A beginning: the bicycle

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 212:

Today, conversely, when only the herd animal is honored and dispenses honors in Europe, and when "equality of rights" could all too easily be converted into an equality in violating rights--by that I mean, into a common war on all that is rare, strange, or privileged, on the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, and on the wealth of creative power and mastery--today the concept of greatness entails being noble, wanting to be by oneself, being capable of being different, standing alone, and having to live independently; and the philosopher will be: "He shall be the greatest who can be the loneliest, the most hidden, the most deviating, the human being beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, he that is overrich in will. Precisely this should be called greatness: to be capable of being as manifold as whole, as wide as full." And to ask this once more: today--is greatness possible?

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A point to begin. But in Moraline's writing over the last 2 years, it is clear a physical challenge must be at the forefront of such a 'project' or attitude. A man has never achieved greatness by sitting. A sitter can never achieve greatness because his experiences are drawn from those who have physically moved their bodies while he has not. He cannot know of other languages were it not for the man who went to the foreign land. He cannot read about the greatness of the sea or the mountain were it for it not for the man who climbed that mountain and swam in that sea. He cannot look at a map were it not for the man who first eyed the contour of that land. Hence the milestone of Moraline's attack upon the sitter.

The bicyclist: he has contact with the land and people and carries a reasonable amount of belongings. I have great admiration for the hiker who covers all kilometers on foot and carries the weight of his belongings on his back. He is able to access far more remote areas than the bicyclist. To hike across Brasil--one may aspire.

For the bicyclist: The climb and the descent represent a certain overcoming of the modern road, a reclaiming of the auto-based culture with an equally strange machine, the bicycle. But we must not lose sight of hiking, of swimming, rowing, canoeing, and running across terrain. There is no primacy in bicycle touring--it may be the perfect combination of effort, the ability to 'efficiently' cover distance while at the same time challenging one's body, the ability to meet new people on the roads of villages, the ability to return and backtrack which the hiker or swimmer do not enjoy with such ease.

Indeed, the bicycle represents a certain convenience, but the convenience does not come at an obvious compromise. Bicycling is difficult, and the rock climber and hiker would not have an obvious attack upon the bicyclist because they must admit to the difficulty of long days in the saddle.

Contrast this to those who choose the bus or the train for their method of exploration. The movement of the bus tourist is not powered by the food the bus traveler obtains. The bus traveler does not carry his own weight. The bus traveler hires a man for monetary compensation and pays this man to drive him over mountains and long stretches of valley. A bus traveler thus requires a necessary intermediary: the servant, the 'driver.' A bicyclist requires no such servant.

The purity of running across terrain: a man carries his weight and requires no mechanical artifice save his moccasins or modern running footwear. The primitive foundation of the ancient subsistence hunters. Yet there are limitations that the tribes recognized and 'solved' with the domestication of horses (the ability to carry food and gear and the ability to cover large distances to hunt animals). The horses required care. Horses themselves present challenges in modern travel--air travel to the destination becomes complicated and the safe housing of the horse is problematic in the villages. One may well can observe that the bicyclist has no relationship with a living creature, but there is a certain bond to the bicycle and I myself have spoken to my bicycle yet have never caressed or stroked or consoled my bicycle or led my bicycle to water in a way a man does with a horse. Yet a man is dependent on his horse and the health of his horse in a way a man is dependent on the health of his bicycle. Should he not feed his horse or should his horse develop sores or break one of his legs, a man faces disaster similarly in the way a man faces disaster with certain mechanical failures such as a cracked frame or broken spokes in the absence of spare spokes or a broken chain in the absence of a chain tool or a malfunctioning hub in the absence of grease, tools, or bearings.

Hence the bicycle represents a certain equilibrium very similar to the domestication of the horse. A bicyclist has domesticated a technology and has agreed to stick with one set of artifices which he shall henceforth call 'the bicycle.' He shall not attempt to improve upon this bicycle yet will modify his handlebar, saddle bags and living gear he sees fit.

