Edumacation!

CONTRARY to what some of my friends think, I do a lot of reading.

I like to read.

I read motorcycle magazines of course.  Dirt bike stuff, street bike stuff, touring bike stuff, and how to stuff.

(Rusty, long time friend from my N.A.I.T.* days) even thinks I should be writing how to books!  A question to be pondered once I am sitting on my deck looking out over Woodland Heights, coffee in hand.

I read novels about spies in the cold war, I read history, I read biographies.  I even read road signs on occasion...

On my library shelf, I have such books as the 'The Atlas of the World, Rommel's War in Africa, John Lennon's bio, another of Stalin.'  Guns Germs and Steel, The gangs of New York.

There's The Joy of Not Working, The Joy of Sex... the Joy of Not Working at Sex. **

There's Clancy, Grisham,  Louis L'Amour (one of my all time faves), there's Leon Uris and Agathe Christie.

I have fiction, non fiction, dictionaries, encyclopedias, home decorating mags, Reader's Digest, National Geographic's galore, and even some travel manuals.

So what's the point?

My biker friends and in fact my friends in general are a pretty astute bunch of people, well read, educated either in the academic world or the school of hard knocks, sometimes both.

Often, they send me reading material from diverse sources.  This morning one of my particularly learned buddies, Ron M.  forwards me an article by one Mr. George Jonas.  The National Post, January 04, 2012  titled simply  "It's Not Me, it's You"  I'm sure you could find it online if you'd like to read it.  If you don't, here is the essence of what George is saying to us all...

He compares pilots to psychiatrists. 

That's right.  Flights instructors to shrinks in other words. 

Jonas points out that in the formers lives, they teach their students to look for faults in themselves whereas in the latter, those people tell us we are doing fine, we should be proud of ourselves, we should blame our parents, society, the other driver etc etc. 

Okay, so I am using a little poetic license here, but that is the drift of the article.  Old George (and I don't really know his age but he sounds wise) not so delicately points out that we tend to deflect blame into others in our world. 

Think about it... it's true isn't it.  That idiot that shot 19 people in Tuscon a year ago, and killed 6, had a troubled past, that's why he really isn't to blame. 

I learned long ago on my own, without the help of Freud's bunch, that my parents did the best they could, my sister is really an okay girl, and some drivers are just plain stupid, after all... it is pretty hard to reach that turn signal!

When I ride on the street or in the back country especially, or just lolly gagging around as Barb used to say, I look inwards.  What am I doing that I could do better?  What can I do to lengthen the odds in my favor today.  Maybe a routine piece of simple mechanics, like adjusting the chain or making certain all my lights are working properly.

Maybe changing that burnt out taillight (ever notice how many people drive with burnt out lights!?)  Maybe I can simply speaking, pay better attention?  I can pay better attention to my riding/driving, to other road users, to my kids, to my spouse, to my better judgement.

Maybe I can live out the next 24 hrs and contribute more than I use... and instead of laying blame or even accepting accolades, just be satisfied in the knowledge that I did the best I could today and tomorrow I vow to do better.

*Northern Alberta Institute of Technology

** There is no such book to my knowledge