Power

Carving through traffic this morning at speed, I wondered at the amazing design of this bike. Agile, nimble, and very, very powerful, and it's all right there, just waiting for me to flick the throttle open and pick a direction.

Without the bike, and I am good for (at best) a fast sprint for a mile or two before my resources are exhausted. But with the bike, being on the bike, its power transforms me... With the Bandit, I can fly and dip and turn and take myself almost anywhere I want. Its powerful design supports my journey - enables it.

Alone, I am a sole traveler slowly working my way across the landscape around me. But together with my bike, I am something else entirely, empowered and free to roam and ready for adventure.

Something about this rings true about my relationships with others these days.

I (personally) feel strong and capable these days, ready to take on the world and any challenge in it. And yet the more powerful and centered and capable I become, the more I seem to be given the challenge of helping others who are not where I am, or are not yet capable of what I am capable of.

I'd like to think this is just how life should be - the strong helping the less-strong through periods and in ways they cannot help themselves. The powerful helping the less powerful.

But looking around, life is actually quite brutal and unfair. The strong take and pillage and leverage from those less fortunate. The deceitful prey upon the trusting, and the wicked prey upon the weak. In my opinion, it's an epidemic failure of humanity to use power appropriately.

In stark contrast, my bike is also powerful. Very powerful. And although the Bandit sits quiet and still when it doesn't need to be anything else, she readily lends me her power anytime I need it.

In that same way, I try to lend strength to my friends and family to help them move through life's difficult periods. I care about people. My wife is an amazing woman, a reservoir of quiet strength and beauty, and I watch her do the same for her friends and family. And actually, as a former firefighter, I've been privileged to know a lot of people who use their strength to help others like that.

To me, at least, this feels like the 'right' use of power - and all of us moving through life, at one time or another, needs that kind of borrowed strength.