Off
the seat of a
bicycle
Chapter 13) Happy birthday, I threw away your dog
I
couldn’t understand it at the time, but Dr Gray was giving me a
valuable lesson about society. He wanted the cross-country team, and my
brother to witness a public whipping, and for me to feel the withering
effects of scorn. Unfortunately for reasons of ignorance and
remorselessness, I failed to feel anything … in fact he did me a favor
extracting me from a bullshit school obligation.
To the ordinary
social citizen however, a public scorning serves two purposes. First to
demoralize the bad guy and let him know he didn’t out-con the sting,
and secondly, it bands the remaining people together into a stronger
herd.
It’s like a ‘perp-walk’ or when the boss fires someone;
everyone suddenly wants to be polite and eager to please group goals.
Cows are the same way, they’re happy when the other guy gets knocked
over and eaten, and equally happy that someone else has taken pressure
off the herd.
It’s truly a magical moment for all but the
fallen cow. But things are not what they seem because life is complex
and these incidents cause the release of powerful emotions. These
strong emotions are obviously required by living things, which means
people who cause change, as mad as it sounds, ultimately cause positive
things to happen.
Anti-social people always believe they are
doing good work. However there is some truth to this claim. Societies
need ‘changers’ like me because we are the grit that gives traction to
society’s wheels, and without changers, society would stagnate and die.
We changers bond people together.
Wise people would argue that
only great leaders can cause positive change, but I ask, did the sheriff
cause better history than Billy the Kidd? Does ‘bad’ always do less
than ‘good?’
I say all change is a cumulative effort of society,
and it doesn’t happen because one man is more law-abiding than another.
Life is a confluence of many opposing things. I am one of those
opposing things. Dr. Gray is another. Neither man resolved the issue
that day and neither man fully understood the issues forwarded by the
other man, but both caused a change.
Only if you unimaginatively
believe in ‘ultimate right’ can you claim which man held the greater
influence over future events. All you can truthfully say is that each
action is the product of an endless series of interrelated events
leading back to the beginning of time.
That’s pretty
philosophical, but events were altered the day that Dr Gray threw me off the team. My brother probably
lost esteem among the other runners, and maybe the entire team became
stronger without a C+ runner aboard.
No matter how the checkers got sorted out, ‘somehow’ my father became aware of three extra bicycles in the garage.
His
subsequent inquiry caused us to load up everything and drive to an
illegal dump-site, where we threw it all down a ravine. A passing
motorist noted his tag number and the court issued him a citation for
illegal dumping. LOL.
It could’ve been worse, but it serves my
father right for turning our beloved family dog Archie loose out in the
country on my younger brother’s birthday. Happy birthday son, I threw
away your dog. But my father never admitted it.
Chapter 14) I’ll never forget the act of kindness
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