size matters

i was just saying that i take safety into consideration more than others might think.  i argued that sometimes safety conscience decisions lead someone to be "overly cautious".  they make the choice that seems prudent and adult at the time, but quickly realize that what they choose is not what they want.  what they want is most likely bigger, faster and stronger than what they have.  they are then in the position of replacing the safe choice with the real desire, or living with safety rather than enjoyment.  no matter what anyone tries to tell you, when it comes to enjoyment, size does matter.

there has been a debate raging in my head for the months.  i wanted to recapture a piece of my youth, but realized that i was past the point just leaping back on and going for it.  i needed to weigh the cost and benefits.  i needed to decide if the risk was worth the reward.  i wanted to do something which made perfect sense to me, but i was sure would cause others to question my sanity.

i wanted to buy and ride a motorcycle.  i could not get the desire out of my head, every time i was stuck in a traffic jam and watched the parade of local scooters flow by, i wondered why i was so old and protected in my mid-sized commuter mobile.  i imagined myself in the flow of traffic.  lane-splitting my way home, and cutting my commute time in half.  this "object desire" came close to being an obsession as i considered and rejected multiple plans to scratch my itch for speed.

i test drove a 500 cc royal enfield classic.  this was the first time i had been on a bike in ... a long time.  i was able to take the bike around the area, and get it up into third gear.  the feeling of power as it moved from zero to 60 km was amazing.  i was completely sold that i wanted to get a bike, but i was not sold on it being this one.  i did more research and found reviews that discussed low highway speed and shuddering that "felt like god had grabbed the handle and shook it".  this was not the experience i was looking for, i decided to do the adult thing and wait for another option.

i was still doing internet research.  the standard advice was to start smaller and then upgrade.  the memory of the 500 cc pulling itself off the line was there, the thill of the power and speed.  was it too much?  should i be more conservative?  would it be safer if i started with a 250?  would the smaller bike even make it up a hill with me on it.  let's be clear, a bike built for an asian frame does not sell in the US for a good reason.   we are bigger and used to speed.  would a smaller bike be a sad reminder that bigger is better; in the most negative way.

i test drove a 250, still enough power to be respectable.  but the size of the bike was cramped.  i could see it working, but knew it would be temporary.  it was also a cruiser, which was not what i wanted.  i have this old school image of riding a cafe racer.  all the rage now with a certain segment of the 40-something crowd; and for me a touch less annoying than the wild hogs of american chopper infatuation.  i love the idea of a bike that comes into its own by stripping all the extras away, by grinding pieces of the frame away and beating the gas tank into a tucked in shape.  beauty and power within the less is more metaphor.

and then i found it.  a local bike customized down into a japanese brat package.  close to the cafe image, in a small and tight asia implementation.  the test drive happened on the hill outside the condo.  my idea was that if it climbed the hill with me attached then there was plenty of opening power.  the 175 cc was surprisingly fun and more powerful than i expected.  it is a small bike, but it was passed the test by defeating slope and mass with acceleration.  there were two days of torment as i tried to decided; more worried about how i looked than how it felt.  how i felt won, and the deal was done.

i am now into my third weekend of ownership.  i am happy with the way the bike gets around.  it doesn't have the top-end speed that will allow it to be the one for the long term, but it is fun and is perfect as the training-bike i made the mature-choice to buy.  it was also 7% of the price of the bike that i really wanted.   i am riding at a deep discount to the original object of desire.  as i go from place to place, tucked into the bike to drive the speedometer over the 100km mark, it's more fun than i expected.  but this is not the bike for the longterm.  it gets me around the expat enclaves, and brought me into the city today.  but we are not going onto the highway; for that, we need to upgrade.

this was the right choice of conservative caution.  it ticked off all the boxes of need; but not all those of want.  if you see me on the bike and have a comment, bring it on.  but understand that i am happy with the choice.  i will also be happy with the next choice.  the next one will be bigger, faster and stronger.  it will scratch that itch to take on more.  it will be the platform for the customization that only an over-40 engineer/executive would take on.

i might be a spoiled little boy with too much time, money and lack of adult oversight; but i am also man enough to know that one-size does not fit all.

my little brat is just what i need.

