Over the years I have noticed the danger of coveting and how it tends to destroy the simple joy of living, and loving what we do. This hobby, like any other, presents the problem of balancing the human desire to acquire vs. the pleasure of just appreciating beauty. How do we learn to appreciate with our eyes and hearts and not so much with our greedy hands. Can I learn to be satisfied with the few bikes I possess and at the same time, enjoy being with friends who own other bikes I might enjoy have? Can I do this without feeling bummed out that I don't also possess my neighbors' bikes? No matter how big our storage space is, or how wealthy we are, there will never be enough bikes to satisfy us as long as we don't know how to be happy with what we have. Desire to acquire is like feeding an enormous dinosaur with a bottomless pit for a stomach. Without extolling the wisdom of Buddha or others, desire inevitably consumes our joy and produces only more hunger ... a hunger that never ends. It's as if we are all in love with one special bike. We restore it and refine it and ride it, and then stand back and admire its beauty only to see another out of the corner of our eye. Then the fantasizing starts all over again. "Maybe my happiness is over there - there ...just out of my reach,"
Perhaps many of us have learned to live with one soul mate or even learned to turn a less than ideal partner into a soul mate. Perhaps we've learned to limit our expenditures because time has taught us that true happiness can't be bought, can't be acquired and isn't found outside of our selves. Perhaps we've learned to live with dimming eyesight, increasingly fumbly fingers and diminished physical endurance. But beyond the cloudiness of our vision we know our bikes are still just as beautiful and beautiful in their inperfections. We've accepted that we will never cruise at 25 like Merckx or fly uphill like our twenty something childhood allowed. Perhaps one day we can all come together, monetarily poorer than before but made richer by our lessened desire. Isn't it called a classic rendezvous and not a classic orgy?
Garth Libre in Miami Fl USA