By: Annie Phan
Today I rode with Kate and Matt. We left from Great Bend around 6:30am in the morning, and I remember it being really gorgeous. I love the first two hours of the day - the light and the sun are gentle, I'm full of energy, the tall grasses seem to shimmer in pink as they bend to the breeze. We really scooted along, although we took a slightly longer route than originally planned to avoid unpaved roads. I listened to a lot of podcast episodes, mainly Philosophize This! The exclamation point is part of the title - it's an exciting podcast, but not exciting enough for me to want to shout about it.
I started with the Buddha episode, where Steven (the host) crapped on Keanu Reaves and explained Buddhism really well (I think). The next two episodes were on the Hellenistic period, with one focusing on Epicurus, and the next focusing on three stoics who are similar but not exactly similar I guess. I have no philosophy background at all, so what follows is the complete novice’s impression based on a about 2.5 total hours of audio.
Buddha’s thing is that the natural human state is suffering, and the goal is to end human suffering, I guess by ending desire. You are allowed to eat - ascetics, I’m talking to you. Then you fold four truths, before folding eight paths, and you sit under a fig tree for a long, long time. Now you are enlightened. You're welcome.
Epicurus had a commune outside of Athens, where his idea was that to life “the good life” i.e. a happy life, one must reduce their pain, which means having all of your basic wants and needs met. We were at a commune in Virginia, so this was relatable content for me! Epicurus also liked friendship, but not just regular friendship - intense living-together friendship. The kind of friendship where you can really call each other out for not being wise or good. This is also relatable, because I'm spending literally all of my time with my Spokes teammates and sometimes they call me out for being lazy.
The stoics. I’m not 100% sure what was going on with them. I think the gist was that there is this thing called “nature” or “god”, but it’s not nature as in non-human living things - it’s a force that allowed everything in the world to exist, and this driving natural force has had many many chances (iterating throughout eternity) to figure out how the world is supposed to work and it’s done this very same perfect thing many times before. So basically the world is going to work in this perfect way because it’s all been tried and tested and this is what’s right, and basically there’s no free will but people are supposed to be in harmony with nature. I couldn't wrap my head around the jump between “there’s no free will” and “people should act like this” because those seem to be contradictory statements. I think I might need to re-listen to that episode or read a Wikipedia page or something. Also there was a crazy cynic who barked like a dog and peed on peoples’ legs and he had a name that was very common back then that starts with a D, and apparently Alexander the Great liked him a lot.
The ride was fantastic and awesome and a little tiny bit hillier than yesterday but that was no issue because we had a great TAILWIND! We also passed a sign that said “Some life is protected… and some life isn’t.” There was a whale painted to the left of this cryptic message, and an eagle to the right. I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean, so if anyone has any ideas please let me know. The last 15 miles or so was on Old 40, which is an unpaved road. It was annoying, but we powered through. I listened to Untitled Unmastered to keep myself pumped up.
We got to the Super 8 around 3pm, and Delia had already brought all of our bags up to our room, bless that angle/devil. We showered, got settled, and ordered Pizza Hut, after which I watched Taxi Driver with Matt and Alex. The movie was a little longer than I remembered it being... maybe not a great choice for tired people, because there are many sequences of Travis Bickle just driving around town, looking at the scum of the streets.
Good night.
Personal blog: https://squeeksqueek.wordpress.com/
Comments