You’re probably familiar with the old Swedish motto, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing.” This statement can certainly be applied to motorcycling, and has become increasingly true with the proliferation of specialized high-tech gear designed to address hot, cold and wet conditions more efficiently than ever before. It’s now possible to ride in reasonable comfort through weather which would have guaranteed abject misery in the saddle (or precluded riding altogether) not so long ago. Many can easily recall life before genuine waterproofing, for instance, when we simply had to accept rain pooling in the crotch of most any riding suit, even if the garment managed to keep patches of our body dry elsewhere. Insulation used to be extremely bulky; its volume was essential to its effectiveness, requiring tolerance of restricted movement and dexterity, along with a Michelin-Man profile. Ventilation, which ought to have been the easiest fix of these three categories, was non-existent or an exotic custom luxury in leather garb, with zippered vents and perforated panels only achieving mainstream status by the early 1990s, no doubt a result of competition from the far more versatile synthetic alternatives that were starting to claim significant market share. Prior to these advances, good ol’ cowhide delivered substantial protection from abrasion and the traditional style motorcyclists demanded, but it generated a steam room effect in the summer while providing virtually no barrier to the cold of winter, and it became a heavy, sodden mess in the rain—not to mention the fact its de rigueur solid black color scheme made riders less visible in traffic instead of more. Talk about your “wrong clothing!”
Aside from this literal meaning, the adage carries another lesson, more psychological in nature: we often curse external circumstances when the problem is really a function of our own choice, action or inaction. For starters, ponder an example immediately adjacent to the concrete considerations just discussed: the difference between saying “It’s cold” and “I’m cold.” This isn’t a trivial semantic distinction. The second version locates the problem within the person instead of in the environment around them and carries an implicit suggestion the solution must be found in that same place. If I’m cold, it’s incumbent upon me to seek and acquire warmth; maybe I don warmer clothing, find or create a heat source, or engage in vigorous physical activity to raise my body temperature. If it’s cold, the implication is I’m a helpless sufferer who must wait passively and hope the atmosphere changes to my liking. How we word things, even silently in our private thoughts, can make a big difference in how we perceive our situation and think about our options. This, in turn, affects—for better or for worse—our ability to effectively do something to remedy our predicament.
Here’s another example you’ve almost certainly encountered before. You hear a crash, go investigate, and find a member of your household standing over a broken item on the floor that had previously resided upon a nearby shelf. They exclaim, “It fell!” While technically a valid description of what happened, this phrase omits the dimension of agency. The object did not fall of its own accord. Did the person knock it over? Even if it was purely accidental, there was still causal involvement. Did someone else carelessly place it on the edge of the shelf where it would be precariously vulnerable to the slightest vibration? Again, despite the lack of any malicious intent, someone—not the inanimate object itself—was responsible for this event. When a part fails on our motorcycle, was it the result of sloppy craftsmanship by an assembly-line technician? Faulty design or engineering by R&D staff? An executive’s cynical cost-cutting mandate? Poor quality control by whoever supplied the raw materials used in its construction? Owner negligence? That part’s failure was likely predicated on at least one human failure somewhere along the line, with or without any dishonorable aim. Obviously, nothing lasts forever, and manufacturers are perpetually bound by the constraints of available technology and resources, but variables of human choice and action are almost always present, limited as they may be by contextual elements.
Other common occurrences wherein we obscure human responsibility (usually our own) include how we talk about things “being lost” or “wearing out.” Yes, objects do change from resting in known locations to resting in unknown locations, but they don’t accomplish such transitions on their own. We move them, wittingly or unwittingly, and either forget where we put them or don’t realize we moved them in the process of moving something else. Yet we use the passive phrasing, “it’s lost,” as though we had no part in what happened. It can feel like the thing disappeared or relocated itself, but that feeling is not a fact. I lost that tire pressure gauge; it didn’t sneak off somewhere under its own power. And yes, material objects do deteriorate with age and use, but much wear and tear is the direct result of abuse and neglect. Ever notice how the exact same item lasts a lot longer in one person’s care than another’s? Is the second person’s experience the thing’s fault? Some people are routinely hard on their possessions, whereas others are not. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of the former group; the argument can be made they extract maximum value from their kit by demanding the most from it. But describing the phenomenon of “wearing out” as simply an aspect of the object can also be a way to avoid responsibility for inflicting damage and instead blame the thing in question as deficient. I wore out those boots; they didn’t wear themselves out. Maybe I need to buy sturdier footwear next time or acknowledge even excellent boots will degrade quickly as an expectable result of what I typically put them through. Instead of saying they wore out, it’d be more accurate to say I beat them to death.
