A Flavor to be Savored

Today I rode a motorcycle for the first time. In a training lot, at walking speed, with an instructor watching. It was a grey Yamaha YBR 125, with a crash bar mounted so close to the gear shifter & the rear brake that I could barely manage to press them.

What does this have to do with my creative journal?

The more years you accumulate on this planet, the more you gain: experience, pattern recognition, judgment. You get better at things. You optimize. You smooth out the friction until life runs quietly, if all goes well.

That’s also a problem.

Comfort is the slow enemy of aliveness. The brain stops building new roads. The days start folding into each other. You stop noticing things because you’ve already filed them under known.

Today was not known.

I had to hold 5 things in my head just to start moving: extend your left foot before braking to balance the engine, otherwise pressing the right pedal tips the whole thing. Then the sequence: start the engine, squeeze the clutch lever, press down with the left foot to shift from neutral into first, then slowly release the clutch while lifting your feet off the ground.

Then there’s where to look: not at what’s happening in front of you, but at where you want to go. And the balance at 8 km/h (that was my speed limit, no acceleration allowed): Not thought-through. Instinctual.

More than running, more than the gym, more than meditation, it emptied my mind completely. Every second demanded presence.

Beginner’s mind in a body used to know what the predictable tomorrow would bring.

That’s why this belongs here: When I demand a good story from my brain, I can’t just rely on expectations.

Creativity is the product of what we feed it. Today, I fed mine the color of adrenaline, the weight of steel & the humbleness of being a novice.

"In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few." Shunryu Suzuki