Traction

I've got traction on the mind, which is no surprise given that I have moved to a record rainfall season in Seattle from "it's a dry heat" Arizona. Traction, the adhesive friction that exists between tire and road, is vital as it is what allows you to go, stop, and stay upright.

Traction is generally not much of a problem on Arizona roads given temperatures such that the tire practically melts onto the road. Add broad, flat, straight streets and you have the perfect environment for tootling down the road admiring the scenery.

Not so in Seattle, where hills abound and the curves are so numerous as to make one wonder if the bike will ever stand up straight again. Add a bazillion cars dripping all kinds of fluids on to a road that never seems to completely dry out, and that is a prescription for disaster if one tootles down the road admiring the scenery.

At most the amount of traction a motorcycle tire has is an area about the size of a deck of cards. Add lean, acceleration, or braking to the equation and that area decreases exponentially; factor in loss of traction due to a slippery surface and the actual size of contact patch that keeps the bike on Terra firma is frighteningly small. So while it is amazing how little traction is actually necessary to keep you rolling safe and sound, the moral of the story is that Traction is Good.

Traction is good ... for motorcycles AND for human beings. You see, traction is really just the friction created between tire and road surface and while we generally think of friction as a bad thing in human relations, it is actually necessary. We human beings are constructed for action and inter-action; just like a muscle which should be used rather than rested or it will atrophy, so it is with human interaction, or traction, which is the adhesive friction which exists between one human and another. If we don't find it naturally, we will create it artificially.

If there is no adhesive friction which allows us to move, we will create it, whether by so doing it allows us to move forward OR backward in the relationship. We just can't stand still!

I just spent six years serving in a retirement community and I found that those men and women who had given thought to retirement and sought creative expressions for their lives were delightful, healthy, well adapted folks. Those who had not done so were often petty and argumentative nit-pickers who, because of the lack of meaning in their lives, sought to create meaning out of the most meaningless issues.

But the same is true of working folk; if you have a job that is mostly enjoyable and provides opportunity for creative expression, life is good. If you don't have such a workplace, or have one which provides TOO MUCH traction (which in the interaction of tire and road prevents you from moving at all) or friction, life is not so good either.

Too little traction and you slide out of control; too much traction and you can't move. So finding the right amount of traction may be the secret to life, just as it is to happy riding.