I've always enjoyed riding my bike, and since riding is more about endurance than peak exertion cycling has been one of the few physical things that I can do while working my way through my lingering health problems. I've put thousands of miles on my bike over the years and I very much enjoy the pastime, but it is often that I wonder what it is about riding that is so rewarding for me. On an average Saturday I'll ride upwards of sixty miles or more, with a few thousand feet of climbing thrown in for good measure, and spend a good five hours or more just sitting there pedaling, mile after mile. It's hard work after all, and I sweat, and I hurt, and sometimes I fall short of my goal for the day, and so sometimes when I'm out there I wonder what exactly is it that I'm getting back for all the effort that I am putting into it.

Is it staying fit? Well, that's part of it, but I only need to ride a few hours a week to be in good condition. I ride a lot more than I need to for my health.

Is it achieving that "runner's high"? Well, no. I don't recall ever feeling any sense of euphoria when I've been out there save perhaps when I reach a new milestone for speed or distance or go somewhere where I've never been before. Those times are few and far between and the "high" that I get is more a feeling of accomplishment rather than any endorphin rush.

Is it to get close to nature? Well, being outside in California on most days is a wonderful feeling, and traveling through the countryside is definitely enjoyable, but I don't need to labor on a bicycle for hours to achieve that.

Is it to train for some big event? Well, I do try to ride in the MS-150 every year and have done so since 2006, but most of the time I am just out there on my own, rolling over roads I've been down before, and not trying to build towards anything more than doing even more riding next year. So why the heck do I do it?

Naturally my mind drifts towards ideological causes when I start to ask questions about human behavior. I don't consider myself immune to ideologies or completely detached from their influence. And when someone goes out and does something that doesn't seem to result in any personal benefit it's generally a sign that they are satisfying some ideologically based need. That is the conclusion that I have reached regarding my cycling.

So what do I believe in? I believe that by working hard, pushing yourself, and denying your desires for quick and easy thrills that you can achieve exceptional things and give yourself a lasting sense of satisfaction with your life. Yes, there's nothing new or in any way radical about that idea although in these days of easy loans, guiltless hook-ups, and instant access to just about any pleasure known to man in hedonistic quantities the concept of delayed gratification has become trite and quaint if not outright heretical. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't work, and it certainly works for me.

I'm a victim of ideology and that will never change. Inside me is a permanent sense of inadequacy that I too need to alleviate, just like everyone else, and that means that I am driven to do things that make me feel worthwhile. While one can escape the delusional elements of any ideology, such as creation myths and life after death, the psychological conditioning from being brought up under a particular belief system will be with you for life. Simply put, the imprint of the ideology which you were raised to follow defines who you are. It's part of yourself, and you have to learn to accept it. In my case the thing that makes me feel worthwhile is to be exceptional in some way and usually in the realm of individual accomplishment. Fireaxe is certainly a part of that pathology as one reason why it exists is that it is my attempt to produce exceptional music, and to my ears, as well as to many of yours, it is. Fireaxe wouldn't sound the way that it does and I wouldn't have got to where I am in other areas of life without the drive to be exceptional. It's not enough for me to merely do something, I have to be good at it, and that is the force that has driven me all these years for better or for worse. The evidence is on those CDs.

For me, cycling is no different, and I very much enjoy the feeling of doing a ride which is exceptional in some way whether it be in length, severity of the climbs, or the environmental conditions, but the key to being satisfied by it day in and day out comes from re-experiencing the process that I know will lead to great things. I don't have to do an exceptional ride each time out to feel good about myself, or do those exceptional rides very often. It is the process that matters the most to me. Through cycling, I reaffirm in my mind the way that the world works: that hard work pays off in the end.

Nothing typifies what I believe in more than riding up a long, steep hill. You can't get to the top without working hard for a long time. There are no shortcuts to be found, trying to sprint your way to the top will wear you out before you even reach the summit, and all along the way your body will send you many signals that it would much prefer it if you turned around and coasted back to the bottom rather than kept going upwards. What gets you to the top is slow, steady work, dedication to training, and the determination to reach your goal in spite of any adversity. This formula is proven out every time I ride up a hill, and it serves to reassure me that in areas where the hill is long and my chances of success are in question that sticking by my principles is the best course of action.

I'm fortunate to have a job where this is also true. I'm not sure that I would fare well in an occupation where I wasn't always in the process of building something that is lasting and significant. But when I look around at other areas of life, and how others see the world today, I realize that my cherished beliefs are not accepted and respected by all. This disturbs me deeply because to me the value of hard work is not an article of faith, it's a confirmed fact. I know that throwing it away is a recipe for failure and mediocrity…perhaps not today, but certainly tomorrow, and as I see it, tomorrow has arrived with a vengeance.

