I have been following an ADVrider post from Viola-tor called VIOLA-TING AMERICA-Chasing the dream of music and motos for a while now, and find this guy not only inspiring but well spoken and written. This single post created an emotional response of joy and satisfaction. His take is a true money shot and excites the hell outa me!!
“Transportation
transport – verb. take or carry (people or goods) from one place to another by means of a vehicle, aircraft, or ship
– figurative – cause (someone) to feel that they are in another place or time
– (usu. be transported) overwhelm (someone) with a strong emotion, esp. joy
– historical – send (a convict) to a penal colony, banishment
Why do we need to “get away from it all?” And why so often? Each ride I take only escalates the desire for the next; it’s a titillating spiral of exploration. The allure is that the ride is “real,” right? If real is what we’re looking for, why go? Isn’t staying at home and paying the bills real, or realer?
No, the ride experience is not just real, I think it’s uber-real, an experience that connects us with our caveman pasts. There’s nothing left to hunt for the modern urban man, nothing of great consequence left to fear, and for a select few of us (thankfully!) our brains can’t accept the reality of a soft domestic lifestyle, we have to seek out higher level of primal satisfaction that is ironically enabled by the advanced society we strive to “escape” from. Of course there are things like evil corporations and nuclear weapons to be afraid of, just as our caveman ancestors feared lightning and earthquakes, but these are powers beyond mortal understanding and control and are “supernatural” to an extent. We NEED the fear of a saber-tooth cat or wooly mammoth. Those threats, although extremely dangerous, we can do something about. We have a fighting chance, and we need the chance to fight.
Motorcycles.
A chance to fight. The heart rate quickens as the engine spools up, eyes firmly locked on target as the machine darts forward just missing the merging sixteen-wheeled behemoth trying to box me in. I don’t feel the controls, the seat, the machine. It is me, and I fly. The adrenaline will stay with me for hours. I live to fight another day. Oh, how I live! No one will know…
The motorcycle transports me physically and occupies my mind (nearly all the time!). Music transports too, it transports the mind and occupies the body. Viola technique falls away and I no longer see the black notes on the page or feel my individual fingers tap the strings the way they have so many times before. The bow pulls and weaves, heaving up and down through the dynamic range without my brain consciously commanding it as I loose control of my facial muscles, no longer caring what I look like. As the symphony unfolds around me my consciousness is uplifted, taken away from the stage in a wave of emotion: not happy, not sad, peace perhaps? Oneness, unity, with what I do not know. Fast music, quiet, sad, slow, loud, it doesn’t much matter when it’s happening, the feeling is the same, and somehow I don’t really hear the music anyway. I’m swept away completely in the moment as time melts…
Am I lucky, or cursed? These are drugs, addictive to mind and body alike, and potentially harmful to both. Is there a fine line where the escape becomes the reality? Is it possible to be transported so often and so convincingly that the the euphoric state becomes dominant over “the real world?” I’m not afraid to find out. I WANT to know. This sounds like an addict talking.
Perhaps it is a some sort of gratifying sentence. Maybe I am a convict and have “hard time” to serve in a way, a mandatory experiment of the self. Let us see where this goes…
__________________
WHHHAAAAT!?!?!
5 Star RR: VIOLA-TING AMERICA – Chasing the dream of music and motos”