Do you remember holding your first mobile phone? The internet’s first whisper? For a time, the digital revolution seemed extraordinary, efficient, cool; and for motorbikes, precisely governed by a myriad of electrical sensors and simple, solid state, controllers. There seemed no reason to worry about the inverse relationship between complexity and longevity. Complexity never felt like fragility. The future was going to be smarter, shinier; but then the hum of promise fell silent –

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Ozymandias – Shelley

With the rub of a stone, an old pair of shears can release a sheep from its fleece as well as they ever did, but the same cannot be said of a blunt electric beard trimmer. These days cars and bikes become similarly redundant. Left to atrophy silicon reverts back to sand. Without the means to read their simple minds for error codes, repairs must be made blindly with traditional skills that don’t always apply to more modern tech. Knowing what to do with something that’s complex and broken is hard; should it be fixed, replaced, kept in all its uselessness? The question is pressing when it’s your transport. But with the cost of a technician and a diagnostic reader being roughly equivalent to three days wages…

After many hours in a cold garage methodically working through plugs, air filter, fuel filter, battery, tappets, valve timing, starter solenoid, starter motor, sprag clutch, flywheel sensor I was left with the nagging feeling that the solution lay beyond me, in some obscure flake of corrupted silicon. But just then a chance conversation with an engineer brought an offer of help, and after removing and cleaning the fuel injectors, she started on the button. Isn’t the role chance plays in our lives intriguing?

An old man accidentally fell into river rapids leading to a high and dangerous  waterfall. Onlookers feared for his life. Miraculously, he emerged alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. People asked  him how he managed to survive.
I adapted myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it.  Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived.”
Daoist parable

We evolved to recognise and interpret patterns: footprints on a trail, the sounds of language, constellations in the stars, but the Enlightenment dismissed the spirits, spells, and divine agency that for centuries made sense of these patterns. Yet rationalism struggles to explain coincidence, instead preferring improbable odds, such as those that have us being here and now. Either way, I’m left with my faith in the universe somewhat restored, more inclined to trust in the way of things and looking forward to a sunny day and an open road.

Here’s to your broken things finding their way in the flow.