Motorcycles and philosophy.

You may think this is a strange combination of not only words but of concepts, but my life as of late is just that. Last year, at the urging of my beautiful wife, I took motorcycle safety classes and obtained my motorcycle endorsement. Wait, you say, weren't you the one that has mentioned so many times in the past in this column that you don't do any more sports that involve dying? You're right, o' faithful reader, and thanks for reminding me of how weak-willed I am. Nonetheless, it turned out I am wrong—after a certain period of sheer terror, I am quite enjoying the exhilaration of being on the steel and chrome monster; the vibration of the road, the wind in my hair—wait. That isn't true. I wear a helmet, so the wind doesn't really whip my hair around, but the thought is there. When I first started this sport, the fear was almost beyond reason. My hands would cramp up from the death grip on the handlebars, and my dentist is not happy with the results of my teeth grinding. Obviously, the fear of falling off this 600 pound monster takes a bit of getting used to, but I did get used to it, and I think I'm better off for doing something that was way beyond my comfort zone.

The reason that most people ride motorcycles is the elusive feeling they call “freedom”. It does feel good, and by gum we are having a great time tooling around. It gives my wife and I another thing to do together when it seems that the older we get, the more that our interests seem to go in opposite directions. It's this freedom of the open road that calls us, I guess, and the freedom of just going for a ride—not with a real particular destination in mind, but just to be together doing something, and usually ending up somewhere pretty interesting.

Now enters the philosophy. I am attending college full-time, and working part-time—just enough to pay off a couple of bills and to keep frozen pizzas stocked in the freezer. Once again, I am faced with something that is somewhat beyond my comfort level. Not only do we have a lot less money, we are going into some serious debt with student loans, and it's scary. Not to mention doing the work and getting the grades—this has to be worth it all, I figure, so I obsess and worry about it constantly.

No stress here.

The one thing that makes this situation so much easier to bear is this: All of you that went to college probably had a professor that inspired you or at least poked some dim recess of your brain that evoked an “I want to learn more! I want to be smart! It isn't just about the freaking letters behind my name that I'm here!” revelation and I'm no exception. His name is Dr. Mark Matthews, and he teaches at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is, hands down, the smartest guy I've met, with all apologies to my father, my older brother (who is a genius in his own right), and the elusive Joe DeMarco, publisher and editor of this e-zine. Dr. Matthews not only has a PHD in philosophy, but also in physics , for God's sake! I think he would qualify as the very definition of the thinking man. But all those ever-working brain cells didn't put up a wall that is in indecipherable for the common person. The philosophy theories that at first glance seem so convoluted, such as Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Thomas Hobbes, that even the thought of coming to terms with them makes you want to throw up your hands (or your lunch) in despair, he explains with an ease that makes the world crystal clear.

I have never enjoyed learning so much.

There is a certain kind of escape that is associated with learning. It brings about a feeling of hope, as if to say that if everybody had this knowledge, the world would be a better place. The ignorance and hatred would dissipate into a small little woodchip that could easily be flipped into a cheerful fire that would symbolize a new start for the human race, one where rampant greed and irresponsibility to your fellow man wouldn't exist.

Of course, that's a bit of a pipe dream, but maybe that's why at the age of forty-six I still dare to hope, and with people like Mark Matthews, the glimmer of that hope still exists at all. And maybe that's why at my accelerated age I risk my life (and my wife's) to get on that motorcycle, because that feeling of freedom that occurs as you hit the open road is, for right now, in this kind of screwed up world, is about as close as we are going to get.