The economy is one example of how discarding the notions of hard work and frugality has resulted in catastrophe. That's probably why discussions of the current debacle are so frequently found in these newsletters. I'm personally offended by what has happened and have felt that way since long before the current crisis began. Instead of building our wealth slowly, denying tempting indulgences, and accepting the long term commitment to our dreams we mortgaged our secure future to buy a fleeting present and tried to cheat our way to the top of the hill. But reality smashed our illusions, as it always does in the end, and now we find ourselves sliding back down to the bottom. Years of work is being undone and the efforts of many are being wasted. And if that wasn't bad enough, the self-indulgent feeding frenzy on Wall Street which continues to this very day is an insult to us all.

But setting the economy aside, and yes, I've written about it far too much in these newsletters, don't we manage our personal relationships in the same reckless and delusional way that we have managed our money? Intimacy, once earned through trust, honor, and commitment, we now share with anyone: friends, strangers, and often on no more than a whim. We seem to have no appetite for making the sacrifices necessary to build a lasting relationship and instead we are just seeking affection, validation, or little more than to feel the thrill of conquest. We've become serial monogamists, interested only in the fresh, exciting, and exhilarating parts of a relationship, and we turn away from our partners whenever things become dull or when conflicts arise. All the while we cling to the childish dream that some day we will find our soul mate out there somewhere and that with them the blissful part of a new relationship will last forever without us ever having to work at it at all. Is it any wonder why we can't achieve lasting success given our focus on instant gratification and our quest for the perfect mate?

Commercially we are over-stimulated and bombarded with so many products that we can pick and choose what we want to indulge in, satisfying any urge that pops into our minds. It is said that this is a good thing, especially for our children, that having an abundance of toys stimulates more brain activity and that having choices allows us to become unique individuals who can express our own personal identities, but is it such a good thing? We all know that overindulgence leads to selfishness and egotism and I am seeing more and more of those repulsive qualities in our youth as well as in our elders. When one has fewer choices one learns to make the best of what one has and appreciates what he gets back from them so much more. When one is focused on a single thing one becomes more intimately familiar with that thing and understands and experiences it on a more profound level as compared to having a superficial understanding and appreciation of a larger number of things. So where does a person who is used to having their desires catered to find the determination to keep working towards a goal, day after day, where the rewards are few and far between? Today if we don't like what we're watching we change the channel, and if we don't like who we're with, what we're doing, or where we are, we change our friends, lovers, jobs, cities, religions, and anything else, treating them as if their only purpose is to satisfy our own desires. We are a nation, no, we are many nations, and all them filled with spoiled children who refuse to grow up.

Well, there I go again, sounding like a conservative, or like so many loudmouthed pundits out there shouting down the permissive culture of liberalism and secular humanism as if those ideologies were the cause of all of our ills. I'm not a conservative, I'm a progressive, and to me it is quite clear that we cannot make any progress towards anything if we keep indulging ourselves like a teenaged nymphomaniac in Las Vegas with an unlimited expense account and a binge eating disorder. And in case those pundits and conservatives haven't been paying attention, in the right wing there is no shortage of selfish and egotistical people who make a mockery out of everything that they proclaim to believe in. Yes, it seems that every few months another right-wing demagogue gets caught in an embarrassing scandal, but the corruption runs far deeper than that. The objectivist foundation of Monetarism and its support for deregulation is everything that the right wing deplores about the decadence of the left: no imposed set of rules, no personal responsibility, do whatever feels good; applied to the realm of finance. Also, torture and police state style surveillance are just as corrosive to society as drug abuse and the sexification of everything under the sun. And how long will it be before people realize that when Republicans promise tax cuts that it's not about fiscal policy but about the bald-faced bribing of the electorate? Both ends of the spectrum are engaged in the same shameful overindulgent behavior, they are merely doing so in their own unique ways.

And so, though you may hear the incessant cries of those who claim that our problems all started when we turned away from some god or another or that we lost our faith, know that the reality is that what we really turned away from was the principle of an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Such a concept isn't unknown to religion, in fact it's central to most of them, it just seems to have been forgotten in recent years. Take a look at the "believers" around you, do they practice what they preach, or at least, what they should be preaching but probably aren't? Believing in some fanciful story about the origins of the universe or the coming of the messiah is an almost meaningless exercise in self-delusion. And merely accepting Jesus as one's personal savior could hardly be called theological heavy lifting. No, what separates the true believer from the pretender is their devotion to doing the things that require hard work and sacrifice. Does your Christian friend deny himself worldly pleasures or does he avidly pursue one or more of the seven deadly sins? Does your Muslim sister honor her neighbors and treat them fairly or does she see them as infidels to be cheated and their opinions dismissed? Does your Jewish brother admit it when he is wrong or does he vehemently claim to be right in spite of all evidence to the contrary? Believers of every stripe, and many of us non-believers as well, have simply lost the will to do the things that make us better people. Our gods have failed us, or at least we have failed them, not that there is any real difference between those two ideas.

So if they cannot teach their followers the value of sacrifice and hard work then the religions and all other ideologies of the world are naught but a collection of fanciful stories and tools to control and dominate the minds of their hapless, overindulgent flock. The guilt for this lies everywhere, especially among the self-righteous, for we have forgotten that our most ferocious criticisms need to be leveled at ourselves. Don't get me wrong. I may detest religion, but I do have a deep respect for many believers. They've earned it not for what they believe in, but for what they do. They are the exceptions though, and religion has proved once more than it cannot prevent the moral decay of its believers.