He loved running in the mud

Terror, boxes, the ontologists

This bath of nostalgia provides me with unconquerable strength. The past is too much to bear-so it is that a man cannot be a scholar of his own past. He must ride. I cannot consider these 'lost moments' or any 'lost greatness.' Rather, I must ride into the mountains once again and through new land. There is a terror and a joy in something new. Becoming something new, I don't know. What is in the boxes, what I could put in boxes in the future. It is there as it happens-what is left over, let this be the matter of the ontologists.

The boxes

The rarefied moments in Evanston and Bloomington. Packages of photos I just uncovered, the young Maximin at 19. Old writing. Typewritten journals from Budapest--they are enormous. The last year in Bloomington, typewritten journals. Damn it, I knew they existed.

I was far beyond where I am now. If we can somehow get around the ontology of the problem of saying I am still those fucking boxes, with those photos and that god damned writing, then there is great hope for new work to come, despite the last distractions the matrix insists on tossing my way. That is why I kept those motherfucking boxes all these years. A reminder from my self in the past to never give up.

2012 will still be a great year. Much great exploration to come, much great writing. 

Never marry a philosopher

He sees his work surviving 100 years, if not 1000. You will not live this long. His time horizon extends far past your life span.You will not live this long.

Proverbs in Brazilian Portuguese

Each language says things in a different sound and rhythm. It occurred to me this course is designed both to bring the mind to think in this new language and to affirm and encourage a man who is about to to ride his bicycle through Brasil.

1. Antes tarde do que nunca.
Better late than never.

Commentary: clearly the people at Pimsleur wrote this, transplanted this phrase into the reading booklet to provide me with great encouragement as I read these phrases this hazy Sunday morning. They understand how I nearly lost my soul in a strange labyrinth. Hoje e aqui e agora.





2. Longe dos olhos perto do coração.
Far from the eyes, close to the heart.

Commentary: The Pimsleur people wrote this phrase for me perhaps during the early 80s when it was clear I was a rising star in the field of a man's willing himself to something greater.  Also see proverb 16.

3. Deus ajuda quem cedo madruga!
God helps those who wake up early!

  
This was written to indicate the importance of the cyclist's rising early each morning on his voyage. He does this for several reasons: First, it is a counterbalance to the cyclist's potential desire to party too much or to drink too much. Knowing that each morning will arrive at dawn's certainty, he packs his tent and bag and gathers his things. He must rise early to tackle the long climbs as he cannot run out of the day's sunlight because it would mean certain death in the night's roads.

4. Quem não arrisca não petisca.
Who doesn't dare, doesn't catch.



If a man does not risk physical body and risk the painful reshaping of his mind, there will be no creation. There will be nothing. As this phrase Moraline commonly uses: A man gets exactly what he wants, and if he creates nothing, he will have nothing. This means that such a man wants nothing. 

5. Fé em Deus e pé na tábua.
Faith in God and step on the gas.


This is the emblem the touring cyclist wears upon his weary body. Pimsleur crafts each course for the maximim encouragement for a man and his bicycle.

6. O barato sai caro.
Cheap turns out to be expensive.

With panniers, with saddles, with chains and bearings and shoes and jackets. A man is truly rich with a good saddle bag or stem that does not threaten his existence with each descent. 

7. Gosto não se discute.
A taste cannot be argued.

Confer Moraline's "A man gets exactly what he wants."

8. Água mole em pedra dura tanto bate até que fura.
Persistent soft water pierces rocks.

This is what one chants as he climbs a tall mountain. This is what a man chants as he searches for his village.

9. Beleza não põe mesa.
Beauty doesn't set the table.

Yet when beauty does set the table, great happiness.

10. Deus é brasileiro.
God is Brazilian.

A good terrain for the gods.

11. É preciso ver para crer.
To see is to believe.





Deskwriting doesn't get this. Confer Moraline's criticism of the sitting man. 

 12. Um por todos, todos por um.

They may ask: Voce vai sozinho? This shall be my response. 

13. O mundo é dos vivos.
The world belongs to the smart ones.



And the smart ones begin by understanding there is nothing for them to be owned. I will write shortly about the first man who 'had' something. How it led to many things now.


