Before Beltane

Are Impoverished youth more likely to sit once retired? Some do exhibit diminished imagination, get bored easily, and remain sideline spectators. Obviously depends upon opportunities they seized, or regimen they pursued, throughout careers. Bright, privileged children who are properly nurtured seem more likely to aspire to fame and fortune than kids who’ve dodged bullets and suffered trauma. “Twice burnt, shame on me,” leads to motivational paralysis. Isn’t a permissive culture a mixed bag? Must you endure problems to enjoy freedoms? The ease at which criminals and incompetents acquire assault rifles and automobiles can only be described as unconscionable.

As a child, had hardly any toys, made do with a borrowed bike, garden hose, other kids’ castoffs, real tools begrudgingly lent, or scraps of lumber. Still have scars to show. Built treehouses, did chores, dug holes, hiked around, played sports, practiced skills, and read voraciously, rather than swallow silly commercials, so acquired little but natural memories. Didn't have access to television until a teen, but embraced it as a labor saving device, a dozen complete stories digested in time it took to read a single dime novel. Starved for input, never questioned whether video was a net loss or unhealthy pastime. Generations were deliberately misinformed about details that could affect their very survival: asbestos, BB guns, propaganda, sex, toxins. Might as well include matrimony and monogamy, because even when you’ve been meticulously faithful, spouses will believe lies and misinterpret friendships or work relations. Everyone envies couples who stay together, so they become targets of divorcees, gossips, swingers and widows. Why put up with fading beauty, loveless duties, tongue lashings, and undeserved recriminations?

Demands of daily office upon Labann meant decades stuck in seat with eyes glued to monitor tubes. Without paid labor, this habit translates into sitting through televised movies and sports. Swilling beer also seems to make desperate leisure tolerable for some. Personally consider wandering about by bike a better alternative, less injurious despite risks, given sitting is the “new smoking”. Wondering why you seldom see anyone you’d describe as elderly scorching through neighborhoods? People for the most part possess little to no sense, purchase tickets to bounce in place to deafening bass beats, shackle selves in stadium seats to witness action occurring so far away you’d be better off at home watching broadcasts, though half consists of ads for things bad, especially for grandads.

David Flitcroft linocuts "Beltane Breeze" and (below) "Owl Encounter", plus more art from the bike shed by this cycling inspired artist.

After attending outdoor concerts, camping without tents, cycling to festivals, and mingling among eccentrics, in this century illusions and images have begun to replace meaningful physical experiences. Motorists dodge being detected, then flop at home to behold others being dissected. Esport OWL League of team gamers shooting zombies exemplifies how concussed contact players are being supplanted by no-touch celibacies. Many contests only stream online over exclusive high-speed connections poor or privileged have, not middle class suckers who share in nothing but support everything.

At its inception late rock icon David Bowie dubbed the Internet, "An alien from Mars that will radically alter all expectations of media... for better or worse." Its biggest effect by far has been the emergence of busy blogs and social blah, where people can bare their privacy to an unsympathetic public, experience utter apathy, and invite humiliation and infamy, as if critics and prosecutors were chaste characters who've never relented to harmless temptations. Free porn made Internet popular, after all. Some stick around for emotional cuddles of electronic echo chambers, which could validate vices and vindicate obsessions should you find a similarly damaged audience. The hypocrisy of sex scandals in high office implies you’d be better off kowtowing to know-nothing virgins, as if there were any in a world so overcrowded you’d think reproduction was humanity’s sole priority. Cock fights, pit bulls, political bills, and prize fighting are basically alike, preening to attract booty.

Psychiatric disorders typified 20th Century after two great wars left so many families of heroes with PTSD. Such suffering has a cultural component. With better access to information, you’d think that would hasten improvement in 21st Century. But nobody does. Mass confusion ensued. Behavioral theory was exploited for business publicity. Decades of discoveries on Earth and other planets, such as Mars, don’t impress majority. No businessman, charioteer, or plowman along the line knows what any of it is worth, neglected due vigilance, never watched for portents, riders or signals, so social contracts elapse and tyranny rises unopposed. Soon the wind of war will again howl, because it consolidates wealth among the few, something society seems determined to do.

B&C could be a threnody for greatness gone, since nation supposedly needs to fight to restore its status, according to a psychotic POTUS. Dominance shares no benefits, only lumps minion among targets and sorts between combatants. Should you buy into their bizarre arguments, you'll be used as cannon fodder or human shield.

A halfway acceptable riding day might stifle all this banshee keening, bitchy screeching, disappointed complaining. If only nature would stop producing slush, plows piling by roadside and spreading salt and sand, then whole mess freezing solid again, you could regain pavement and remount your two-wheeled steed. Instead, you might order maintenance from your local bike shop before they get too busy, and prepare for seasons to come with suitable purchases. Doesn’t hope spring eternally?

Some just won’t abstain from riding before Beltane, May Day’s fertility feast, or subscribe to primitive Wheel of the Year protocols with marmot prognosticators on Imbolc and timekeepers springing forward before Ostara, the vernal equinox. Bicycling happens year round, though spirits only speak to those sensitive to their presence, not just on Beltane and Samhain but whenever you’re immersed in rolling silence.