Patterns

I read some of this David Suzuki book, Sacred Balance, and it had me thinking patterns of movement all evening as I rode home.

And one thought that occurred to me was that the input/output relationship between effort and pleasure while riding a bicycle is beautifully balanced.

Which is another way of saying that I get out of it what I put into it.

A tautology, but whatever.

And then it came to me:

Why doesn’t the government give the money to people who owe it to the banks rather than the banks to pay off loans that those people can’t pay?

I’m probably missing something in the complexity of it all, but it sure would seem a more sustainable model of repayment.

This inspired me to wonder about the kinds of final assessments I want to create for each of my classes. In one, I think, I will ask to be part of a conversation about an idea from this class. In another, they will be ask to formulate a question that they would be willing to talk about for 3 minutes. And in the other, it would be cool if they would consent to teach the rest of us something.

Later, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe the solution is for everyone to just slow down. All of our problems in modern life stem from trying to get someplace more quickly.

This suggested to me that we need to convert intangible value to the tangible. That means it seems like what the sensible thing to do is to figure out the right relationship between those so as to sustain real value in the valuable thing.

Whatever that is.

But one thing that’s surely obvious is that a warehouse full of bicycles would be worth more than bunch of intangibles.

And if they could be used by people conveniently then even more real value could be generated.

Especially if something like a Conference Bike were involved.