From Paolo Volpara Thinking One More Mile

It is a strange situation: communication tools and opportunities grow exponentially and exponentially we feel violated in our privacy. From Google to Apple to the myriad of Blogs, Chat Rooms, Free/Conference Calls, Pics&Clips sharing apps… life is becoming more and more public, we chat constantly, everything we think or we do is immediately available to everybody we choose or we like.

And we complain about lack of privacy, we search for notoriety and we are scared to be open. More importantly, we often feel isolated as if all this social talking was just for “having” and not for “being”. If one thinks on the other side of old banalities, the social media mania is a return to the life of the small village, to the warm life of tribe where life was “public”, where everybody knew everything about anybody. Social media bring back some of the “village values” fighting the anonymity of the city life, the cruel disinterest of modern relationship, the planned indifference of material friends. And village life (where I grew up) has negative (everybody knows and interferes) and positive elements: a closed community is, deeply, a place of honesty.

I always thought that the moment of honesty, the instant of being is the one driven by our passions: it is when we do what we like to do, what we are good at, what drives our desire… that we come out with good thinking, illumination, clarity and truth.

Motorcycling is one of my driving passions and I try to use this sport as a door to improve myself, to get better, to answer some questions and to question all answers. Motorcycling, as many of the activities where a mistake can cost lives, is a great door opening to meditation and thinking, to find answers.

Motorcycling is as well a social equalizer mixing in the same group riders from different social extraction, tribes, experiences, cultures, and traditions. It is still a very direct place where to share the ideas that grow out of a good ride, share the observations and thoughts that hit us when facing a challenging situation, share the discoveries emerging when we put the side-stand down.

Maybe it is just a metaphysical position, a presumptuous intellectualism, seeing deeper when there is nothing else but a strip of asphalt and an engine… maybe. Maybe not, maybe from using biking as the gateway for knowledge is a very practical way to grow, to become better.

“One More Mile” is an exhortation to think deeper, to reach for more, to do better. Maybe a little “on the road” and maybe out of fashion now; still a commitment to better riding, better thinking and better living.

We welcome you to take part in this blog’s journey as thinker, reader, commenter or contributor. Welcome to thinking one more mile….