Cars are the box of Nature

J.M. Cougar riding @ Palomar Mountain©2010

"Cars are like sitting in a movie theater, motorcycles are like being in the movie."

-BRC Instructor

When some one asks me what I think is beautiful, the first thing I can think of is riding down a mountain trial looking out over endless curves lined with trees or cliffs that extend my view out to the horizon. However this was not at all my view on nature before I sat down on that two wheeled journey.

My instructor would go on and on every day about how beautiful it was to ride out in the mountains, how even with people on the road you felt alone. You could feel the air, smell the wind and had a first hand panoramic view of the earth as you winded down country roads. Nothing could be more refreshing and soul vitalizing that one of this types of rides. He was a role model, a leader to me as I learned everything I could in my basic rider course about motorcycles. His politics on what is truly the soul of nature rubbed off on me, as I yearned to experience what he felt. What was natural to me, was Alaska. Standing out on my porch and just surveying the ice capped mountains that lined my back yard. That was true beauty, and I planned on swooning a girl with this gorgeous views. As I fell in love with riding, my natural thoughts switched, believing that riding into the country side and viewing it through the turns in a road was truly romantic. How I wanted to take a girl on the back of the bike and show her the beauty that could be viewed from the seat.

My instructor argued that true nature was viewed from the road, and I followed along. That from the quiet murmur of my backyard was no longer as vitalizing as riding into it. This shows us how we can easily be taught to love something that had no relation to use at all. By simply using words and ideas like going to the movies, the instructor cast a view on what beauty is. I had no romanticism of the open road, but found myself absolved in it after his stories and then personally riding a motorcycle.

I didn't even have curves of road in my vocabulary for vigorous soul jump starts. After my experience I find myself using all sorts of words and descriptions that blend easily with the same crowd who enjoys riding, but may seem foreign to you. Our views on beauty and nature can be changed without us even giving it second thought. I know that I didn't really realize it until I thought about this blog. By reading, listening and experiencing another's view on what is beautiful, it can skew our beliefs and we can find ourselves now dreaming about things we never thought of before.

Much like our poet Wordsworth, there was no such thing as a heart leaping before he wrote about it. There was no such thing a the beauty of the road until my basic riders course instructor told me.

(In relation to the picture, that is a personal shot of me traveling along one of California's mountains.)