The Great Ocean Road

I love the sea. Despite the lessons of Kant and the post-moderns - that what we perceive is always an interpretation - yet when I look to the ocean I see something too bare and rough for an interpretation to ever become arrogant in its grip. It gets smashed and dragged by rocks and currents and cannot get too sure a hold. This force applies also to the great horizon which is a vital part of the ocean's life. The sea reminds us that we are late comers and our frail words will fade. On the sublime wet rocks there is nothing on which to hang an interpretation or theology. Just sand, wind, and sunlight. And so there is nothing greater to do on a weekend late in March than to ride along cliffs high above a crashing crescent of blue.


But as usual we are also always drawn ultimately to town life.



This is at it should be. We are human beings, and our strength is in our restlessness and our never-being-at-home-ness - "the knowing animals are aware that we are not really at home in our interpreted world" - a state which is soothed by the homes we make, and so we retreat to into houses and good food and drink before emerging again into the elemental world.

 It really is a joy to spend our time with friends old and new, and this trip was a refreshing joy for me. Of course, no sooner do we accustom ourselves to the town than do we feel that paradoxical urge and we are off again, back into the physical absorption of speed and back to the sea.

On Saturday night some of us rode a winding path through sand dunes to Cape Otway light house:

Damien


Jeff


Matt





I did not take many photographs. The next day we lunched in Lorne on the return trip. The knowing animals thought they would try some of my interpreted food.





Finding too much theoretical density in the stuff, they moved on to Fee's B.L.T.



When we tried to leave town Rosy's bike kept breaking down. It would start fine in neutral but when she clicked into first gear it would die. The most likely explanation was a dodgy side-stand kill switch. I played with it and the bike ran, but when she fueled up it would not start again. So everybody hung about while I pulled the bike apart and short-circuited the thing, and sure enough the problem was solved.



Which gave us a chance to get a photo of the whole riding group. Damien, Rosy, Matt, Fee, Jeff and Me.



That was not however all of the group, and it was a pleasure to enjoy so many good things in one act.

Time

I took some time out today for a ride. And I thought about time as I rode. I thought about how my ride, as I was experiencing it (and what 'thing' is a ride other than an experience?) was not something happening primarily in the present moment nor the present space, but was an experience of being stretched through time. The ride is a ride-towards, always with some sense of the future driving it. The interesting thing is that I don't know that future beforehand; and I don't just mean that I cannot predict the future but that in my case I do not know where I am going - which fork in the road I will take - until I reach it and make a choice that, when I get there, is either obvious, or which feels arbitrary even as I commit to it. So the ride as an experience of being projected into the future is of a future which has no clear projection.





It's a bit like the creek I stopped at, really. There is a present moment which is such a rich thing, but there is a going somewhere which is a vital part of what is now.




Might I recommend some wonderful photography from a fellow rider's blog.

Umwelt

The 'umwelt' is the surrounding world, the environment about one. The philosopher Heidegger distinguishes three dimensions of our existence - the physical (umwelt), the social (mitwelt) and the personal (eigenwelt). Emmy van Deurzen distinguishes a fourth, the spiritual (philosophical or religious). It's interesting consider how you are in each dimension, your strengths and struggles in each, and whether in some way you struggle with that dimension as a whole.

Motorcycling is a wonderful way of being-in-the-unwelt. There's a feeling of strength, of exuberance, of joy, in being present and dynamic physically in the world through being on a motorcycle.

And so today, although I didn't have much time, yet I had to ride. My friend Rosy and I did a simple loop out to King Lake, to Healesville, and back to Melbourne.




This week I discovered this wonderful Melbourne band. Have a listen.