14. Mão fria coração quente.
Cold hand, warm heart.

Severity does not make a man a misanthrope. I have begun to write about the concept of the misanthrope. 

15. Cada louco com sua mania.
Every nut with his mania.







With open arms he is welcomed.  

16. Querer é poder.
To will is to be able to (do).

Away from the albatrosses and into the jungle.

La Linea

7/3/11 6:15 Ibangue

It was brilliant of Leon de Los Rios to recommend I not leave mid-afternoon to Ibangue and instead leave very early in the morning the next day. The climb was 3.5 hours and perhaps the toughest climbing of my life, up there with a climb in Spain, a climb in Portugal, a climb in Northern California, and that's about it. Brutal, and add the bags, and more brutal. The scenery was brilliant--coffee fields, platanos, bananas, humans, trucks--strangely, even after the street food and 4 beers the night before, no lung issues, no breathing issues. The scenery was green and fantastic and I cannot describe it well due to exhaustion. Ibangue was slightly difficult to navigate as I had no address. I picked a hotel that is most likely 20.000 a person, but I was given a triple and it is 40.000. Spend 33.000 on groceries I really didn't need--one is hungry and desperate and it occurred to me that, on a Sunday, the French Carrefour might be my only chance. I took many photos, not many of Ibanque because I feared I would call myself out. There are no foreigners here, no one speaks English. If my Spanish were better, if I trusted the hotel desk a little more, I would be out on the streets. Reminds me of downtown Armenia. Still, a great city with great people, but alone and with great Spanish I might conquer this city well, but alone and with poor Spanish, too much effort given my tongue stiffened by fatigue. If Moraline were here, I am sure he and I would hit the city for some grub, and then hit the clubs. As it stands, I did pick up a quarto, which was two large pieces of chicken, an arrepa, two potatoes, and a fried banana. Excellent, and I ate it with a beer in about 5 minutes, taking photos. There are other hotels, perhaps some of them nicer, but it does not matter. Hotel Alferes Ibague, room 305 .

Yesterday I ran into a feria at Alarca, a great city with stupendously beautiful women. The feria involved local dance groups, some fighting with machetes, some beauty queens on floats with soldiers (the beauty queens put ours to shame), and various strange creatures on stilts. Aguardiente, beer, grilled chicken, sausage, and beef, potatoes, stuffed pig, fruits, pastries, all were sold on the streets in vast quantities. The girls were so hot I could not concentrate. I wandered with my blue bag, pretending I belonged, and took some photos. I drank two beers on the street, ate two chicken skewers, then a pastry, then a chorizo. I went to the super market and picked up supplies, and upon exiting I ran into two mormon missionaries. I called after them, "Amigos." I must have frightened them, but I don't know why.

I continued to wander and it began to rain. I absorbed the energy and music and happiness and beauty and foreign strangeness of it all. Yes, I was alone, but I absorbed much. And I had to rise very early the next morning.

