It’s now time for everyone’s favorite feature, this week’s installment of “Motorcycle Vocab!”*
Today’s phrase:
Target Fixation (as defined by me): The tendency of your motorcycle to head directly for the one obstacle in the road that you really, really don’t want to hit but for some reason you can’t take your eyes off and that, if you don’t magically happen to miss it, will send you on a trip to the emergency room.
For those of you who drive cars or horse drawn carriages, I’ll explain how this works. You see, your car, having four wheels, is controlled by turning the steering wheel while you, the driver, sit happily in your seat. Should you choose to stick one foot out the window, use the other to kick your passenger, and plant your free hand on the seat for a handstand, your car won’t care so long as you don’t twist the steering wheel.
Motorcycles are controlled largely by balance. When a motorcycle rider turns at speeds higher than 10 or 15 mph, he or she does so not by turning the handlebar but by leaning in the desired direction. One of the reasons motorcycles are so fun is that riding them feels fairly effortless. When you know what you’re doing, it seems like all you have to do is think about a turn and the motorcycle will turn. To anthropomorphize (you have no idea how long I’ve waited to use that word) the motorcycle, you could say that it senses where you want to go and goes there. You know, like some sort of hokey man-to-machine psychic link.
The problem here is that the motorcycle, being mostly steel (but shiny, chrome plated steel), is stupid. When you see something in the road that you don’t want to hit, your natural response is to look at it. You have now told your idiotic machine via your imaginary and mostly hokey psychic link that you are deeply, deeply interested in that two foot deep pothole. Wanting to make you happy, your motorcycle will do everything it can to take you there.
You may have noticed that motorcycles do not routinely run over potholes, squirrels, trees in the fall, and attractive women at the side of the road. This is because smart people long ago came up with a solution to the problem: Look at something else. That’s deep, so you may want to take a moment to take that in. You know, just let it simmer on the surface a bit before you try to digest.
Author's note: This is the part of the post where I use a witty transition and, before you know it, we’re not talking about motorcycles anymore but about Jesus and you and me. Then I go on to tell you how whatever it was about motorcycles I was talking about applies to whatever it is that’s bugging me in my relationship with Christ. So, I suppose we should get on with that. End Author's note.
Hey, look over there! (My witty transitions have been weak as of late.)
We (even those of us who don’t ride motorcycles) tend to fixate on all the wrong stuff. And then we get surprised when, before we know it, we’re doing all that stuff we were fixating on. You can call it a devious plan of the Dark One if you must, but I don’t think it’s that diabolical. Mainly, we look at, concentrate on, and otherwise obsess over what we find interesting. If we’re more interested in the sins of this world - in the trashy women, scummy men, shiny cars, and mind-numbing drugs the people use to replace God - than we are in God Himself, it shouldn’t surprise us when we end up in the midst of what we were trying to avoid in the first place.
Two final points, and then I’m done.
1. Setting your eyes on your sins, really staring them down hard, will run you head first into them.
2. Trying not to look doesn’t do any good. You have to look at something. Look at something worthwhile.
*Right, so as you may have guessed, I really don’t have weekly installments of anything. But calling it the weekly “Motorcycle Vocab” sounded marginally cooler than saying, “Dude, duuude, I just remembered this word I learned awhile back in this class I took involving not dying on my motorcycle, and I thought it just totally, I mean totally dude, applied to so much more. ‘Kay?” That’s right, I lied to make myself not sound like a stoned valley girl. I stand by my decision.
Today’s phrase:
Target Fixation (as defined by me): The tendency of your motorcycle to head directly for the one obstacle in the road that you really, really don’t want to hit but for some reason you can’t take your eyes off and that, if you don’t magically happen to miss it, will send you on a trip to the emergency room.
For those of you who drive cars or horse drawn carriages, I’ll explain how this works. You see, your car, having four wheels, is controlled by turning the steering wheel while you, the driver, sit happily in your seat. Should you choose to stick one foot out the window, use the other to kick your passenger, and plant your free hand on the seat for a handstand, your car won’t care so long as you don’t twist the steering wheel.
Motorcycles are controlled largely by balance. When a motorcycle rider turns at speeds higher than 10 or 15 mph, he or she does so not by turning the handlebar but by leaning in the desired direction. One of the reasons motorcycles are so fun is that riding them feels fairly effortless. When you know what you’re doing, it seems like all you have to do is think about a turn and the motorcycle will turn. To anthropomorphize (you have no idea how long I’ve waited to use that word) the motorcycle, you could say that it senses where you want to go and goes there. You know, like some sort of hokey man-to-machine psychic link.
The problem here is that the motorcycle, being mostly steel (but shiny, chrome plated steel), is stupid. When you see something in the road that you don’t want to hit, your natural response is to look at it. You have now told your idiotic machine via your imaginary and mostly hokey psychic link that you are deeply, deeply interested in that two foot deep pothole. Wanting to make you happy, your motorcycle will do everything it can to take you there.
You may have noticed that motorcycles do not routinely run over potholes, squirrels, trees in the fall, and attractive women at the side of the road. This is because smart people long ago came up with a solution to the problem: Look at something else. That’s deep, so you may want to take a moment to take that in. You know, just let it simmer on the surface a bit before you try to digest.
Author's note: This is the part of the post where I use a witty transition and, before you know it, we’re not talking about motorcycles anymore but about Jesus and you and me. Then I go on to tell you how whatever it was about motorcycles I was talking about applies to whatever it is that’s bugging me in my relationship with Christ. So, I suppose we should get on with that. End Author's note.
Hey, look over there! (My witty transitions have been weak as of late.)
We (even those of us who don’t ride motorcycles) tend to fixate on all the wrong stuff. And then we get surprised when, before we know it, we’re doing all that stuff we were fixating on. You can call it a devious plan of the Dark One if you must, but I don’t think it’s that diabolical. Mainly, we look at, concentrate on, and otherwise obsess over what we find interesting. If we’re more interested in the sins of this world - in the trashy women, scummy men, shiny cars, and mind-numbing drugs the people use to replace God - than we are in God Himself, it shouldn’t surprise us when we end up in the midst of what we were trying to avoid in the first place.
Two final points, and then I’m done.
1. Setting your eyes on your sins, really staring them down hard, will run you head first into them.
2. Trying not to look doesn’t do any good. You have to look at something. Look at something worthwhile.
*Right, so as you may have guessed, I really don’t have weekly installments of anything. But calling it the weekly “Motorcycle Vocab” sounded marginally cooler than saying, “Dude, duuude, I just remembered this word I learned awhile back in this class I took involving not dying on my motorcycle, and I thought it just totally, I mean totally dude, applied to so much more. ‘Kay?” That’s right, I lied to make myself not sound like a stoned valley girl. I stand by my decision.
Comments
Lovely transition, I do like a good transition myself :-)