From unity, strength. Most here should recognise it instinctively, and understand the basic truth it represents. Sadly, it's an idea that is completely absent in our society today. There is no unity, and there certainly isn't any strength.
In my own sphere of biking, i look at bikers, in south africa, as a group, a very small demographic of people. As soon as you begin to speak with people across the biking spectrum, you realise that there are many differences. You have the patch wearers, your average guys and girls who love biking, and the biking lifestyle. Then you have the scooterists, those who ride because it's cheaper than a car. Then you have the rich boys, race bikes and full leathers, who ride around on sundays to make up for their weekday traffic. You have the adventure riders, who use bikes as a means of holiday, who really prefer to be offroad. You have the offroaders, who don't ride on road, only on dirt tracks and veld. Then you have guys like me, just commuters, who prefer the freedom of movement a bike offers in the urban chaos, without any club affiliation.
Now these groups are all unique and fantastic in their own right, and we all have the 2 wheeled thing in common, something certainly more binding than many other groups today. The problem is that while we should be a tightly kit community who understand that we have more in common than not, we're not. Half the bikers will not even deign to speak to the other half, and you can divide that half any way you can imagine. On every level, you have people who feel that they stand out, and should stand out, no matter the detriment to anyone. In the vclubs, each club and each club president is struggling to be the biggest peanut in the packet, each group feels superior to the rest, and any negotiations are a direct assault on their superiority.
Why is this? It's a unnatural bent towards the self destructiveness that is so prevalent in society. Cagers hate bikers, bikers hate cagers, and everyone hates cyclists. Now i as all of the above can understand each unique perspective, and no-one is wrong in the whole. Bikers are lawless gangsters, cagers are brain dead morons, cyclists are lemmings and pedestrians are a deadly nuisance.
But: bikers are free, cagers are safe, cyclists are social, and peds are simple. Ups and downs in all of these. Why then the enmity between us all? I have been told a similar situation exists across all spheres, both serious and fun. It was pointed out as a "white south african" problem, something sadly very telling, but not entirely accurate. It's a WESTERN problem. We have been so indoctrinated into "group think", it's impossible to think outside this artificially created social reality.
I think of all the sadnesses we as a country have endured in the past few decades, none has been so galling as the blind obeysance paid by our dear leader to the bitch the queen. Hey zuma, your grovelling to the empire disrespected every single boer and black death against the empire. You fight the boers with every last breath but bow to the common enemy. They won, with their monetary social classifications, and egotistical selfishness, they have conquered by fraud what they could never win in battle, save by scorched earth.
And we, poor stupid mass of mankind, follow these rules and precepts unflinchingly. Perpetuating the stupid, in and amongst ourselves. Are people truly this blind? Yes. overwhelmingly yes. And these are the educated among us, the affluent, how much poor the poor man, so dependant on the good will of his neighbours for his health.
It doesn't have to be this way. It really doesn't. I see examples every single day where it is not so. In the office, old white guy and a young black girl, the old black driver and the white ladies who do support. They're all just people, they get along because, there's no reason not to. Myself, a bad christian, and Terri, a good pagan, we see through this stupid facade of society, deeper. That in fact, we are one. Not only with each other, but with the earth, the sky, the birds, and plants, everything. When you consider how much you have in common with a plant, differences between modes of transportation in an industrial society really are negligent.
But people can't see the similarities between each other, nor rejoice in the differences. I see this all so clearly, yet stand helplessly by as my entreaties towards unity are brushed aside with many variations of the same "we're unique, leave us out thanks."
I cultivate being different, how i despise the arrogant uniformity around me. But it's an attitude that needs constant attention, for as soon as anyone does step out from the mould, it's instantly recognisable and laudable. It also requires a constant re-evaluation of your beliefs, understandings and fears. Perhaps i am wrong in many things, but in this i know i am right. We are one. Really. The fact that many don't have this understanding is the cause of most of the world's unhappiness. One does not mean "alike", it means we are different. An amorphous blob is nothing compared to the intracacies of the human body, with it's various systems, specialised cells, and many chemicals.
Why then is society an amorphous blob, not so much colourless as grey, like when you throw all the colours together, making a dirty mud colour. When we have so many colours to start with, why are we making such an ugly mess?
