Month: September 2014

At the beginning of the summer, my friend Keith challenged himself to bike 1000 miles before the end of the year. I signed on to do the same thing. His challenge had a natural deadline; he lives in Minnesota, and biking season cuts off some time in the early fall. I gave myself an artificial deadline: 1000 miles from June 9 through end of September.

Keith finished his challenge a couple of weeks ago. I finished mine today. Wheeee! 1000 miles!

This isn’t a big number to bike boffins, but it’s more than I’ve done over a sustained period.

Since the challenge was numbers based, I kept statistics. Here they are:

Total miles: 1015.3

Total days: 106

Miles per day: 9.578

Total time: 5661 minutes, or 94 hours and 21 minutes.

Total rides: 137

Rides between 0 and 2 miles (aka GROCERY RIDES): 28

Rides between 2 and 10 miles: 80

Rides between 10 and 20 miles: 23

Rides between 20 and 30 miles: 5

Rides over 30 miles: 1

Average ride distance: 7.41 miles

Median ride distance: 6.8 miles

Average ride duration: 41.32 minutes

Median ride duration: 37 minutes

Average speed: 10.76 mph

Fastest ride (7 miles or longer): 14.1 mph, 18.8 miles, 80 mins

Slowest ride (7 miles or longer): 7.7586 mph, 7.5 miles, 58 mins

Average speed in Sisters, Oregon (few lights, few stops): 13 mph

Average speed in Los Angeles, California (many lights, many stops): 10.7 mph

Days off: 25

Days on: 81

Interesting things that happened:

– One bike stolen at UCLA

– One bike hit by Porsche and destroyed

– Three flat tires

Of particular note is this: I think I have biked slightly more miles than I’ve driven since moving to Los Angeles. I average on the order of 2 ocean trips a week, each about 30 miles of driving. I didn’t keep accurate track, but the number of miles driven and the number of miles biked are certainly comparable.

My three favorite ride views:

There’s a lot of writing about how obviously sensible or obviously stupid it is to tell someone, “Be yourself.” Almost all of this writing starts with something like, “Be yourself. What does that even mean?”

Be yourself. What does that even mean?

When I was an academic, that was me, but it was a version of myself that I chose and built. When I left that world and built an identity as a reluctant engineer, that was also a version of myself that I chose and built. Even basic things about me are the results of choices. I am volatile and creative in part because I encouraged the volatile and creative parts of myself. I am lazy because I have allowed myself to be lazy, and happy because I have repeatedly made the choice to work on my happiness.

It’s evident that each of us is in the process of making ourselves, all the time, every day. If you are who you’ve made yourself to be by choice and effort, then by definition, whatever you choose is right, and you are always being yourself. “Be yourself” is a meaningless tautology, already and always true. Right?

Well, not exactly.

Making yourself by choice and effort is an art. You are practicing the art of making yourself. You’ve been practicing it for most of your life.

Paul Graham says this about making art:

At an art school where I once studied, the students wanted most of all to develop a personal style. But if you just try to make good things, you’ll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as each person walks in a distinctive way. Michelangelo was not trying to paint like Michelangelo. He was just trying to paint well; he couldn’t help painting like Michelangelo.

The only style worth having is the one you can’t help. And this is especially true for strangeness. There is no shortcut to it.

As you make yourself, you do it with a personal style. This style emerges without your even trying; you can’t help but have your style.

In my case, some key elements are: I’m very flighty, interested in everything and prone to change topics really quickly. I’m always in a fight with myself to be better; I wake up every day and want to be more than I am. I’m passive for long stretches, needing hours of recharge time just to take walks, and sometimes having difficulty summoning the activation energy for the next good thing. I’m conscientious; I’ve payed a lot of attention to the quality of what I’m doing, and flat out quit several really nice parts of my life because they felt wrong. I’m usually pathologically honest and struggle not to be too blunt. I love to talk and can do so for hours and hours without stopping. When I set about making myself, I do it thoughtfully, I do it in bursts, I talk about it a lot. These things are my style.

That style is the real me. Your style is the real you. You’re a businessman? A nice person? A runner? An educated person? A tough person? That’s not you. The idiosyncratic way you went about making yourself into those things, that’s the real you.

“Be yourself” means “don’t fight against your natural style”.

