When Looking Back Is Better

Hunched over my handlebars, eyes fixed on the road inches in front of my tire, mouth hanging open to capture as much of the arid air as I could with each heaving gasp, I watched the asphalt crawl by.  I was making slow progress three minutes ago when the older biker passed me.  I was making slower progress now. 

A shadow passed over the road ahead, so I glanced up into the punishing sun.  A single raven circled and came to rest atop a boulder near a road sign beside the bike lane about 30 yards ahead, and watched me approach.  He was a big one.  At least two feet from tip to tail.  I had talked myself past the last few logical stopping points, so this looked as good a place to stop as any.

When you climb a hill on a bike, it’s a battle between your legs and gravity.  Wheels roll backward as easily as they do forward.  You stop peddling, you stop making forward progress.  Gravity wins.

I pulled to a stop beside the sign and the raven hopped down for a closer look at me, head cocked slightly to the side.  With one hand, I reached back to retrieve a hand towel from a rear shirt pocket and with the other pulled my sunglasses off.  The light was painfully bright, but after I wiped away the rivulets of sweaty sunscreen stinging my eyes, I squinted one open and scanned around to make sure the well-fed scavenger was alone.  He probably wanted a hand out.  But I didn’t like to think that he sensed something I didn’t and wanted to beat the lunch rush. 

Photo by HotBlack at MorgueFile.com

I returned my glasses and stooped to pull up one of my water bottles.  I squirted a long blast into my mouth, swallowed, and repeated.  My heart and lungs were screaming in unison.  What the hell are you doing to us?  But my breath was settling enough that deep inhales through me nose were enough.  I am always surprised how quickly I can catch my breath when only a minute before I was sucking wind.  Maybe that’s a sign of conditioning.  Maybe I’m getting better at this.  Maybe.

I looked ahead, evaluating the age and fitness of the older biker who was continuing to pull away seemingly without effort.  That could be me in 20 years if I kept at this.  It occurred to me more as a question than a statement of confidence.  Could that be me?  Ever? 

The road up to NCAR (The National Center for Atmospheric Research) is a little over 1 mile from its entrance up to the laboratory on the mesa during which you climb about 400 feet in elevation.  My house is a little over 3 miles from the entrance and another 240 feet lower.  So that’s roughly 4.3 miles, a distance that is really nothing on a road bike even in the heat of summer for someone who rides even a modest amount.  But that 640-foot climb, that’s another thing altogether. 

NCAR sits atop a mesa in the foothills above Boulder with the Flat Iron mountain range, literally the front range of the Rockies, framing it behind.  It’s an impressive sight.  And for a biker, at least for this biker, it is a beckoning objective.  Countless runners and bikers have made the journey up the mesa and back down again.  Scores do it every day.  Some do it multiple times in a day.  But I had only attempted it a couple times and always turned back, making it no further than halfway.  I told myself it represented a milestone for me.  If I could make it up NCAR, then I had attained something as a biker – some badge of accomplishment. 

To serious bikers, NCAR is probably little more than a warm-up.  By “serious bikers” I do not mean the elite international athletes who compete in the Tour and Giro.  I’m talking about any old committed road-biker around Boulder.  And there are loads of them.  But to me, making it up NCAR meant something.

So there I was, catching my breath, rivulets of sweaty sunscreen running into my eyes, hoping the electrolyte mix in my water bottle could somehow renew my strength, agreeing with my inner voice as it told me that my heart and lungs were making a lot of sense.  I made it this far and this was far enough. 

Beyond the older man ahead of me, I could see a more conditioned athlete coast down the final stretch, then turn around and sprint back to the top.  He had passed me about half a mile back and he was probably already on his third or fourth sprint cycle at the top. 

Have you ever experienced that optical illusion when you’re stopped at a light and the car next to you glides forward a little and, for a split second, even though you know you have your foot on the brake, your brain tells you that you are rolling backward not that he’s moving forward?  Yeah.  That’s about what it felt like when he dashed past me.

