My dad used to ride a motorcycle, before I was born, and his big learning from the whole experience was that I was definitely not allowed to get a motorcycle.
I pushed my luck as hard as I hope it will ever be pushed a few months ago; turned a small Japanese car into a twisted lump of metal origami at 150 km/h and somehow walked away without a scratch, so unbelievably unharmed that it is the lack of injury that actaully freaks me out now more than the crash.
But as anyone who has properly destroyed a car will tell you, there is a really clear moment where all possible control over whether you live or die in the coming three seconds leaves your hands. For me, it was a fraction of a second where I tried to swerve, hit the brakes, do something - but realised that I was no longer driving a car but strapped to some kind of blazing comet, its motion and my future completely unrelated to anything I do.
That point, when life is determined by the physical laws of mass and velocity, is absolutely fucking terrifying. But is there something in that moment that sits apart from any other experience in life?
All of this is a long-winded way to introduce one of the best things Hunter S. Thompson ever wrote, the end of the epilogue to Hells Angels, his best book. After he finished riding with the Angels, he kept the bike, and would sometimes take it out late at night, riding Too Fast and pushing his luck because:
My son will not be getting a motorcycle.
I pushed my luck as hard as I hope it will ever be pushed a few months ago; turned a small Japanese car into a twisted lump of metal origami at 150 km/h and somehow walked away without a scratch, so unbelievably unharmed that it is the lack of injury that actaully freaks me out now more than the crash.
But as anyone who has properly destroyed a car will tell you, there is a really clear moment where all possible control over whether you live or die in the coming three seconds leaves your hands. For me, it was a fraction of a second where I tried to swerve, hit the brakes, do something - but realised that I was no longer driving a car but strapped to some kind of blazing comet, its motion and my future completely unrelated to anything I do.
That point, when life is determined by the physical laws of mass and velocity, is absolutely fucking terrifying. But is there something in that moment that sits apart from any other experience in life?
All of this is a long-winded way to introduce one of the best things Hunter S. Thompson ever wrote, the end of the epilogue to Hells Angels, his best book. After he finished riding with the Angels, he kept the bike, and would sometimes take it out late at night, riding Too Fast and pushing his luck because:
"...with the throttle screwed on, there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhileration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left, and down the long hill to Pacifica... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge... The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others - the living - are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions."
My son will not be getting a motorcycle.
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