There's no shortage of "failure porn" on the Internet, most of it related to business.
They say you have to fail before you succeed. Most of that is bollocks. Some people win and just keep winning, no failure required. Some of us have to fail some before we win. Some will never win, no matter how much they fail.
I'm not going to talk about business.
I'm going to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: motorcycling. More specifically, racing motorcycles. Attempting to get these thrills on the street will kill you faster than you can clap your hands.
What is it about motorcycles that makes some of us want to place them squarely at the center of our lives? A part of it is beauty: motorcycles are beautiful machines.
Another thing is there's no such thing as a bad bike. If you want a bike, don't hit the forums and ask for peoples' opinions. Just find one you like to look at, buy it, and ride the wheels off of it.
As long as it was made in Europe, Japan, or here in the states, it's a plenty good bike. Nobody outside of China builds a "bad" bike. There are even a few good bikes you can buy that were made in China.
If it's your first one, buy a small one that doesn't have much power. If it has two wheels and an engine, you're probably going to have a good time on it as long as you stay up on two wheels, regardless of who made it.
The Chinese bikes tend to crap out more frequently than bikes made in Europe, Japan, and these United States. What about that part about staying up on two though? What about that? What happens if you eat shit on a bike?
There are levels. The first is "the bike's broken," which is basically nothing. Then it's "bumps and bruises," which is what usually happens. Then there's the "emergency room" level. The chances of reaching that level are dictated by how fast you're going when you crash, unless you're on the street. It doesn't take any speed at all to get run over by a car on the street.
Thankfully, cars aren't allowed on motocross tracks or road-racing tracks.
I've eaten shit on lots of bikes, in every possible way. I've been lucky. I have only experienced "bumps and bruises" level injuries that did not require hospitalization. My personal get-offs include high-siding at speed, low siding at speed, and high and low siding at various levels below "at speed." I've never been seriously injured. Lots of other people have. Motorcycles are inherently dangerous. I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you that there's nothing safe about them.
So why do I keep riding them? There is no better feeling for me than feeling like I've cheated death. I like to think I push my life into the pot on a regular basis only to see what happens after the cards fall. Do I get my life back? Or do I have to take a detour? Is this the crash that takes me, or do I get to stand up and ride another day? Is my mom going to have to wipe my ass after I shit have to shit in a bucket, or will I be able to help myself after I huck everything into the weeds? I like to push my life into the pot. I like getting it back even more.
An acquaintance of Sylia Plath, Al Alvarez once wrote the following about rock climbers:
"The possibility of danger serves merely to sharpen his awareness and control. And perhaps this is the rationale of all risky sports; you deliberately raise the ante of effort and concentration in order [ ] to clear your mind of trivialities. It is a small-scale model for living, but with a difference: unlike your routine life, where mistakes can usually be recouped and some kind of compromise patched up, your actions, for however brief a period, are deadly serious."
He wrote that in a book about suicide, called The Savage God.
They say once you race a grand prix bike, everything else in life is boring. They say the same thing about buggery, psychedelic drugs, and flying an airplane.
After you commit suicide, everything else in life is non-existent.
I think about suicide more often than the average person. I don't view it so much as a swamp or ghetto that people descend down into, but rather an apotheosis, a transition into something else. I think about it all the time. Death is interesting. That every single one of us is but a single decision away from it at all times, yet we live on, is something I also find interesting.
It's something I have to live with that many people can't even imagine, let alone understand. Therapists and counselors I've spoken with say this is normal for some people. They ask "How often do you think about suicide?" and I say "All the time." So they ask if I've ever made any plans to commit suicide, and I say "No."
They say that's within the realm of normal. I find the idea of suicide appealing, so I think about it. I don't actually do it, mostly because I have motorcycles to ride.
A woman once asked me why I raced motorcycles. I gave her my answer, and she told me to think harder and try again. And so I did. This is where I ended up.
The more I crash, the faster I get. I like to think I've learned something from my crashes. I've learned how to "push" the front end of the bike without going down. I can wag the rear end like a cat sliding across a hardwood floor. How far can I push, can I slide? That's the ultimate question. Exactly how fast can I barrel into a corner guns-a-blazing without going down? Will the tires stick? Will my body cooperate? Will the bike do what it's supposed to do?
The only way I'll know is if I come out on the other side on two wheels. That's what it means to be up on two. You're turning right, but the bars are pointed left, and the ass end is all sorts of everywhere under braking. Stay up or go down? Stay healthy or get hurt? Live or die? Win or lose?
Those are the questions. I don't have any of the answers. I tend to stay up. But sometimes I go down. Everyone does, including the guys who get paid to race, the pros. Especially the pros. An enthusiast races for personal satisfaction and because it makes him feel something he can't find anywhere else.
I always fight a crash all the way to the ground. I'm not going to get taken for no reason. I am utterly convinced of my own competence right up until I'm skittering across the ground. I won't give in and "lay it down." That kind of nonsense is for people who don't actually know how to ride a motorbike. I keep my eyes pointed exactly where I want to go, until the situation itself doesn't allow me to look where I want to go.
When you're riding a motorcycle, you look where you want to go. The bike will go where you're looking because your eyes will make your body do what it needs to do in order to make the bike do what it needs to do. None of this requires any conscious thinking. It takes place instantaneously, in your spinal cord and your brain stem.
Looking at where you're afraid of going is a great way to guarantee you will crash. Motorcyclists call this "target fixation," and it's the #1 reason people crash bikes when there aren't any cars around.
The same kind of thing, I think, tends to happen when people focus too much on failure, too. If that's all your thinking about, the fear of failing, it's going to be very difficult to set your sights on what you want and actually get it, whatever it may be.
I've never had a fear of falling. When I ask myself "What's the worst that could happen" and the answer is "I might die," my next thought is "That's going to happen eventually anyway, and I think I can mitigate the risk of it happening today by doing X, Y, and Z, so let's do this before I get too old and miss out on it completely."
Perhaps there's something to be said for all of that. Perhaps not. Either way, I hope you enjoyed reading.