It always seems to be, that tribalism pops up wherever there
is a choice between alternatives based purely on that most human of level (being
a purely emotional choice)
Thus, in the motorbike world, you have Harley Davidson types
& scooter riders & Mods & Rockers; the rest of us it’s whether you
are from New South Wales or Western Australia to which footy team (or which
code) you follow, all this guff will tend to dominate the way we think when we
meet new people etc (I am sure you know the drill on this)
So as far as my motorcycling tribalism, well The Lamb &
the Silver Surfer are 2 stroke, Italian (true) scooters, the Love Cub is 4
stroke, Japanese (mostly) & an underslung motorbike
The Vespa & Lambretta types really needle each other; 2
stroke types needle 4 stoke types, Italian & German & Japanese bike
fans needle each other…
The question that I ask is: Should I hate myself for all
these differences?
Typically I must; but hey, I am just too lazy to waste
energy on hating things! So rather I will tend to appreciate the good in the differences,
because well, it is a much nicer thing to do!
This happens across many levels for me – for example
That oily-sweet 2 stroke oil smell in clothes is both good
& bad; that faint whiff of exhaust fumes when I am in the middle of a swing
at work can really make a long rotation feel OK; on the downside, smelling of 2
stroke at a restaurant is very annoying, especially for the Child Bride (who is
rather classy compared to me)
I suppose, when it all comes down to it, these differences
are good & that is nice; if everything was the same, well we would be mighty
bored. The “other” point is, that these things can be in a state of flux; your
tribes change with circumstances; hence my quandary!
Thus I have been looking at some of the other features of
this blogger page & it turns out that this site will give you a rundown of
where people who are looking at this blog come from. So far, there have been
Cub Lovers from USA, The Netherlands, UK, Germany, Vietnam, South Korea &
Malaysia as well as Oz view this blog – that is pretty amazing in the scheme of
things! All the differences between these countries & there are like minded
nutters who are interested in the Love Cub (I will admit, there probably are a
few people out there that do honestly think the Love Cub IS something
different…)
I suppose the case in point would be seen in the the rather
funky little web site called http://www.4-stroke.net/
This rather cool website is administered from Holland
(different)
But, it is run by another Cub nutter (Same)
The website has a lot of English language articles &
tech (same language)
But there a lot of Dutch language articles & technical
stuff (different)
The funny thing is, even tho I do not speak Dutch; when I
look at the technical diagrams (with Dutch annotations) I “get” it that is I
understand the terms. If it was spoken I think I would be lost BUT the point I
am trying to make is wow, there are actually a lot of commons rather than
differences, from your first impressions.
The next big leap in this topic of the wonderful nerd-box
world in which I write is that, it is not uncommon for people out there to
e-mail & just send thru advice; which is really cool & shows that we
are naturally helpful as a group, no matter how different we first appear.
This then, by a bit of a stretch, leads to a story… a very
old story indeed.
As with all cool stories, this one involves a heathen god – Thor (after
whom Thursday is named). One day, walking home after a hard day at the office
(which for Thor was slaying the frost Giants in Jottenheim) Thor realised that
he needed to cross a rather wide river (or he could take a detour that would
add an extra day or so to his travels). The crossing point had a sole Ferry crewed
by an ancient man called Greybeard (or, Hárbarðsljóð if you speak ancient Norse*) this Old Mate was actually Thor’s dad, Odin (also called Woden, after whom Wednesday is named), who appeared to
be out to teach his boastful offspring a lesson in humility, and refused to
take Thor across the river as he didn’t ask nicely, or, offer to pay for the privilege
The long & the short is, that after trading insults, the
Ferryman refused to take the Mighty Thor across the river; meaning that the
Mighty Giant Slayer & Protector of Humanity would have to take the long way
home… sux to be Thor! BUT, on the up side, he learnt his lesson, as we all
should from this story!
I’ve always taken
this story to mean that you may be the strongest (best/smartest/whatever) on
earth (or, one of the heavens for that matter) but, by yourself, you are not
much really, thus, if you are alone, you’ll be doing it tuff; if you are part
of a team, well, life is a whole lot easier.
Thus I’d like to declare my allegiances to the following:
·
Vespa-Nutters
·
Lambretta-philes
·
Cub Fondlers
·
World Wide Hat Wearing Weirdos alliance
·
The ancient order of Gluten-freemasons
·
Nerdy Nice 'n Naughty people incorporated
OK, so I think I am now a member of all sorts of good &
great & Mostly Harmless groups, that I should be able to continue to take
on the task of re-building the Love Cub & hope the good Karma continues …
Maybe after my next swing…
So mote it be
Leigh
*I
actually found this out after using one of those online resources - I don’t
speak ancient Norse either!
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