There are two significant contributors to my decision to write about the idea of now. The first is my passion for motorsports and my fascination with marquis prototype racing. The second is a lifetime gift I have had that lets me improvise freely on piano, which I have studied and nurtured. What an odd combination those make, but they share a unique metaphorical relationship (ooh that's a rough go) or perhaps an image they share in common. It's like the Golden Gate Bridge but with one central tower, and its reflection.
This report only covers the first, stay tuned for the second, which should set the stage for musical now.
I love this concept and probably could write a lot about it; not that I know everything, that's not what I'm implying, it's that I'd want to see if I could ever get the idea right. Here's a go: imagine a world hero-type motorcycle racer, a champion at muscling and finessing a 337-pound, 230+ horsepower bike at speeds of over 200 miles an hour. And while that's fast, what's amazing is how they then brake so hard their rear tires skip around, at the very last moment tipping into a corner at the exact speed they wanted that lets them lean deeply over, dipping their knees down to sense how close the tarmac screaming by underneath them is.
While riding a motorcycle at these speeds, the rider’s sense
of now is, in my opinion, significantly elongated, and in two ways that are highly
related to time. First, if you for any reason might be day dreaming and
thinking about those umbrella girls back in the paddock, and you end up a long
straightaway getting on your brakes just too late, then the bike has gotten
away from you, and it will carry you off of the track or well off the line, so
you cast you mind far, far ahead, and steer a course that will keep your bike
most stable in dizzying turns. When you see a corner, you see three more
corners ahead too because how you enter this one sets you up for the quickest
run through them. So their mind, their consciousness and the information
pouring in their eyes combine; they are present in the next three turns
already, and a ghostly part of them has already stored the line through all the
remaining turns on the track.
Bright here, but sprawling forwards like the cables running
down and away from the bridge tower in the center, dimming but present.
And second, that ghost track in their minds is counting 25
laps or more, inhabiting longer-term stratagems, and dashing for sudden
opportunities, all experienced with relationship to the final lap and the
finish line, where suddenly their now snaps in tightly in whatever reflections
spring into their minds.
It’s a highly rarified experience but for those who do know
it, now is bright and all around them; they can feel their momentum hundreds of
meters ahead of them, and it is that self they are propelling with every action
they take with their bodies. Every choreographed and rehearsed movement is only
setting the riders up for the next three corners, which are several and even
many seconds away from their bodies. Their now is so powerfully absorbed with
their life or death trajectory (RIP SuperSic) that it must have stretched,
either straight from their eyes, ahead from them away into the distance, or
starting even behind them where they keep in mind a rival world hero-type rider
there, who jockeys and scrambles, looking for opportunities…