I took another gulp and watched another fellow who had already successfully crested the top whiz by as he flew back down the hill.  The road is steep enough that it’s easy to get above 30 on the way down.  In fact, you probably can’t stay under 30 unless you’re on the brakes.  Road bikes don’t have disk brakes, they have the style of rubber-shoe rim brakes that most people are familiar with.  On a long, steep grade you can pick up so much speed downhill that, if you stay on the brakes and don’t alternate pulses between the front and rear, you can easily overheat the brakes, cooking the rim and melting the rubber shoes. 

“I did good.  Halfway is good,” I told myself.  “This is far enough for today.  It’s a milestone for me to pass next time.  Yeah.  Let’s join that guy on the flight back down.  It’s the best part, after all.”  The voice told me the last half was the hardest half.  I looked back up to the top and agreed.  Then glanced over at the raven and he agreed, too, though maybe for different reasons.  “Take a load off, man.  Just lie down here beside the bike lane and I’ll take of the rest.” 

I had already been talking my way through each pump of the peddle for the last few minutes.  Just make it to that pull off and we can rest… okay, we still have a little something left in the tank so let’s make it to the next flat and take a breather… alright, still going, still going… this is good, this is good because when you finally do stop you can take comfort in the fact that you made it that whole way without resting.  It really is amazing, the self-talk.  I’m not really exaggerating about this – some part of my brain is trying to use reason to win an argument with some less-reasonable part of my brain that is determined to prove something.  Reason was winning.  And then I looked back.

The blistering sun brilliantly lit the entire valley and the cloudless sky provided a clear view down the hill, across the whole of Boulder, and out into the plains beyond.  We can overuse and misuse the word, literally, but this view was literally inspiring.  

Photo by HotBlack at MorgueFile.com

To my surprise, I saw that I was well past halfway.  I was at least two-thirds of the way to the top.  I had been so absorbed in just keeping my legs going that I didn’t realize the progress I had made.  I looked up from where I was, then back down, up, and back down and again and, wow, did it look so much steeper looking down than looking up. 

From the bottom, your perspective is different.  When you begin, the last half looks the steepest.  But, looking back, it’s clear that the toughest leg is already behind you.  How many of those who set out surrender too soon thinking they barely made a dent in the NCAR climb?

I had already completed most of the work.  I stuffed my drink back in the cage and my towel in its pocket, clipped back into the pedals, and bid the raven adieu.

I’d be lying if I said the last leg was a cakewalk.  It was work, but it was doable work.  For a couple minutes back there, the raven and reason nearly talked me into believing it was insurmountable, not worth the continued effort on that day feeling that way.  But I can say with complete candor that the final hundred yards were surprisingly easy.  I felt stronger, as if the exertion of the miles behind me fell away.  Like there was a wind at my back.  I had been grinding it out in my lowest of 30 gears for most of the climb, but toward the end I clicked up one gear then another then another then another.

When I stopped – no, when I paused, because that's all it was – when I paused, if I had focused exclusively on the work that awaited me, I probably would have quit.  Like I had every time before.  But looking back allowed me to appreciate how far I had already come.  My own progress, the results of my own hard work, inspired me on for that last push.  And where did that get me?  It got me to the top.  I accomplished the goal I had originally set for myself five years earlier and had stopped even attempting because it had defeated and humbled me the first few times I tried.

I used to say the race back down was the reward for the grueling haul up - the wind in my face and especially the speed meter flashing at me at the bottom to let me know I was going well beyond 25mph.  I wanted to shout encouragement to every person still huffing their way up.  It was fun.  But the real reward was at the top.  I made it.  I looked down at where I had been, at how far I’d come.   

I took well-deserved pride in overcoming a truly difficult obstacle – not the mesa climb itself, but my own internal urge to give up.

Sometimes looking back is better.

Peckers and Baloney Ponies

In the next few paragraphs, you will note the frequent inclusion of [_] within the text.  This is for my more delicate readers.  Please feel free to insert the expletive of your choosing wherever you see a [_] and just know that the saltier version is exactly how I recount this story in my head.  But my mother and wife read this blog, so I’d never hear the end of it if I let that filth appear nakedly in print.  So insert expletives or don't as you like.  Then take a moment to marvel at how I can make you mentally insert a word you’re not actually even reading.  Try to read past the [_] and see how that works.  The mind is a magnificent mystery.

