Racing Our "Chairs"

A crotch-rocket motorcycle or race car is, really, nothing more than a motorized chair. People like to sit, and we long ago learned to make our chairs into carts, bicycles, and stage wagons. When motors became available, we made our chairs into cars, motorcycles, buses, trains and space shuttles. Reminds me of the scene in "Doctor Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," where Slim Pickens rides down a nuclear weapon over Russia. Ride 'em, cowboy! Having motorized our chairs, we started to race them against each other. We spend a lot of time, money, and effort in making our chairs go faster, higher, longer, deeper, look prettier, be fancier than anyone else's. I've got a Yaris. Its clean. Well, it's undamaged.

In 1968, the Beatles went to India to learn Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. John Lennon wrote a song there to Mia Farrow's sister, dear Prudence, who had become a recluse. She was racing to be the first in her cohort to "go cosmic." We imaginations have annexed these human brains as our chairs for this experience. We are their motors, if you will, and we can soup them up by meditating, praying, and imagining. "We have the technology." Indeed, we do. Gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines.