In an attempt to rigorously test and chronicle my own thinking, I have decided to take up this blog once more. The topics covered previously may crop up again, but the posts will likely take a new tack and become more engaged with my lived intellectual endeavors and concerns.
The title of my blog still fits. I still believe the bicycle to showcase the most noble traits of human ingenuity and potential. Bicycles are elegant machines: lightweight, ingenious, and adaptable. They produce no waste, the skills to use and fix them are easy to learn, they multiply human mobility tenfold, and they help individuals achieve freedom of mobility. Bicycles let us be free, they are cheap, they last, and they are egalitarian. Bicycles embody the best of "progress".
The other object in the title, the lariat, then, embodies "tradition". Still the best way for a cowboy to catch a calf, bull, or even horse, the lariat is simply a stiff rope. It is the learned manual skill of the worker that makes his tool so effective. The individual must perform within his inherited culture, must understand how to navigate the physical world, must do well. The lariat requires the craftsmanship and care of the user--it requires respect for one's place in the larger order, and individual achievement.
The tension between these two values, progress and tradition, is at the core of my path through life. On this blog, I hope to explore a wide range of topics, issues, and philosophies which I encounter as I try to make my unique way through life.
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1 comment:
I'm glad you'll be writing again.
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