I read a blog post yesterday morning on KT Did about her thoughts on a bill being passed that makes it a crime, yes, a crime to ride a motorcycle in California that has loud pipes. It's not even happening in my state and I don't know KT from Adam. I've been sitting here asking myself why I even care when it's not happening to me and I finally figured out why.
During the first 30 some odd years of my life, I had more than my share of people come in and out of my life. Quite a few relationships were ended too short by death. Others were ended because their parents decided to move. More recent relationships ended because of my own stupidity at beginning them in the first place. Needless to say, I had trust issues. Biker or not, it still takes time for me to know if I can trust someone and it doesn't happen overnight.
I recently discovered Facebook and found some of the friends I used to have. Something I've learned about relationships is that they don't always pick up where they left off, but it's not because I love them any less than I did when we were growing up. We never got a chance to grow into our new lives together. Whether you're best friends or married, relationships take work or they fade. That's just the way life is.
When my husband first started prospecting for the club that he's in, I was fairly new to the biker world. We had been hangarounds for quite a while and had become friends with everyone in the club. I knew that he was becoming part of a motorcycle club, but I didn't quite have a grasp on what being part of an MC would mean to me.
During the first 30 some odd years of my life, I had more than my share of people come in and out of my life. Quite a few relationships were ended too short by death. Others were ended because their parents decided to move. More recent relationships ended because of my own stupidity at beginning them in the first place. Needless to say, I had trust issues. Biker or not, it still takes time for me to know if I can trust someone and it doesn't happen overnight.
I recently discovered Facebook and found some of the friends I used to have. Something I've learned about relationships is that they don't always pick up where they left off, but it's not because I love them any less than I did when we were growing up. We never got a chance to grow into our new lives together. Whether you're best friends or married, relationships take work or they fade. That's just the way life is.
There's something about most bikers that I haven't found in anybody else. I became friends with the people in my husband's MC and over the years we've become family. They say blood runs thicker than water, but I think you would have a hell of a time trying to convince some of my "extended family" that we didn't have the same blood. And I've learned that's how it is with a lot of bikers. They don't just accept people with blind faith, but once they do you can be sure it's not because they're trying to win a popularity contest.
Sure some of them I know just from reading their blogs, but I guess you could say there's a special place in my heart for bikers. So that's why I'm upset about someone I don't even know who lives in another state losing some of their freedom because of some idiot probably getting paid a pretty penny to pass this bill. I can almost be sure that if it were happening to me, she would feel the same way. I'll leave you to ponder a comment I left on her blog.... Is freedom following the law or can it truly be achieved by breaking it? Just a thought.
Sure some of them I know just from reading their blogs, but I guess you could say there's a special place in my heart for bikers. So that's why I'm upset about someone I don't even know who lives in another state losing some of their freedom because of some idiot probably getting paid a pretty penny to pass this bill. I can almost be sure that if it were happening to me, she would feel the same way. I'll leave you to ponder a comment I left on her blog.... Is freedom following the law or can it truly be achieved by breaking it? Just a thought.
Freedom is choice. When you violate someone else's limitations and boundaries( laws, codes, mores, personal space, etc), you, in essence, choose then to summon any repercussions they are powerful enough (through money, numbers, public support) to enforce. The result may be the suspension of some of your own freedoms. It is a matter of "recognizing" whose freedoms to acknowledge. Therefore, only those who do not have any interaction with others are truly "free." Everything else is interpretation.
ReplyDeleteSounds very much like Zen philosophy. Jeff's been reading a book on it, so I'm learning a little about it every night. It's amazing what people miss in life because of the way we've been educated. Last week's thought (which I didn't post) was what is the definition of quality.
ReplyDeleteI read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" a while back - a really interesting book. There's a big bit on quality in there.
ReplyDeleteSo, OK, it's an old song, but Freedom's just another word for "nothing left to lose".
Or, having no one else around to answer to - why I enjoyed being able to ditch everything on my 10 day trip to Arkansas and back.
To me, it seems a lot of people are way too concerned about how other people live their lives. I got enough trouble keeping track of myself, so I got no energy to try and control what other folks do.