Can we truly ever develop a single marketplace, governed by a global set of standards, regulations and rules without destroying cultures and eliminating what is beautiful about humanity? My need for a logo came from an unusual angle. I wanted to support my daughter and her netball team so I decided to become their sponsor. This team has the heart of a lion.. well ok Panther. The Pontyclun Panthers are a 'Back to Netball' club based in south Wales. They've played many games and, its fair to say that they are still... developing. I reckon this team has the makings of a Hollywood screenplay. The underdogs that didn't quit. They've played dozens and dozens of games and won.. just the once. But it's a start! Part of the deal comes with my logo on their kit. A nice touch, but I didn't have a logo. Until I found Mayashani in Sri Lanka.
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On 23rd October 2018 I will be donning my best gear, cleaning and polishing my boots and saddling up my new F850 GS to undertake a pilgrimage to Savona, a town close to Genoa, both to put the bike through its paces but also to draw some closure to a story that spans a century. Spoiler alert: this is only the backstory - the reason for this undertaking - not about the bike or anything particularly existential - although that will follow! However, it stands alone as an event that needs to be recounted. If you haven't guessed it yet, it concerns a lesser known maritime tragedy that occurred during WWI, The key players - a German U-boat, a brand new Cunard liner being used as military transport, two Japanese destroyers and some very brave men and women. September has been a pretty good month so far. I'll explain. I signed up to be a Blood Biker last year, which in case you don't know is a volunteer post in which you give up at least two nights a month to be on call to collect blood or tissue samples from a hospital to deliver to another hospital for an emergency situation. A serious accident, someone who needs blood or tissue examining so that they can get the right diagnosis and treatment asap - like immediately. Blood bikers honestly do save lives which is why we get out of a warm bed and shake ourselves down even though it's actually pretty tough to do so at the time. Hats off to all my colleagues and their families around the country who do so and who often hold down day jobs at the same time. I was having a morning WhatsApp chat with my daughters the other day when No.2 mentioned that she had missed the Perseid showers the night before but had dreamt it and it was amazing, so was that the same? It was just an offhand comment but of course it mentioned dreams and the mind so that set me off. I told her certainly it's a good substitute, because when you imagine something, to some parts of your brain it is the same as if it really happened. In fact, imagining something can actually change both your mind and your body in measurable ways. Admiring the wiring How does this work? Well first consider what the brain is. A box inside your head, in a dark shell, that interprets signals coming in from your external senses. It combines them all together to make one unified experience of reality for you. But these are really just electrical and chemical messages, encoded to the language of neuronal and synaptic interactions and sent to the front part of your brain to validate and accept as reality. Your imagination can replicate these firing neurons to a good standard, better if you practice it, so that emotions can also be evoked and other parts of the brain take it as 'red'. It did actually happen, so they react accordingly and you get the 'experience'. The only thing that stops you believing it is the parts of your brain (most likely pre-frontal cortex, the thing that inhibits you from actually acting out some of the crazy ideas you have.. you know the ones...) which is there to help you cross-reference and interpret all those senses and say, 'Hang about, what's the provenance of all this activity in my head? Is that really a marshmallow or a pillow?' Do you find that sometimes you just don't want to have to decide where to go today, what to do, eat or buy? You wish someone else would come up with the plans and not ask your advice or opinion on each tiny detail? You're not alone and probably have a form of decision fatigue. Having to constantly choose from a huge range of options or for long periods of time reduces your ability to make good choices as well as introduces a lot of stress in your life. But fear not, there are mitigating strategies you can adopt. When I'm riding it tends to be an 'in the moment' experience. The feel of the wind in my face. The next bend, the next hazard, the sound of the engine. If it's an uncomplicated road and there are no hazards it's possible for an existential thought to pop up and smack me in the chin. Or if I stop for a moment to admire the view or reflect on what I've just seen then thoughts can start meandering along, picking up other hitchhiking thoughts along the way. These will then sometimes be dropped off in a few moments or come along for the long haul. I've had thought 'hitchhikers' for many years sometimes. Fortunately they don't often require me to stop for ice cream but they do keep saying "are we there yet?", to which I respond, "No! Stop fidgeting!"
On my return from Africa I had a yearning to get out on the bike, the call of nature was strong, my body was telling me it wanted to assume the position. So, I've managed to clock up over 500 miles since last week, including demo rides of the new Triumph Tiger 800 XRT and BMW F 850 GS.
The Tiger is a lovely bike, but the GS has pipped it for me. Riding the GS I was hardly conscious of my body moving at all, it seemed that all I needed was to think about where to go and that was where I went. I really like it when that happens, it feels like the machine and I are not separate but one and the same. On reflection, I think that statement is quite true. In my former life I used to be a bit of a process improvement nut and even qualified as a Lean Six Sigma green belt at one stage. You could be excused for thinking it’s some kind of martial art practised on skinny people, but no, it’s a methodology with super complex statistical analysis built in at each stage (for Brainy people, which is why I never got to Black Belt) which aims to Define, Measure, Analyse and then ultimately Improve and Control a system (DMAIC for short). In the Analyse phase, there’s an approach you use called the ‘5 Whys’. It’s just as it appears, you posit a statement and ask Why? five times to drill down to the root cause. Although more strictly a problem-solving tool, I like to use this whenever I’m trying to understand better the reasons for anything. If you follow this metaphorical piece of frayed cotton thread you often uncover rich detail and see things with a whole lot more colour, as well as often understand yourself and other people better. As I write this it is the Muslim celebration of Eid and I’m in Tanzania. There’s a definite air of holidays about the day. Call to prayer started at the usual time of 5am but this time went on until 7am, with about four Mosques competing audibly within a square kilometre. In terms of denominations, there are more Christians here but a sizeable number of Muslims as well so the Government acknowledges important events on both calendars with official holidays.
Bikers are worldly. They’ve seen things, man. They have perspective, probably the result of always looking farther ahead than most people. Well, you know, the vanishing point and all that. It may seem like a tenuous connection, but it’s actually not.
I mentioned in an earlier post that where you look is where you go.. not only on the bike but in your head. If you look towards the negative, that’s going to be where you end up. I live by that rule. |
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