I’ve fought against most of the parts of my natural style at one point or another. In each case I fought because I wanted to be a particular type of person, and that person required the opposite traits. Every time I’ve done this, it’s made me miserable and ineffective.

For instance, I always wanted to be an astronaut. Astronauts are uncommonly, uncannily disciplined people. I’m really undisciplined by nature. This is a weakness that needs shoring up, for sure, but there were points in my childhood and my early teenage years where I pushed myself to become the most disciplined person. I was sailing against a headwind, and if I’d persisted, I’d be sailing against that headwind for the rest of my life.

Contrast that with the times I’ve let myself be a writer. Writers are good at disassembling and reassembling concepts. They’re good at wordplay. They like to talk (even if it’s just in text form). They like to make up stories. I’m naturally inclined to all of these things. I write a few thousand lines of gchat with my friends every day, not because I push myself, but because I want to write. When I write, I’m sailing with a natural tailwind.

Here’s Paul Graham again:

A friend of mine who is a quite successful doctor complains constantly about her job. When people applying to medical school ask her for advice, she wants to shake them and yell “Don’t do it!” (But she never does.) How did she get into this fix? In high school she already wanted to be a doctor. And she is so ambitious and determined that she overcame every obstacle along the way—including, unfortunately, not liking it.

Now she has a life chosen for her by a high-school kid.

Be yourself. Pay attention to the style that comes most naturally to you. Shore up real weaknesses, but accept that you can’t remake yourself into absolutely anything. Don’t spend your whole life struggling against your real natural style. Instead, find things you want to be that suit your style.

[An aside just for teenagers: This is why we’re always telling you to be yourself. You’re just starting to understand your own style, and you face more pressure than anyone else to fight against it. If you’re bookish and thoughtful, someone is telling you to be more impulsive. If you’re creative, someone is telling you to be more focused. If you’re shy, someone is telling you to fake it until you make it. No! Pay attention to your natural style and protect it. It will get easier. Last week, my friend went surfing dressed as Batman. Nobody told him he shouldn’t do this. He’s grown up, he can do what he wants!]

Being yourself in this sense is the difference between repression and self improvement. Repression violates your natural style, the parts you just can’t help. It diminishes you. Self improvement synchronizes with your natural style. It amplifies you.

Go make yourself. Go practice your art. Go be yourself.

Good morning, Scotland.

The decision you make today is yours and yours alone. But we wanted to offer some words of encouragement.

They say your future will be uncertain. We want to let you know it mostly turns out well. Even those of us who are struggling would not soon rejoin the Union.

They say you don’t have it in you to govern yourselves. They said that about most of us, too.

They say you’ll be isolating yourself. We know you want to be part of the international community (more so than England does), and we will welcome you on your own terms.

They promise you new powers if you stay. By becoming independent, you gain the opportunity to forge a state as different from Westminster as you want it to be, with leaders you want to have. You gain whatever powers you see fit, on the timetable of your choosing.

They say you have had many wonderful years together, and in this they are right. Independence gave us the right to celebrate our shared history with Britain as much or as little as we each want, and the same will be true for you. Many of us remain close, and you can do the same.

We know this is not an easy choice. So many of us struggled for this same thing, for the right to self determination.

They often say you can’t go it alone. We know you can, Scotland. After all, we did.

Your siblings, the former British,

Antigua and Barbuda,

Australia,

The Bahamas,

Bahrain,

Barbados,

Belize,

Botswana,

Brunei,

Canada,

Cyprus,

Dominica ,

Egypt,

Fiji,

The Gambia,

Ghana,

Grenada,

Guyana,

India,

Israel,

Iraq,

The Republic of Ireland,

Jamaica,

Jordan,

Kenya,

Kiribati,

Kuwait,

Lesotho,

Malawi,

Malaysia,

Maldives,

Malta,

Mauritius,

Myanmar,

New Zealand,

Nigeria,

Pakistan,

Qatar,

Saint Lucia,

Saint Kitts and Nevis,

Seychelles,

Sierra Leone,

Solomon Islands,

South Africa,

Sri Lanka ,

Sudan,

Swaziland,

Tanzania,

Trinidad and Tobago,

Tuvalu,

Uganda,

The United Arab Emirates,

The United States of America,

Vanuatu,

Yemen,

Zambia,

and Zimbabwe.