/******
i know boys and girls who might want it, but maybe i will keep the brat anyway.  why give up on your first, even if the upgrade is even better in the corners.
******/

be careful

i have someone in my life who gives me the same advice almost everyday.  the advice is not just a parting gesture, it is a genuine hope that i will take the advice and incorporate it into my daily life.  the issue is that i may not really understand what they are telling me.  it seems to me that i already reasonably careful, if not strictly cautious. i wonder why someone would feel the need to give me this advice; especially someone who knows and hopefully understands me.  it makes me worry sometimes that they feel the need to tell me this. maybe they see something i don't see.  as i speed away, i hear the echo of them saying "be careful".

i see myself as a risk taker, but not as a stupid risk taker.  i wear my seat belts when i drive.  i wear a helmet when i ride my bike.  i believe in safety, unless it gets in the way of enjoying the activity.  the example that jumps out at me is the use of a life preserver.  when someone hands me one of these as i step onto a boat i cringe at the idea of putting it on.  not that i want to risk drowning, but that i know i am going to be uncomfortable the whole time i am wearing it.   i also know that i can swim better without the bulky orange vest, than with it.  unless i am sailing far from shore, and at real risk of being swept off the deck by storm waves, i am not going to wear something that just gets in the way.

why do i wear a helmet then?  well, the risk/reward calculation is different.  i have ridden bikes long enough, hard enough and fast enough to have lost 4 of them to crashes.  when i say lost, i mean folded up into sculpture like shapes by high speed impacts with larger and higher mass vehicles.  in one of these impacts, i walked way with barely a scratch on me, but with a long white stripe of paint on my black helmet.  i have always wondered what my bare head what have looked like after the same impact sans plastic safety gear.  prior impacts, most while doing nothing close to risky but mixed with speed, boredom, stupidity and the elements have taught me that i am not in control while on a bike.  i am at risk because of others, and i need to take extra precautions.

we are all always at risk.  there is risk in walking out onto my balcony, or so i should believe if i listen to the stories of people being hit by lightening.  but when i review the studies, we find that most deaths occur in non-urban environments around the world.  if i were in the rural world, i might need to take more direct precautions.  but in my urban environment, staying out of the pool during a thunderstorm should be enough.  doing the things i heard as a kid, turning off the TV, not using a phone and staying away from windows might be a bit of overkill in todays world.  i would rather get up in the middle of the night and go out onto the balcony to enjoy a good thunderstorm than to hide from it because of some mythical belief carried from an earlier age and situation.

i do take risks.  the kids and i are talking about going skydiving.  but we are not into taking dumb risks. we all agreed that if we are going to do it, we will do it in the US rather than asia, and we will find a reputable firm to do the training with.  everything might have risk, but being smart about which ones you take are part of the game.

when i first realized how often i was being told to "be careful" i wondered if there was an underlying message i had been missing.  much like when i tell people to "be good", in most settings in asia i do not think i am giving them the same advice they would be getting from their parents if they were told the same thing.  i am suggesting they be self aware, be the best they can be and embrace the opportunities to enjoy life.  this contrasts with the asian version of, "don't do anything that will later be a mistake or bring shame".  when i try to imagine getting this asian version of the advice as a child, i remember my father saying, "fuck em if they can't take a joke".  which i translate for my kids as, "life is short, enjoy yourself".  clearly my blue-collar-hippie dad was not an asian parent; thank god for that.

i try to be careful, but living life stops me from avoiding all things risky.  i got a tattoo, and loved the process and results.  i take the kids out far to the break, i ride motorcycles and enjoy driving in storms.  the thing i miss most about winters are going snowboarding.  bungee jumping and skydiving are both on the list.  i would love to ride across asia, or sail across an ocean.  i hope retirement comes with a surfboard and a local break over 6 feet.  i am just dumb enough to paddle out and risk it, because i know i can and i love the thrill of actually doing it.

if being careful means not driving fast, not feeling the wheels slip a bit in the rain, not feeling that pull of mature fear of failure be replaced by the satisfaction of success, then i am not ready to be careful.  i don't want to be that guy now, or ever.  if i was going to be that guy, i probably would have been before.  maybe i was when the kids were young, i was not taking as many risks and i was always worried for them and their safety.  i was much less fun, and i was clearly much less happy that i am now.  i have realized they didn't need me to be that guy, what they needed was for me to go along and participate.  sharing the risks and the laughs are much better than being upset that they are on their bikes without a helmet; i am sorry we ever had that conversation.

some people can feel a thrill while safely locked into a roller coaster.  others have the ability to drive themselves into the thrills that get their heart going.  when i hear the advice to "be careful", it's not saying don't drive yourself.  what i hear is, "i know you enjoy this, i know you know there is risk, i want you to come back safely and tell me how the challenge felt and much of a charge the act of success gave".

