Crankshaft Serenity

Motion itself contains the stillness we seek. Where but through motion do we once again gain our selves? If ever we are brought to absolute stillness, still, we are brought to it. The blues legend, Robert Johnson, in a plaintive wail which still haunts the unquiet soul today, makes it plain with, "I got to keep movin'/I got to keep movin'/Blues fallin' down like hail/Blues fallin' down like hail."

'Anywhere but here' is the refrain of agitation that creeps in and takes hold of a neglected spirit. And so medicine is sought. Drugs, alcohol, sex, violence--all play their role accordingly. These things are desirable to the despairing mind, and are motions of a sort. But it is motion itself which fulfills the prescription, not the medicament. It is the reaching for the pill bottle or the pouring of the drink or the procuring of the substance which brings momentary relief from the here-ness of a tormented self. For the moment, the mind is occupied with something other than its own dreadful existence.

Fortunately, at this stage I know enough about myself to recognize the signs and symptoms and I take to my bicycle with the sort of sureness and steadiness that a man might take to his axe when he apprehends the coming winter--splitting wood as insurance and with assurance. Likewise, I seize the bike in my hands. The cold is all around me and closing in. But I go. And I keep going until I get where I need to be.

It is no wonder that a couple of bicycle makers were the first to perfect flight; for it is as close to flying as a soul can get without actually flying. I imagine it was the freest thing a man or woman of the time could do, to ride a bicycle. Today it is still the simplest means to visceral freedom. To go.

Automotive charlatans give the illusion of motion. Planes, trains, automobiles. But witness the disquietude and ill temper of the commuter stuck in traffic. The difference is--and this is paramount--the difference is that with a bicycle you are the engine and the conscious operator. You are driving it, as opposed to it driving you.

Taking control of one's life through a tangible, simple act of the will is perhaps the most liberating thing a despairing soul can do. Deliberate motion. There is, I am convinced, no therapy which can be matched in its efficacy and which has withstood so many trials.

My favorite time to ride is late at night on my way home from work when I have the road all to myself. The town is silent but for the whir and hum of me on my bike. I have my thoughts. But they are tempered by the task at hand (or rather, the task afoot). Lately, I've been taking a little FM radio with an ear piece along and listening to public radio. Soft classical music at a cool 15 mph on the darkened streets of the hometown with the wind in one's face under the power of self-propulsion. Crankshaft serenity, the mechanics of bliss.

--George Czar, © 2007