The Vibration

June 8, 2020

Greetings from the vibration,

I’ve spent a lot of time riding a bicycle, and so when something is not working well, I can feel it.  Might be a squeak, or a hesitation, or a rough feeling where it should be smooth.  I know that when I sense these things, I should pay attention.  When I lived on my bicycle, it was critical.

But that has been an evolution of sorts.  My earliest method of dealing with issues was to hose the bike down, shine the rust off.  The idea that I would take it apart to see how it could work better was too intimidating.  In those days, the answer to the squeak in the pedal or the grumble in the rear wheel was to just get by, hope it would get better.  Or just get used to the grinding sound.

Until I learned there was nothing holy about how the bicycle was put together.  Once you take everything apart, and see how things work, see what might be wrong, the mystery goes away.  And so does the fear.  The next time something feels wrong, it is easier to disassemble the parts without worrying it won’t all go back together.

What followed that was an understanding.  Some of it was from what I read, most of it given to me from people who had more knowledge.  There were rules to consider, some things are a given and unchangeable.  And then there was ‘feel’, like the tension on spokes, or how much play there should be when you tighten a bearing cup.  And then it seemed more feasible, allowed even, to adapt and modify to make things work.  If a chain ring was bent, take a pair of pliers and bend it back until it works.  Don’t have a custom wrench to open the bottom bracket?  Hammer and screwdriver will work.

The lesson in this evolution, which is hard to see sometimes, is that all the possibilities for solutions, for the bike to deliver the rider a satisfying outcome, exist in understanding.  That comes from some thinking, learning, patience, trying things, hard work, and getting your hands dirty. 

Before that began for me, I had to understand that just because the bike was handed to me in a certain way, didn’t mean it was sacrosanct.  I learned, over time, that what I did with it mattered as much as how it was built to begin with.   My apologies to everyone scratching their head over this.  I am writing this as I figure it out.  

You have been feeling a vibration, a grinding, more than a squeak, you are hearing a screeching sound.  There is something wrong, and it cannot be ignored.  It is not just the mechanism, not only a loose cable or a wobbly handlebar.  We can’t simply keep riding and hope it gets better.  There is something wrong with the bike.

My credentials as a human are as flawed as anyone’s.  I have been naively racist, a person of privilege, most of my life spent in ignorance of some of the institutional bigotry that I blithely passed through.  The friends I grew up with who were brown or black didn’t explain their burden.  My parents didn’t explain why there were riots, only that I needed to run when they happened.  Even as the violence flared in the sixties I thought I understood, but the changes that came didn’t affect me.  I was content to hose off the rust and keep pedaling. 

Not for the first time, the headlines around the death of a black man at the hands of police created a maelstrom of anger at the injustice.  Not only because of an incident, but because it is part of our culture and it has persisted even when so many caring people have strived for change. 

The result may be hard to look at, may in some ways polarize the people who want peace.  But somewhere in this time there can be a path to understanding.  I think it will require that we take everything apart and look at it, see how it has worked, and see how we can make it right.

What you won’t find here is some settlement of semantics, or whose life matters, or any justification of violence.  I am not defending police brutality and I won’t venerate criminals.  But in this spotlight, even in the places where we all agree, we continue to demonstrate the chasm between races.  We are being given a chance here, I think, amidst the grinding gears and scraping of metal and the wobbly wheel, to stop and figure out a solution.

I’m not saying if we all hold hands and march that everything will be moonbeams and unicorns.  I know better.  I know that the difference between having a dream, and seeing the reality form requires thinking, learning, patience, trying things, hard work, and getting your hands dirty. 

Here is not where you will find a schedule of marches, or a discussion of what force is necessary in arresting someone, or the debate over looting or the weaknesses of human beings.  I won’t wheel out the pervasive injustice against other races, in other countries, or against women or the LGBT community.  Those are part and parcel of the same challenge.  I’m writing here to ask you to first acknowledge that we all have a part in resolving it.  Choose your way, please, and act on it. 

What I learned in this exercise is this: it is scary and uncomfortable and more than a little risky to take something apart that has been just the way it should be for a long time.  But then there is this vibration, and then this grinding, and then a noise you know something is wrong, and you have to stop and figure out what to do next, or things will devolve to a place we cannot ignore. 

The answers will not be found defending incendiary Facebook memes.  The answers are not in justifying injustice, no matter who is on the receiving end.  The answers are in understanding each other, and to get there we have to be willing to take things apart.  Experiences, prejudices, guilt, grudges, and a host of self-serving rationalizations.  I’m talking to you, humans.  Not just the white ones, not just the poor ones, not only the Latinx, not only the African American.  All of us.

What we may need to take apart is our flawed assumptions.  We may need to ask for help, to have things explained, to read for illumination, not simply to protect the status quo.  The mechanism of our politics, our economy, our schools, our social structure, can be laid out in its pieces and with time and practice, be seen for what it is, and reassembled for what it could be.

The hope is in our response, which even amidst the worst reactions I see people reaching for understanding.  We have a chance, again, to prove ourselves at our best.  Maybe we won’t know exactly what to do at exactly the right time, but it is an evolution, not one act, but one leading to another.  Let’s be patient and forgiving of one another as we make our mistakes, try the wrong things, and begin again.

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

Wendell Berry

Hope this finds you disassembling,

David

Copyright © 2020 David Smith