Other People's Problems

Between snow and a bummer foot, I've been off the bike for just over three weeks. This is maddening. I think I'm okay for gentle riding - which doesn't include scrambling on icy roads to get to work. Hopefully the snow lets up some time soon. I appreciate people dropping notes asking how I'm doing. I'm doing just fine, really; a sore foot and not being able to ride right now isn't the end of the world. It does suck a lot of the energy out of me though, and a lot of the inner fire. Riding is my passion, and my muse. Without the riding, I turn to serious thoughts. This is a shame because I'm taken up with serious thoughts at work, so without riding I turn into a fairly grim bastard.

Being laid up does have some benefits. It gives me a chance to look around and try to see what things other people are dealing with.

Angela Brown, for instance, is getting geared up to ride some Southern MTB ride, Snake Creek Gap or something. Now, I like the South, a lot. But if that name wasn't ginned up by Ol' Zeke from the holler to scare the pants off Yankee Ivy League grads, I don't know what is. Seriously - that place name would be more effective at scaring off urban northerners than an ad for a Southern Baptist revival meeting featuring Sarah Palin and free chitlins.

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Speaking of politicos - I read a really interesting thing today that Edmund Burke wrote. He explained the relationship between liberty, and personal morals:

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites,—in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

I find that most of the smarter things ever said about the human condition and human behavior ever said, were said by Himself, Friedrich Hayek, and Samuel Johnson. I'm reading a collection of Johnson's writings right now and struck by the agility and acuity of his mind. And his sense of humor. My word, was Mr. Johnson a funny man.

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If you're looking for something lighter, I read through O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series between Christmas and January 15th. (Seriously, I was just sitting around with ice packs on my foot). Those books are an amazingly good read about the main character's adventures at sea (and more treacherous land), and they are erudite enough that they grow richer on the second and third read. The reason the books work so well is that O'Brian leaves a lot out. These are remarkably understated stories. The reader is forced to think about what the main characters are thinking, and to some extent, how those characters aren't thinking. A lot of things occur outside of the four corners of the book that the reader has to puzzle out. Meanwhile, there's a lot of interesting word play and humor that dances at the edge of the reader's vision, coming into the reader's grasp only occasionally, to great effect. The first book in the 20 book series is Master and Commander. I highly recommend giving it a shot.