I spend my days cycling through rain or shine. And one of the delightful things about just “being there” and cycling for hours at a time, is just that … being there.
You have no worries. You are elemental. You are as you are. There is no conditionality. You are not of any import because of said condition … your value is that you exist and are.
Consciousness is over valued, maybe even a red herring. When I’m out running (used to) or cycling for hours on end … I do it for one reason - emptying myself out. It’s a mind dump.
Our consciousness needs tending. It fills with crap and the ruins of our struggles in this world. Some are afraid of being able to breathe, but few think of how they suffrocate in their own world of mental anguish.
So for me, biking and singing is a way of being THERE. In my normal life, hours, so many words are swirling in my head and they die there, just after they are said. So, my biking, my singing, my imaginary world of externalizing who I am, is a way of wheelbarrowing those dead words out into the world. A cleansing. What a good dump is for the body. My mind dump.
“Do not deny us our sedatives.” - Anonymous 1900ish surrealist.
When I’m cycling I often think of Cocteau. An image he impressed into my own mind, after reading one of his journals from the German occupation of France, early days of 1943 … He recounted how he got his hair done in a salon and underneath, the Jews cycled to keep the lights on and the hair blowers blowing for their Nazi meisters.
As I cycle, I think of todays, Mitläufer. Those who like in Nazi Germany, just looked away and didn’t challenge the killing and genocide happening. They didn’t mind having people suffer so their hair would blow nicely in the wind.
There are many out there - they’ll be judged, whether they stood up and did what they could or could not. I have a number of readers who have personally messaged me with hate and questioning how I can dare support anyone but ISRAEL. I don’t care for Israel or Gaza or Gazamazoo … what I support is a grand NO to the evil of massive killing and anonymous death. The vile hatred and death wish in our hearts - however we rationalize it otherwise.
Well too, it is because I’m not a mitlaufer, one who blows with the social, political, ideological, advertised wind. No wind will see me left or right. Just justice, truth and fellowship.
Let’s carry on singing and stripteasing our subconscious. Mental enemas are needed in our day and age. It’s the only thing that will save us from becoming mitlaufers.
Amen.
“You can’t be neutral in a fast moving train.” Howard Zinn.
Taking The Garbage Out