This Is This

So how come people from broken homes make worse partners than those who aren’t? Why aren’t people who have known sadness better at avoiding it? You would think that those of us who know the warning signs could better avoid the pitfalls of depression or unhappy relationships.

I rode a motorcycle around London for a few years and I would often narrowly miss objects which lay in the middle of the road. Even in city traffic, if a large object was in my lane and I had noticed it a long way off, in good time to react, I would head towards it and veer away to avoid it at the last moment.

I told a biker friend of mine about this and he smiled and nodded: “That’s because you’re looking at it.”

Me: “Go on.”

Biker friend: “You are looking at the object you want to avoid. Motorcycles are much more intuitive than cars and they will react to what you think. If you look at an object while you ride towards it and think ‘there’s a pipe in the road, look at that pipe, where should I go to not hit that pipe?’ then you’re going to ride straight for it. Focus on what you’re not going to do.”

And he was right. I’ve been pipe-free since 1997.

If I say: “don’t think of a blue monkey”, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?

Studying the consequences of past wrongs doesn’t help you one bit in avoiding suffering or avoiding the creation of suffering. It may even draw you closer towards it. You won’t steer clear of obstacles when you watch them loom.

You have to look where you’re going, not where you’re trying not to go. Figure out how you’re going to live and try to live that way.

All the rest is just pipes.

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