal a part of the world. It may sound trite but I’m doing it on the trail with weekly mountain biking rides, in this exercise and by reading amazing bits of insight like the Knausgaard piece. Every bit counts.
3. Focus on what’s in front of you on the trail. Not at your feet but a couple steps down the road. By keeping your eyes a couple paces in front of you you will naturally move, reposition your body to meet that moment.
Change your relationship with the everyday. If you walk by your community garden everyday ‘too busy’ to get involved - find some time to simply put your hands in the garden for the first time. Don’t just pass by it- Plant bulbs, prune branches, brush away the muck. With new experiences things will start to open up to you in novel unpredictable and unrepeatable ways.
4. Brake before turns - not through them. When making a turn on a wide angle ridge, ride up on the edge of the ridge. The less elevated area will be more dusty, gravely, squirrely. More travelled or run through. Find your edge. On the edge speed and control marry like peanut butter and chocolate.
Shift your tools for examining the world. Make it part of your life long learning process to examine things from different viewpoints. Remember that tool from science class in the microscope, of changeable colored lenses. Swap them out. Look from a different angle. You don’t have to get it all right. You also don’t have to win. This will help you open up the world. To see more.
5. Different trails call for different techniques. Even the same trail sometimes can and will ask something of you at different times. It’s important to be able to hold multiple positions at once. It’s difficult. But doing so can also open up the world as it shows us that these ways of thinking are frames in which we can take in the world, not the whole world itself.
Be open to all the different types of intelligence in the world and experiencing them.
It’s only complex until you get inside of it. There are people that operate on brains. Living, firing neurons, webs of nerves and regions and all that. Some of these same people at one point picked their nose and thought the moon was cheese. Plant intelligence, animal intelligence, solar intelligence, interpersonal intelligence. See which intelligence speaks to you and follow that.
6. Ride humbly through the landscape. But as you go through, recognize that you are a part of it. Part of this active world. Yes you are riding a 33 pound aluminum whizz-whopper over branches, rocks, dust but recognize and honor each moment. Appreciate the way you interact with these elements. Sometimes you are flying off a jump ( a launchpad) others a rock garden is testing your ability to hold on. Thank the earth for the tests. And the thrill.
Don’t be only about just an experience of passing on knowledge but be about an experience of having an experience. What we are looking for, it has been said - is not ‘meaning’ but the ‘experience of being alive’. Try things once, for the experience and really try and sink into what that experience is.
7. If you are having fun and you come upon a group ahead- let them know you’re having fun. Whoop- holler- shout gleefully. It's a sign of life - helpful for their situational awareness and their inner and outer awareness- that they aren’t alone. A vital person revitalizes too. If you need to pass them, thank them and bow your head gracefully. Yes even at 25 mph. & Don’t forget this key thing: It’s more fun to ride with others.
As it’s been said before the medium is the message. You delivering those whoops and hollers are the medium. However, for the medium of technology, it is not that that is the problem, it’s our relationship to it. How do we change that? Reduce it to its utility, deny it the inherent dignity and ‘oh so complex’. Then hoot and holler down the trail of new experience you just laid out.
We're all dealing with compounding problems in this modern life:
- Digital saturation- an onslaught of image after image we process but don’t fully take in. It is a place we can get lost in and it’s not reality, but a representation of reality. A facsimile and a cheap one at that.
- Inner and outer tendencies that shut out the world- that have us see other forms of intelligence, activities, and people and read them as ‘that can’t be for me’ ‘that’s above me or ‘I don’t have time for that
- Isolation- it’s been said many times but i’ll say it once more. Digital tools provide the appearance of connection but statistically we are more disconnected than ever because of them.
These trail lessons read as having depth to me- and through osmosis, repetition, and saying them out loud have taught me something bigger about navigating the wasteland of modern life.
But maybe you’re not ready to jump on a bike- if so perhaps you’ll find these to be cheat codes for raising the resonance of the world and our place in it.
Reading Books can help too.
Credit: Washington Post /Karl Ove Knausgaard
Mountain biking teaches flow- presence, calm, embracing challenge, and getting our feet firmly both in and above the dirt. It is unpredictable at times, unrepeatable as every ride, every line is different. When we run a trail we choose our line, we choose our mindset, and we consider our degree of sending it.
So remember when encountering something new in your life. Whether on the trail or in your daily life. Look before you leap, sure but also. First:
Pre Ride: Take in the surroundings as you roll on- What your role is in it- the reality, what’s real. Not just the images around you that come in 2D form on a screen but the tactile- the dust beneath your feet, the launch angle, the velocity. Notice how things change as you move along and how by being present in the space and open, you can have the experience of having an experience.
Re Ride: Remember what that might feel like as you gear towards your second trip down the terrain. Shift your gears, stand up, and take on the second run down the trail with a bit more confidence now. Try that little jump you saw on the pre ride run. See how it feels, how your place in all of it. The framing, the structure, the strength. Employ Technique. & Start to let loose a bit. Hoot and holler.
Now finally, Free Ride: You’ve done your first few laps around the sun. Around the material. On the trail. Experienced it from different angles, built confidence, expanded your world view- most importantly - you, your reality came into contact with something that was also real. From here, give yourself permission to ‘Send it’.
It will heal your soul.
Postscript: Does this all matter still in an AI and digital technology heavy world?
More than ever. Remember, that AI is just a form of images and ideas collated. It is intelligent and not entirely a sham, but more so just intelligence in the way a weather forecast may seem intelligent. Sure, it's smart—but it's not supernatural . It's similar to a couple brains in a local field office putting their head down gathering bits of data and pulling levers to try and make an informed prediction on whether it will rain in Kansas City on Wednesday. Will it rain? That’s unpredictable. It’s a best guess given the data set.
The human world view is what to marvel at- we can contextualize and possess a world view, not just a piece of isolated predictive machinery. We all process information to try and turn it into something else with a specific purpose. But that’s all an AI does. So it’s intelligence, but does it contain depth like you do. Give yourself three months to really study it, try it, experience it—I bet you can probably come up with a pretty decent weather forecast yourself. Regardless of what the forecast says- you’ll still probably want to hit the trail again and again.
Everything here applies to skiing as well... with two caveats: #2 is a bad tactic on the snow and, more important, mountain biking tumbles are a lot harder on the hard stuff (Skull & Bones, as they say in New Haven). Still, if you're brave/foolish enough, David, you have the year covered while some of us bake in the SLC heat without a trail or clue.