When I arrived back at the hotel, I used the internet downstairs, and not the wireless in the lobby (not wanting to reveal my computer, thinking of Moraline's healthy paranoia) I got a strange call from the manager. He didn't think my name or my address was correct on the form, which his employee prepared, and I didn't understand his point. The chorrizo I had eaten from the street made my mind heavy and I was unable to communicate very well.  He finally came to my door. Not wanting to get robbed, I waited, then asked "Quien esta." "Si, Esta aqui." I opened the door, took my prescription sunglasses off (I had removed my contacts), and stood shirtless in my shorts, while we walked through intricate aspects of the form his employee had filled out. I provided a detailed audit, and determined my middle name didn't matter, and that my address on my passport was not, indeed, my address at all, but my birthplace. He was perplexed and troubled, but I was patient and literally blind, and I decided the best thing to do was continue to describe, in groggy broken spanish, the difficulties of these formalities. (I just killed my second beer, ate a can of tuna--this after the potatoes, the arepa, the chicken, the bread with guayaba puree--party buses drive by, blasting music, as in Cali--did you know Ibangue is the music capital of Colombia?). It's nice I think I've figured out a few things in Colombia now--I can go to non-touristed cities, find a hotel, find food, wander around, and learn some spanish as I make mistakes. Like, tonight, it's a "quarto" of pollo, not "quarta."  I won't have much time in Cali to have meet girls in the hostels. This shouldn't be my goal. Europe would  be easier. But the hostels here have a predominance of women, and it seemed like I was in demand and the girls were competing against each other and all of them very horny. I still think about Sara--her brilliance, her decency, how she held me as I made love to her, how she held my penis, how sweet she was in the morning, offering me pineapple. She smiled much at me, and as Chrome would say,the eyes don't lie, and she looked at me with joy and happiness, but my own joy was restrained by the sadness that I felt in her, and her apprehensiveness. We walked to the city center to find a game of tejo, but the place was closed. We were to meet Adriana, the German Colombian.  But when we were turned away we bought cookies and wine and aguardiente and walked back to the eco hostel in the foothills. As we walked, we poured shots of aguardiente into the cap of the bottle and did multiple shots. We arrived at the hostel and sat outside and drank wine and ate wafers. We then put in Up in the Air but towards the middle I fell alseep in Sara's arms. I drank much wine and aguardiente and massaged her neck and shoulders and then at 1:30 we went in the dormitory room and both of us brushed our teeth and as Sara came from the bathroom and I on my top bunk bed I asked Sara if she needed company and she said yes if I could. I laid next to her and we became aroused together and I took off my shorts and her panties and in mutual masturbation it was clear I needed to take my nakedness, erection and everything, across the pitch black dormitory to find a condom. Miraculously, I was able to find my wallet in my camelback and two condoms in my wallet in the pitch black and then walk back over, recover my partially lost erection, place a condom on my penis in the pitch black, and make love for 20 minutes in three positions (her knees to her chest, traditional, and her legs sideways). She groaned like a girl and I ate her pussy and we then slept together until 7 when i made my way back to my top bunk bed above Adriana so I could sleep. The Israeli slept above us during all of this, and his impressions, weren't my concern as I made love to Sara.

Unable to have an early start, I met Leon de Los Rios at 11:30. Do I remember everyone I have ever met during my travels? Perhaps, and it is latent, and I suppose the idea of latency and past is in sharp contradiction to my recent thoughts on identity, personality, and time. He asked of my bike, I told him of my bike tour plans, and he told me I would not make it to Ibangue, that it was the toughest climb in Colombia, and that at night with the trucks it was crazy to try. Go go Calarca, instead, and start at 7 and make it to Ibangue, but it would be a full day of work in the saddle, grueling and arduous. He told me of snow and wind and rain and unheard of steepness and brutality. To even finish, a very early morning and a much closer approach would be required.

My legs were exhausted as it were--on the day before, my run up the hill revealed fatigue and uneasiness as to my fitness. The idea of a short ride to Calarca and an early morning start the next day sounded ideal. It rained as I made my way to Calarca, but the raid subsided quickly and I removed my yellow vest and climbed to Calarca. I saw many military men with their Galil rifles--perhaps my favorite design. A variant of the AK-74, the Galil shoots Nato Standard 5.56 .223. A large handguarde and gas fed piston ensures durability. I ran into a feria, which I described earlier, feeling out of place in my cycling costume. A man approached me and I felt intimidated, but he said he spent 17 years in Houston, parking cars. He told me to head to the Hotel Villa. I ate a roasted corn cob with salt and butter yet before I did this a woman wanted a picture with me next to my bike. She told me to keep and eye on my camera. The route to the Hotel Villa was blocked by the parade, and when I eventually could cross, there were no room at the hotel. Yet a recommendation from the women led me to the next hotel, where I stored my bicycle in the basement and then headed to the cramped but clean and sufficient room for 30.000 pesos.

A flat today 20k outside of Ibangue. Took me 25 min to repair due to bags and tight wire bead and difficult dropouts. Pretty deep glass cut.

The shower spigot at the Hotel Alferez--a simple pvc pipe, no hot water, perfect for my needs. I must say I do not feel I am missing out on anything today by my not hitting the city right now. I am exhausted and am eating constantly. I enjoy lying in this bed and writing.