For a couple weeks every [_] spring, some damnable [_] Woodpecker piece of [_] drums away on my metal [_] chimney cap like it’s his [_] job!  He starts banging at around 6:30 right outside my window!  6:30!  No joke.  What kind of [_]-up mother-[_] has the energy to repeatedly slam his [_] peabrain against a sheet of metal at the ass crack of dawn?  I mean, really!

Photo from TotalWildlifeControl.com

He usually takes a break for a couple hours only to resume his [_] provocation – because that’s exactly what this is; it’s a [_] provocation!  That [_] Woodpecker is calling me out!  He’s [_] mocking me because I’m stuck to the [_] surface of the Earth while he flies [_] circles around my head taunting me and my impotent [_] broom!  

And he’s a wily son of a [_], to boot.  Somehow he knows when my preschooler or my wife (who works nights) lays down for a nap!  He [_] knows!  Every [_] time!  How does he know?  How the [_] do I know?  I just know he knows, the insidious pecker-head!

And here’s the kicker – he also knows that I can’t [_] shout because that would only add to the noise disturbing my family’s sleep.  He just looks down his [_] beak at me like I'm some [_] dancing marionette, whisper-shouting like an idiot.  

So I wave a [_] broom in the air like a [_] trained monkey and toss stones and all he does is flutter to a nearby tree where he’s above it all, that superior [_].  He just waits for me to go back inside then returns to his torture.  Sometimes he doesn’t even bother leaving for a tree when I harass him, he’ll just fly around the other side of the house and hammer away on a downspout or a gutter or some flashing.

I was raised in the suburbs.  As much as I understand some of the costs to society of being so far removed from the sources of our food on the farm, I appreciate the fact that I don't have to butcher my own livestock.  But I tell you, if I could get my hands on that little pecker-head, I would ring his [_] neck like a hardened farmhand and not lose a wink of sleep over it. 

I asked an animal control guy about it one time and he said there’s usually two related reasons a woodpecker knocks on metal – it’s either a territorial display to impress rival males or, most likely this time of year, he’s trying to attract a mate.  Can you believe that [_], he’s driving me ape[_] crazy in order to impress a girl!  It’s just a [_] booty call! 

This [_] pecker has a high hard one and my family gets to suffer his [_] machine-gun serenade until he gets some satisfaction.

My roof is just his hook-up spot.  The expert assured me that, once he gets a little yum-yum, he’ll move along and lose all interest in emasculating me in front of my exhausted family.  Until next spring, that is, when the horny pecker gets another hankering for a honey pot.

So, this morning, I’m cursing and waving my broom around and, naturally, I got to thinking about the space program.  

Did you ever wonder what scientific value there was for shooting men at the moon?  No doubt that it was totally awesome.  That’s undeniable.  But what did we find there that was so vital we needed to do it six times?

Photo (c) Colleen Pinski from NationalGeographic.com

There was the space race, of course.  The Soviet Union was eating America’s lunch and we’d had about enough of it.  But there had to be more to it.  The space program is such a noble enterprise – the highest example of mankind’s fundamental drive to shine a light on the dark parts of the map. 

I always assumed the space race was just the cause célèbre that rallied support, but that a greater scientific purpose lie behind the mission.  Kennedy just needed something to inspire the American people and prove to the world that we took a backseat to nobody.  So he looked around, found a bunch of astronomers with a dream but no funding, and tapped them to carry the baton of American exceptionalism awhile.  Right?  Nope. 

 

Turns out the awesomeness of it was pretty much the whole story.  The scientific value of landing humans on the moon was minimal; certainly nothing that couldn’t be accomplished far more easily, safely, and cost-effectively with probes and robotic rovers.  Whatever scientific value the moon landings did possess was secondary, at best, and completely insufficient to justify the enormous expenditure of financial and intellectual resources.

