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| photo by Gray |
My quads screamed for those who could hear them. I brought only one water bottle and it was empty. My body was dehydrated, my bike was heavy, and the hills were steep. I bonked and I bonked hard. My friends were far ahead of me and I felt something I hadn't felt in years: I was a beginner again...
I’ve spent the last several years as a teacher: teaching kids how to backpack, make fires, and set camp or showing friends how to tie knots, place cams, and build anchors. My job is literally to teach students about United States Government and economics. My Enneagram type, for whatever that’s worth, is “the investigator” or some astrology-for-post-evangelicals-BS like that.
It’s true, I do like to know things. I like to be the guy explaining elections by drawing median voter hypothesis graphs on napkins at bars. I don’t like not knowing things. It makes me feel inadequate and dumb. I'm working on that particular character trait but I still don’t like being a beginner. Does anyone? The internet developed new slang for the beginner: "n00b," "newbie," "nub." We have social media accounts dedicated to making fun of surfing “kooks,” rock climbing “gumbies,” and snowboarding “jerries.” We, myself included, glaringly judge the inexperienced and the novice even though we were all, at one point, both.
I don’t know what beginning bikebackers are called but I am one. A few months ago, I went on my first S24O and I looked like an absolute goober. I had gear strapped to my basket like my bike was an 1840s prospector’s mule and I lost my Black Diamond bivy bag because of it. When my only water bottle was empty before a sustained seven-mile climb, and my entire body decided to call it quits, I felt like an absolute goober too. I felt weak, unprepared, and dumb.
I was a n00b.
Being a beginner is humbling and humility isn’t necessarily an innate characteristic. It's a virtue. And we have to be schooled in it. Humility contradicts our notions of self-esteem and self-confidence -- the ego. In the West, learning, which implies some degree of ignorance, is for establishing the learner as right or correct which is quite a static thing. In Confucianism however, humility removes obstacles that stand in the way of self-cultivation, which is much more dynamic. The learner is never finished with the learning. Confucius warns about the trap of conceit and certitude and instead appeals to the constant need for self-cultivation. Which is to say that when we admit we don’t know everything, we can learn many things. Which helps us grow individually and communally and develop a richer and more meaningful life.
My friend Reid is a runner. Last year, after my first (and only) 50K, Reid said something
about how he could never do something like that but now he is. In less than a year, Reid has already run a handful of half marathons, one of Chattanooga’s premier trail races, and his eyes are set on an ultra-marathon. Every weekend, I look forward to checking Strava to see what new goal he’s crushed or PR he's set. Reid became a beginner, though it wasn’t without awkwardness or pain. Reid told me once of turning a corner at full tilt and running straight into a stop sign. But he did it and he continues to do it and that’s so dang rad.
My mom started playing guitar in her fifties and even though she was not particularly excited to play in a recital where she was four decades the senior of the other performers, she did it. Their home is filled with music now. My dad has been reading a lot of books on race and justice and political imagination and a month ago, over a family Zoom bookclub he said, with tears in his eyes, “I’m throwing out everything I ever grew up thinking.” Being a beginner is tough and humbling and sometimes even humiliating. But I think my mom, my dad, and Reid would say that their lives are better, richer, and more meaningful because they were willing to begin again.
Confucius taught that humility prepares us to practice other
virtues that make life richer. I don't know where exactly bikepacking
falls into all that but I think it does. When I look back at those pictures of my first S24O and my poorly packed bike and my goofy climbing helmet and the healthy dose of humble pie as I walked my bike up the monster hill to see my new friends waiting on me and I think about how much joy and meaning riding my bike in the woods has brought me this past year and I am grateful.
In a year when so many people have retreated to the outdoors to find joy and peace of mind, there's a lot of n00bs out there. I am one of them. And so were you. So let's be gentle and celebrate those new beginnings. Confucius would.
bombing hills
helping friends
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