Fear the Exceptional

It’s no mystery to anyone who knows us – we’ve been dealing with a bit of adversity in our lives lately. Nothing crippling, or earth shattering compared to a lot of people, but in our little Morgan Hill bubble, things have been pretty tough.

Since the day I was shown the door by my former employer, my one escape from the stress of looking for work and watching an ever-dwindling bank account, ironically, has been my bikes. So, imagine my surprise early one Sunday morning a few weeks back when this happened:

I got lectured today by some sour, portly, gray-haired man about the evils of riding my trials bike on rocks in a public place … Again!

It’s a lecture I’ve been getting for the past 25 years, which generally spews from the raging lips of a guy meeting that exact description – or some prickly, middle-aged woman with a tiny dog - but today’s bothered me more than usual, and I’m sitting here trying to figure out why.

Before I continue, it deserves mentioning that I turned 40 this year – old by trials standards – REALLY old. But with a little more time on my hands than usual, I’m actually riding as well, if not better than I did 10 or 12 years ago, so it’s one of my big sources of real joy lately – and he managed to grind it to a screeching halt.

How is it, especially on the heels of collectively applauding the greatness of the world’s Olympic athletes in some of the most obscure sports imaginable, that I am still getting chased out of most benign riding spots, where I’m most at peace with the world, by some random old fool?

I figure there are two reasons –

First, as much as the trials community wishes for it, our little sport will never become mainstream enough to be recognized, or accepted by normal folks - despite Danny MacAskill’s best efforts – and I’m OK with that.

The second, and I suspect could be this guy’s motivation, is because we seem to live in a society where actually being good at something makes you a target for ridicule. It happens in school, sports, the arts – just about everywhere - As though committing yourself to being great at something is a threat to someone else’s life decisions.

Ever since the first day I rode a mountain bike, and later a trials bike, I have been misunderstood, laughed at, and generally made fun of by an endless stream of people who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that I do something different than they do.

When my friends skated around Pointe Claire on their Powell & Peralta and Lucero skateboards, I was hitting the trails on my Raleigh. Over time, as their skateboards gave way to girls and cars, I kept riding, and actually got pretty good at a style of riding that even the most dedicated of cyclists find odd– not because I have some god-given gift, but because it was important to me, and I worked my ass off at it.

So, what is this societal response driven by? Ignorance? Envy? Or do some people just vilify anyone who is actually good at something because they’ve decided to live life as a C-level student, angry that someone has the audacity to go for an A+ in something?

What ever his motivation, all Mr. Amish Beard’s tightly-wired brain could think of doing was shaking a fist out the window of his minivan and put a stop to something he didn’t understand.

As he was screaming his way into the adjacent gas station’s parking lot – apparently to give me a good talking-to – as I calmly waited for the two light to change so I could take the opportunity to better understand his rage. As I calmly approached him, I actually saw the raging red fall from his face as he realized that I wasn’t some kid, and could tell he was changing his tactics while retreating to his Chrysler.

He threatened to call the cops about my riding antics – pointing to his silver flip phone – so I politely suggested he do it, and that I’d happily wait with him for them to arrive so I could find out exactly which laws I was breaking.

That was when he pulled out the classic “you’re being a bad role model” argument while telling me that the rocks were “decorations” and I was going to “damage them” – I actually laughed – I couldn’t help it.

He left our conversation still convinced that practicing, and being good at something out of the ordinary, then doing it in public, is a bad influence on the youth of today. Pretty much the opposite of what we’re trying to teach Emmett.

It seems that, as a society, we reward mediocre and sub-par role models far too often; (think Kim Kardashian and most pop music stars). So, isn’t it time that we start celebrating the exceptional and espousing the belief that working hard to become great at something, no matter how obscure, builds character and individuality?

How much better a place would this be if more people had the gumption to go against the grain and be truly great at something? How much better would the music we listen to be? How much more could we, as a society, accomplish if we de-valued the currency of cool, and just lived passionately?

So fly your freak flag high, dare to be exceptional – and don’t let anyone kick you off of the rocks.