or maybe i am just translating "be careful" to "be good".

choosing culture

much of what i write about here reflects the differences between myself and the cultures which i experience as i live my life.  i started writing when i moved to asia, during a period of other change in my life.  as i was experiencing the new environment, i began to see the similarity and many more differences between asia and version of the US i felt i had left.  the questions i was asking were mostly about why people would make the choices they make.  this was both at the micro and macro levels, as well as specifically about myself and those closest to me.  we make choices, we live publicly and privately inside our own culture; and next to other cultures.  but many of the choices people make seem oddly foreign, even when they are made for cultural reasons you understand.

i have asked the same question of three friends in the past few weeks.  they have signed up to join cultures which are not their own.  in all cases i was told the reason was their respect for the same small group focus that would have driven me away.  these are guys i know and respect.  we have a lot in common, but these choices are beyond my ability to understand.  they are making a choice to join a culture, and will be expected to live within those choices.  all three have strong individuality, the proven ability to separate themselves from those closest to them, and yet all three are signing up join groups that limit the individual for the ability to hold the group tightly bound together.

when people in asia talk about being multi-cultural, i smile and shake my head.  there are cultural differences here, but they are small differences.  the differences are mostly external, focused on what language you speak, what you eat and what you wear.  these are surface items, that allow a very high level of cross over.  not only do we have baba-nyonya culture, where chinese took on the outward elements of the malay/indonesian culture, but we have HIGH number of chinese, indian, thai and other ethnic mixing that make the malay group what it is today.  i have to smile when someone tells me they are "fully malay", but then admits that one or more of their grandparents where from a non-malay culture or ethnicity.

don't miss understand me.  i am not saying this is disingenuous in any way.  what i am arguing is that there is not as much difference between the groups as people would like others to believe.  all three groups are family focused, and patriarchal.  viewed with a more critical viewpoint, especially through the american lens of individuality and egalitarianism, this can come across more as paternalism and softly-veiled misogyny.  but to each other, the traditional asian value system is strongly held by the other groups.  it is clearly much easier to dislike the western value system than to acuse one of the other groups of being socially dangerous.

and there is the danger i see for my friends.  they are choosing a culture where what is considered normal for us could be subversive and riddled with danger.  unless of course they are looking to join, and take advantage of the male-focus of the culture.  as i think about this more deeply, they are each from different western cultures which were previously paternalistic.  am i misunderstanding the desires here, is it that they truly want to go back to the more conservative times of the past?  is that the attraction for joining?

you could point out that i also recently joined a asian group dynamic.  although i did it in slightly different ways.  i selected a group with the smallest amount of differences of all the situations.  same religion, same focus on education, same professional level, history of crossing ethnic boarders and possibly the most important of all shared native language.  fully asian, but with a strong western vibe deeply ingrained and a focus on the strength of women and matriarchy.   hopefully they will continue to be accepting of my semi-bohemian individuality.  there is evidence of this acceptance being core to the group; so i am less worried than i would be otherwise.

we all choose cultures.  we may choose to stay within the one we were brought up in, or to go along with the changes our culture is experiencing as we mature.  we choose our culture by selecting family, friends, education, occupation, workplace, hobbies and groups we join and even the places we choose to live.  we make choices about what we eat, where we go and who we spend time with.  we decide to be alone or in a wider group.  we choose to dress up, dress down or dress with the norm to send statements about who we are and how we fit into the wider group dynamics around us.

i still don't understand the choices others make.  why any person would stay with someone who uses the threat or act of violence to keep them is beyond me.  why a woman would not throw off a misogynistic culture, may always be a mystery.  but i no longer question the validity of these choices; not most of them.  many choices i would never make can valid for others.  i am not going to advocate against most of them.  i will not suggest they are wrong.  i know they are not right for me.

but, as a self-professed free-thinking libertarian, what else would you expect.

choosing freedom

i was just settling in under the umbrella today when my angel pointed out the topless woman a few chairs down.  yesterday there had been an equally free woman at the other end of the long set of chairs; too far to see who she was with or around.  just close enough to notice her choice of freedom and move back to my book on evolution.  but today we were closer, and there was more of a chance to put the entire scene in perspective.