So is anyone out there truly surprised that we have arrived at where we are, staring over the edge of a precipice that doesn't seem to have a bottom? Honestly, if any of you are looking upon the myriad of exploding bubbles, imploding marriages and relationships, and the sheer lack of civility between people in public and in private and are still clinging to the idea that honesty, modesty, and hard work, are relics of the past, then I invite you to get on a bike and climb up a hill with me. Along the way you will sweat, you will suffer, you will cry out for mercy, and in the end you will understand the way that the universe works.

But worry not, such a day of reckoning can be put off to another time for the savior of the planet has finally arrived. No, I'm not talking about Jesus, I'm talking about Obama, and if you have faith in him he will make the world a better place. Now, I'm not making fun of him, I think that he is the most competent and honorable president that we've had in a long time. No, I am poking fun at his followers whose fawning idolatry is both seriously premature and unbecoming of citizens of a democracy. But I'm willing to let slide the rejoicing and the hosannas provided that the enthusiasm of his supporters is transformed into the dedication, resolve, and most importantly, humility that will sorely be needed in the coming years. Do Obama's supporters, and does the entire nation if not the world for that matter, understand where we are, where the bottom is, and what it's going to take to pull us back up? Simply put, are we ready to climb the hill?

Personally, I'm skeptical. As much as Obama may speak about the process of rebuilding the country not being quick or easy what will his supporters do when the economy suffers the next big leg down? When congress passes his bills and the country rallies behind him and still the slide continues with no end in sight, what will his adoring masses do then? Remember that the generation which supported him the most is the same generation that was brought up in an environment of overindulgence, selfishness, and egotism and that many are liable to drop their support for him on the way down as quickly as they gave it to him on the way up. I also see an angry, fearful, and desperately misinformed opposition which is ready to pounce on our president after any false step. As the United States goes into decline, as it inevitably must, they will heap the blame on Obama and his party. And if the recovery doesn't begin until late 2010 it could be the Republicans back in charge of the congress, resulting in two more years of political gridlock as the crisis continues to wreak havoc across the globe.

When I look at the world I see nations full of individuals, not communities, and thus lacking in the ability to rise up as one and actually effect real change. Winning an election is easy compared with what our forefathers had to do to wring concessions out of the other, unelected, group of people who run the country. Over the last decade or so we've seen corporations consolidating into monopolies and trusts once more and worker's unions being rendered almost completely powerless. How is the working class supposed to raise its standard of living in such an environment? I also see the vultures sitting on the sidelines, waiting for once strong companies, exclusive real estate, precious commodities, and other things of great worth, to fall in value so that they can swoop in and buy them up at bargain basement prices, turning a massive profit when the economy recovers. The vultures won't help out during the fall and in fact they want the crash to be severe, thus maximizing their profits. How will this encourage people to believe that hard work is the path to greatness when disasters and shrewd dealing produces the wealthiest people in the world? And I see a nation where the rich, traumatized by the recent loss of a significant portion of their wealth, will fight tooth and nail to retain what they have left regardless of how much more good it could do if it was used to rebuild the country, and in a way that doesn't extract more value than it adds. How can we redistribute wealth when everyone feels that they are entitled to every dollar they have and feel that they are owed even more? But as the bailouts continue and borrowing, or even the printing of money, is used to stimulate the economy rather than doing things which will put us back on a solid footing once more, the mal-distribution of wealth and the oppressive weight of our debts will continue to prevent any meaningful recovery from occurring. It is true that we could band together to change this, but we are divided, not united, and we will likely splinter yet more as disillusionment sets in. Perhaps a special leader can unite us, and when he tells us the truth instead of what we want to hear we might follow him anyway, but can he take us where we need to go?

A very interesting read about what it takes to redistribute the wealth in this country can be found here.

Huey Long was the populist governor of Louisiana as well as a United States Senator in the late twenties and early thirties and spent most of his time and political capital fighting against the rich and the powerful, at least up until his assassination at the ripe old age of 42. The story of his tumultuous life and political career is fascinating, especially when you look at the ferocity of his opposition and the steps that they were willing to undertake to stop him from doing what was best for the people of his state. Read and understand: this is what we are up against. It's not going to be easy.

In the coming years I see a number of people charging up the hill, hell bent on reaching the top before anyone else, only to be out of breath and completely spent as they round the bend and see many more miles of a road heading upwards. I see more and more people gathering at the bottom of the hill and just sitting there, waiting for something to happen to make it easier for them to get to the top, but the hill never changes. Maybe a lucky few will catch a ride with someone strong, and take the dishonorable way up, but for the rest of us there is but one plan of action that ensures the best possibility of success: go slow, endure the pain, and keep pedaling, but most of all, stay humble. If there is one thing that the Dark Goddess despises most of all it's hubris, and her work is far from being done. Stay strong and stay modest. The future is not going to be about victory, but about survival.