I’ve been thinking about something for a while without knowing how to start, how to write about it, or where it would go—if anywhere. It’s easy to write about fluid replacement or how to descend on a bike because you either know about that stuff or you make the rounds asking those who do. Then you describe it. It’s technical writing, not high prose. Ideas are harder to write about.

Ideas are my favorite things. Ideas exist only in ether, but they are no less real than things with mass. Even the world in which we live was simply an idea in the beginning, according the writer of Genesis: "And the earth was without form, and void." Ideas are almost always the genesis of everything meaningful that adds substance and texture to our lives.

But, as I said, ideas are hard to write about, and it often requires more skill than I have. I’m going to try anyway, in this case, because I’ve been allowing these thoughts to ricochet inside my skull, waiting to see what would fall out and—lo and behold—I got a submission from a reader that fit very nicely with my theme (more on that later). It spurred me on.

I’ve been thinking about the nature of our sport, the times in which we live, the innate ability of those who participate in triathlon and read what is published on this site, the very technology which makes this site possible, and how all these things collide to offer new ideas of how we all might live out the rest of our lives. I’ve been thinking about opportunities that are in front if me—us—that may not have existed a decade ago.

Take me, for example. I sometimes think too much for my own good. I’ve heard that my whole life: "You think too much." True though that may be, I am what I am, as Popeye said, and my attempts to think less have never panned out. I would like to spend my life thinking, but I’m not smart enough to be a philosopher, and besides, I don’t reckon that job pays well.

Having said all that, I still want to spend more of my time thinking. I want to give my dogs a longer walk every morning and evening. I want to ride my bike more, and ride it in different and better places than I do now. I want to run in the mountains. I want to do it all without feeling guilty that I’m not doing something else more important or necessary. I want to change my whole outlook on what is important and necessary.

I suppose this is just a matter of will. So long as I’m willing to reduce my lifestyle to a minimal level—become a mendicant like St. Francis, let us say—there should be no problem. I’d be lauded, but not followed. "I’ve got to take my hat off to him, he had the guts to chuck it all," people would say. No, thanks anyway: I’ll give up the rat race, but not Dura-Ace.

My in-laws wonder whether I’m on the dole. Anybody who doesn’t leave the house in the morning to go to some job, with a lunch pail and a boss-in-waiting, must be on the dole. They’re not alone. My own mother keeps calling every week to see if I’m OK. They’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop. One day they’ll find out that I’ve been secretly stealing books from the library and selling them to the used book store to pay my bills. Or that I’ve just decided not to pay my bills. One way or the other, it’ll all catch up to me.

The great irony, though, is that I’ve incorporated two great ethereal qualities to make it all work. I’m slowly, in fits and starts, reacquiring some connection with what is real. Keep in mind, of course, that what is "real" is only my idea of what is real. But taking the dogs for a longer walk is, to my way of thinking, a better, more "real" thing than throwing them in the back yard and telling them to walk themselves in circles. Maybe it’s not more real, but it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The funny thing is, it’s another form of ether that makes it all possible. In a whimsical play on words, the ones and zeros that create this page get to you via ethernet. It all started to dawn on me in about 1993 that we were in for a major generational change in how we transacted commerce. The internet is only one aspect of it. There are four parallel revolutionary movements that have made all this happen. The internet is certainly the most important. Not far behind, though, are revolutions in parcel delivery, analog telephony, and international borders. The world is far smaller, and almost seamless.

When I need a new RAM chip I get it the next day. Parcel delivery is so cheap that it comes the next day whether I want it that quickly or not. If I want to speak to a living person, I make a long-distance phone call and it costs next to nothing. We’re on the verge of a world in which there will be no import tariffs whatsoever, and I have to believe that we’re less than a decade away from a time when I can call Ireland, or India, toll-free and order a widget that will be delivered in three days. That’s the world in which we live.

This means that unless I weld, or paint, or rivet, I can perform my work anywhere. I can add value from any place that has an internet connection, and sooner rather than later that’ll mean any place that has a clear view to the satellite circling the earth overhead.

I know many people decry the advent of modern technology as a way to further separate us from the earth, from the ground, from what is real. In a great hilarious twist, though, by accepting and embracing such technology—by using it to my advantage—I believe I may have precisely the right tools with which to reconnect myself to the earth, and to what is real and of substance.

Knowing this sport and its practitioners as I do, I have a sneaking suspicion that—offbeat though all this may sound—I’m not just writing to myself here. Multisport athletes are just the sort of folks who enjoy and understand a physical, primal connection to the universe, while being substantially forward-thinking to the point of comprehending and using technology to their benefit. Can we work less? Can we work smarter? Can we work cleaner? Can we provide a better service to our fellow man?

If all this does occur on a large scale, does it portend a displacement or redistribution of society, much like the move westward in the 1930s, and the suburbanization of America in the 1950s and ‘60s? Are we now going to be populating more scenic and comfortable places to live? Why do I think so? Because we can! Me? I’d like to do all my work from the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite. Since they probably won’t rent me an office, I’ve got to pick the next best place. Where will that be? I haven’t decided yet. The question is, how many of you will be my neighbors?

Just as I was thinking all this, I got an email from Tim Hampton, a gentleman coached by my wife who had just such a life-altering set of experiences—much more profound than mine, in fact. As an exercise, she asked him to put in words how his life has changed over the recent years. As a result, I’ve therefore decided to erect a new "wing" on the Slowtwitch edifice: the Quality of Life series. You’ll find the contributors below. Please feel free to contribute yourself. One thing, though. Be transparent. Even vulnerable. I don’t want to print what you think others ought to do, but what you think you ought to do, or have done, or are thinking about doing, or wish you could do. Musings: yes. Predictions: okay. Confessions: by all means. Sermons: no.

MICHAEL GERHARDT 1.4.01
NEIL COOK 1.4.01
TED JOHNSON 12.8.00
ALISON COLAVECCHIA 12.8.00
TIM HAMPTON 11.14.00
HOLGER MISCHKE 11.21.00
JORDAN BERLANT 12-2-00

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