Of course, there are many, many things over which we have little or no control, and for which we therefore cannot bear responsibility, at least not in the way we commonly use that term. If I plant a tree that lightning strikes many years later, causing it to fall onto my house, it’s legitimate to say this wouldn’t have happened except for my original action, but few would hold me “responsible.” In hindsight, we can frequently imagine doing something differently that would have prevented or mitigated problematic consequences, but this process can involve grandiose distortions of what prescience or omniscience we’d have to have exercised, or what influence we could have exerted. In other words, it’s quite possible to exaggerate the extent of our personal responsibility in either direction. Minimization leaves us innocent, but also unrealistically impotent. Excessive estimations portray us as omnipotent, and as such, often unrealistically guilty. My aim here is definitely not to ascribe blame to everyone for every bad occurrence in their lives. I do, however, want to point out this way people (including me!) routinely sidestep responsibility in how we construe events and situations. I’m less concerned with the arguable immorality of evading accountability, and more intent on expanding the sense of autonomy and efficacy that comes from recognizing our contribution to what happens.
If I take the position control cables “just go bad,” it might prompt me to carry extras on the bike, but it also might discourage me from lubricating the installed ones regularly, thereby preventing or postponing their failure. If I think keys “just get lost,” I may not designate a special place for them and make sure to never set them down anywhere else. If I view motorcycling enjoyment as dependent upon pleasant weather, I’ll forego riding—or at least the pleasure of it—when meteorological factors are less than ideal, rather than proactively collecting a diverse assortment of gear. And if I believe people die when “it’s their time to go,” I may deem pointless rider training, protective equipment and defensive vigilance; after all, if it’s my time, it’s my time—there’s nothing I can do about that.
The Ride Inside with Mark Barnes is brought to you by the MOA Foundation. You can join the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America quickly and easily to better take advantage of the Paul B Grant and Clark Luster programs mentioned in this episode.
The phrase “everything happens for a reason” may be used as a source of solace when a seemingly inexplicable or horribly unfair tragedy befalls someone. In such cases, there’s a teleological (and often theological) implication—a future-oriented belief that all events occur for a purpose, whether or not it’s apparent to us in the moment. Conversely, that same phrase can be understood in the exact opposite manner: Instead of referring to a guiding principle somewhere in the future that pulls events into alignment, it can just as readily reflect the backward-looking principle of determinism, an endless series of causal relationships from the past pushing inevitably toward creation of the present occurrence, no grand purpose required. This latter interpretation can carry a deeply fatalistic implication, that free will is ultimately illusory, with current events—including our thoughts, feelings and actions—all driven inexorably by influences set in motion unimaginably long ago. In this model, our moment-by-moment fates were already locked in place ages before we were born, the result of countless physical and metaphysical vectors converging and diverging over the course of history, only partially observable as an infinite regression from our profoundly limited vantagepoint.
Although only a tiny number of people have thought through the philosophical underpinnings of determinism and its negation of free will, a surprising majority of us regularly think, feel and act as though we subscribe to this view. When we consider ourselves the victims of bad luck—or the beneficiaries of good luck, for that matter—we’re actually saying we’re either a) helplessly tossed about by the chaotic waves of random chance, or b) completely unable to detect the organized, albeit inscrutable, causal forces in play, whether those act on us or through us. In either case, we’re not personally responsible for what happens. When we analyze it, this is also what we’re saying when we attribute problems to things instead of people, especially ourselves. When we rephrase descriptions to include our own agency, implicitly or explicitly, we bear more burden of responsibility, but also empower ourselves to actively pursue solutions. Again, I’m not suggesting we’re at fault for every mishap we endure. I’m instead suggesting there’s value in noticing our frequently unrealistic placement of responsibility outside ourselves. This tendency manifests in such subtle and habitual ways, we have to deliberately pay attention to do otherwise.
If, upon careful examination, we really do find the deterministic perspective most compelling, there’s no reason it should prevent us from tending to our own welfare, nor does it provide an excuse for not doing so. When a determinist buys the right gear for cold weather riding, they can still attribute their action to eons of chain reactions leading up to that moment. It turns out free will looks and feels exactly the same, whether or not it’s truly a manifestation of our individual autonomy. How would we ever know the difference between what we actually decide for ourselves and what’s driven by unseen forces? Unseen means unseen, right? This is the same principle involved in the psychoanalytic tenet of unconscious motives and fears—such influences, regardless of their power, can only be inferred; they are by definition invisible to the person influenced by them (although awareness might arrive as a result of some subsequent enlightenment).
Philosophizing aside, we’ll enjoy our riding more when we take responsibility for doing what we can, even if we don’t really have as much control as some folks imagine. There may be no such thing as personal responsibility, but we’re better off acting like there is. There’s another adage for this: “Luck favors the well-prepared.”
Mark Barnes is a clinical psychologist and motojournalist. To read more of his writings, check out his book Why We Ride: A Psychologist Explains the Motorcyclist’s Mind and the Love Affair Between Rider, Bike and Road, currently available in paperback through Amazon and other retailers.