last year i was sitting in the same chairs with my daughter and noticed an older woman a few chairs down who had chosen freedom.  i asked ash why she did not make the same choice, she said "i don't want to show them".  i noticed the age of the woman, and although she looked good for her age, she may have passed some point where things had looked better.  the reply and the observation caused me to muse, "isn't it sad if there is a inverse relationship between someone showing, and someone wanting to be shown?"

the attraction is not the freedom, but the act of choosing to be free.  i find it interesting.  why do some women who would look wonderful choose not to be free?  how do others, regardless of how they look, make the choice?  this same question can be repurposed for lessor acts of freedom.  bikini, sheer blouse, braless, short dress, tight jeans, sleeveless, tudong, burqa are all points along the same spectrum of choice.  we live in a multi-cultural environment so many of these points will be accepted in the right situation; if you choose them.  but there is cultural conditioning that takes the freedom away.

few people are surprised or offended by children on the beach that are topless or with less.  this happens across all the cultures, in the past week i have seem families from all over asia, europe or australia with kids in less than a complete swimsuit.  it is the same in the US, no one gives it a second thought.  but as we age, the conditioning kicks in, to the point that actions accepted by some are are stopped by fear or shame by others.  in my standard libertarian bent i believe each person should have the ability to choose, and should not be oppressed by others into making a certain decision; wether it's wearing a hajib or not wearing a top on the beach.  both are equally valid, and the right to choose should be protected and celebrated.

these thoughts all kicked in as i looked past the woman of freedom, and her equally free friend, and noticed that immediately next to them was a muslim family with a woman in tudong.  men, women and children in the group eating their early lunch and discreetly ignoring the two european woman.  there were others all around; men and women, local, asian, aussie and russians.  no one seemed to interact with these woman, to be offended or to try to get them to be less free.  not while in the chairs, or when they laid at the waters edge with their toes in the surf,

this is the point, these women made a choice, others either respected it or ignored it.  i find this as a very positive thing.  this is a muslim country; although it is also a hindu island known for bare breasted women 100 years ago.  it has a very large number of tourists coming and going with a certain surfer-chic hipness baked into the vibe.   other asian-muslim countries are not nearly as relaxed about these things, i really can't imagine any form of public immodesty being ignored in malaysia.  last year people were shot with water cannons for wearing yellow shirts, no telling what could happen if there were no shirts.  note the lack of anything close to a world-class vacation spot and do the math.

so, hurray to the freedom and to the freedom to be free.  this kind of simplicity and respect is exactly why i needed to get away.  i just needed to be somewhere that let's people live and stays out of their life.  the hotel has armed guards, a bomb sniffing dog and metal detectors to try to keep the guests safe from another round of bombings, but on a day to day basis there is more freedom and sanity here because of cultural acceptance; and the surfer vibe.

as we talked sitting on our shaded chairs, i remembered a morning long ago.  i had just climbed up into the tower and was putting on sunblock.  a woman walked up called for me to come down.  when i got there she said, "i am not a prude, but i have kids with me and those people are doing something under their blanket that i hope you can make them stop".  i looked maybe 100 feet down the beach, no where close to anyone else there was a lone blanket.  as i watched the blanket did have a certain rhythmic movement to it.  i looked at the not-a-prude-mom and told her i would take care of it.

i strolled down slowly, hoping things would resolve themselves before i got there.  when i got to them, there was still some movement, and i cleared my throat to let them know i was there.  two heads popped out, with shy smiles.  we had a very quick conversation, where i apologized for having to do it but asked them to take the party somewhere else.

when i got back into the tower, prude-mom waved thanks to me and i went back to putting on sun block.  i remember sitting and wondering if i should have handled the situation differently.  i needed to enforce the rules, but i didn't feel right doing it.  not-a-prude-mom could have ignored the situation, and distracted the kids down at the water.  i doubt her kids ever noticed, and if they did she could have used it as a teaching exercise on freedom.  but she decided to be legalistic and to impose her "not-a-prude" views on others who were nowhere near her; safely hidden under a blanket.

it is probably 28 years since that summer morning.  i am on the other side of the planet and i have seen things.  if i had been working on the beach this morning and prude-mom had come up to me and asked me to take care of this situation, i am not sure what i would have done.  but today was not that day, and i was not in that role.

today was vacation; one built on freedom and openness   i am very happy i was with someone who appreciates my love of freedom, and who is open to pointing something out if i would have missed it.

what did she choose?  what she is comfortable with, and i love that she knows it's all her choice.