So why did we go to the moon?  As George Mallory famously answered in response to being asked why climb Mount Everest:

Because it’s there.

In effect, we did it to win a pissing contest.  It was a cockfight.  A territorial display.  Bragging rights.  It was America beating its chest to its rivals and, frankly, to itself.  There are few symbols more phallically fitting than a rocket blasting into space or planting our flag in virgin soil.

“Fix bayonets, boys, we’re taking that trench.”  [double-entendre intended]

Photo seen on LikeCool.com

This reasoning doesn’t sound particularly noble, but it is distinctly human.  No, that's not right.  It is more than human, it is universal to the sexual fabric of life on Earth. 

A boy will do unpredictable things to impress a girl. 

A man will attempt feats of insanity to prove he’s a man.  

How many great stories begin right there?  How many adventures?  How many wars?

One Voice

I was listening to a song.  I don't remember the name or artist, but there was a line about how a single voice in a sea of voices could make a difference.  President Obama said something similar in his 2008 campaign - If one voice can change a room, it can change a city... and so on until it changes the world. 

Chalk it up to middle-aged cynicism or just my mood today, but I immediately dismissed this idea as naive.  I like the song and I appreciate its inspirational sentiment.  But this artist's intended audience is probably adolescent girls facing peer pressure and a life of possibilities rather than powerful, entrenched interest groups who are highly motivated to maintain the status quo. 

What is a single voice in the face of that?

The other side of my brain immediately went to work answering that question.  I am often of two minds for a bit.  It makes for lively internal debate.  What about all of history's dissidents and revolutionaries and whistle-blowers, I countered.  What about Martin Luther King?  He was one man, but only the most prominent voice in a much greater movement that outlived him.  What about Nelson Mandela?  Again, a determined, unifying, persuasive mouthpiece for a greater popular movement.  What about Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar?  I could go on.  These people risked everything, spoke truth to power, and helped usher in nationwide transformations.

Then the image of "Tank Man" popped into my head.  That is the name given to the courageous, iconic, unidentified man who stood down a column of Chinese tanks rolling toward Tiananmen Square during the 1989 student protests in Beijing.

What an image.  Could it be any more symbolic of what was at stake?  One simple man in simple clothes dwarfed by a machine of war backed by the might of one of the world's last remaining super powers.

And look what he has in his hands.  Just bags.  He's not holding a sign.  He doesn't have a weapon.  He has no visible symbol of protest anywhere on his person.  There is absolutely nothing about him that makes you think he had anything to do with the student agitators in Tiananmen Square.  I imagine that he was just an unsophisticated every man on the way home from the grocery store who witnessed something his conscience couldn't ignore and he literally took a stand against it.  Nearly 14 years later, that image is just as moving and just as powerful.

Isn't that one voice making a difference?

Let's consider that.  14 years later, the Chinese Communist Party remains one of the very few totalitarian Communist regimes to survive beyond the early 90s.  China is more powerful and influential - militarily, economically, politically - than it has ever been.  It's biggest export partner is the world's only other remaining super-power, the self-declared champion of democracy. 

And what of Tank Man?  Neither his identity nor fate can be definitively identified.  If he is alive, it's unclear if he even knows of his own international renown as all discussion of the '89 Protests is forbidden and information of the events is censored within China to this day. 

So, can one voice transform to world?  Undeniably.  I am a jaded, somewhat pessimistic atheist, but would our world be the same without the Buddha, Jesus, Moses, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Confucius? 

I'll niggle on one fine point, though.  It may be nothing more than semantics, but it seems to me that it is not the singular voice that transforms the world but rather the countless listeners who change themselves.  If a man shouts fire in a burning building, he cannot save a single soul if the listeners do not get up and save themselves.  His voice only has consequence when it moves others into action.

I'll leave you with another photo of Tank Man.  This gives the moment new perspective, revealing just how stunningly bold it was for this small man abandon caution and confront the machine.  Change is coming very slowly to China.  We can hope this man's defiant example will someday bear fruit, if not in China then hopefully here at home.