Where you look is where you go

Thursday, January 19, 2023

a hawk I saw last month on the Walnut Creek greenbelt

When you’re biking you have to look out for a thing called “target fixation”:

Target fixation is an attentional phenomenon observed in humans in which an individual becomes so focused on an observed object (be it a target or hazard) that they inadvertently increase their risk of colliding with the object. It is associated with scenarios in which the operator is in control of a high-speed vehicle or other mode of transportation, such as fighter pilots, race-car drivers, paragliders, and motorcyclists. In such cases, the observer may fixate so intently on the target that they steer in the direction of their gaze, which is often the ultimate cause of a collision.

As with biking, so with life. Thoreau said that we find the world we look for, but if he rode a bicycle, he might’ve said, “ where you look is where you go.”

Machines that make you feel more human

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

That we would train machines to be like us is not surprising.

The real scandal is how much we’ve trained ourselves to be like machines.

We’ve trained ourselves to be so machine-like that the machines don’t have to make that much of a leap to emulate us.

Resistance is celebrating and cultivating what is not machine-like in you.

Resistance is also using machines that help you feel more human.

By pedaling a bicycle, for example, you become one with the machine, but you’re also using all of your senses including the kinesthetic and vestibular. On your bike you come into contact with people and places you normally might not. The bicycle expands you rather than diminishes you.

(This, by the way, is nothing original that people haven’t been saying for hundreds of years. As my wife who studied STS in graduate school put it: “Same shit, different machines.”)

On today’s ride

Sunday, December 11, 2022

I came up the hill at Walnut Creek this morning and saw this hawk, perfectly indifferent to humans, dogs, and bicycles alike.

Riding or writing

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

One of my riding partners is hard of hearing, so sometimes I’ll say I was “writing” and he thinks I’ve said, “riding.” (Or vice versa.) I’m thinking of getting another version of this shirt made that says, “I would but I’m writing that day.” But the truth is, a lot of my writing comes from my riding these days… (Photo by my pal Marty from yesterday evening’s impromptu ride.)

Embrace bewilderment

Thursday, June 9, 2022

Here is a sign I saw on yesterday’s ride through the Johnson Creek Trail here in Austin.

I thought of the poet Rumi, who wrote: “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

@austinkleon

A message from my favorite sign

? original sound – Austin Kleon

My riding partner is traveling, so I’ve been taking slow, solo rides.

Wandering the streets (and trails) with a wandering mind.

Getting somewhere I didn’t know I was going — that’s the goal, in rides like these, and in making art.

Here is another sign I saw on my way home:

Filed under: signs

Bicycles and re-enchantment

Monday, May 30, 2022

a picture of a river and a bicycle — A picture from this morning’s ride

In an essay called “Talking About Bicycles,” C.S. Lewis recounts a “friend” telling him about the different “ages” of his riding a bicycle: first, the bike meant nothing to him, then he learned to ride it, and became enchanted, then, by riding it to and from school, he became disenchanted. Now, taking up the bicycle again, he became re-enchanted.

I think there are these four ages about nearly everything. Let’s give them names. They are the Unenchanted Age, the Enchanted Age, the Disenchanted Age, and the Re-enchanted Age. As a little child I was Unenchanted about bicycles. Then, when I first learned to ride, I was Enchanted. By sixteen I was Disenchanted and now I am Re-enchanted.

I feel this very deeply. I also feel it in terms of the city in which I cycle: I’m not sure I was ever fully enchanted with Austin, but I certainly became disenchanted with it. And now, somewhat thanks to the bicycle, I am re-enchanted with Austin.

There is magic here because there is magic everywhere… if you know how to look for it.

(Thanks, Alan!)