The Stilt Analogy

I often think about something I call the “stilt analogy.” I’m not so ignorant as to assume I’m the first person to think of this, so I’m sure there is an official name for it, but I’ve never come across it yet, so here I’ll refer to it as the stilt analogy.

500 years ago, even 150 years ago, even more recently than that, perhaps, the average human being had complete mastery of the technology he or she used in daily life. They understood the workings of the plow, the horse-drawn cart used to travel to market, the typewriter, and so on. Everyone knew how everything in their home worked. Even if they were not involved in its creation, or could not perform repairs on it themselves, each man and woman could understand how the fireplace heated the home, how the ink was put to print by the press, how the mill operated to grind wheat to flour, and so on. 

Everything a human depended on, he understood. If a man used a piece of technology daily, he could explain to anyone who queried him exactly how it operated.

As the technology used in our daily lives has grown more complex, we’ve grown further and further away from understanding. This began, perhaps, in the later portion of the 19th century, with innovations like electricity and steam power, and only grew with the mass production of the automobile, the automatic rifle, so on. 

We look around ourselves now and have very little understanding, not just of tools of specific trades, but of the technologies that form the cornerstones of our lives. The items we use daily, the items we depend upon, their operation is a complete mystery to us. Think of the 5 or 6 things you can’t go without each day. Your smartphone, perhaps. Your car, your laptop computer, Wi-Fi, electrical, central heating. I doubt you could explain how any of it works. That’s why we require specialists for all of it.

This is what I call the “stilt analogy.” It is this idea that our necessities, what we use to walk through this world, are becoming ever more and more distant from our minds. We’re walking on stilts, far above the ground, peering down through mist and haze but never truly able to see the point at which our stilts contact the earth. 

The human being’s previous complete understanding of his or her daily life has given way to the blissful luxury of advanced technology, at the price of ignorance.

How many people can fix their car when it breaks down? How many people even know what’s wrong with their car unless the little neon light pops up on the dash telling them? Yet we all drive cars daily, we depend upon them to get to work, the grocery, the doctor, and so on. Smartphones are the same, if not worse. We rely completely on these devices, and yet we have no understanding of the mechanisms behind their operation.

It’s the natural result of increasing technological complexity, of course. As we move forward into the future, it will only get worse. There isn’t much we can do about it. It takes no small amount of time and effort to become an expert on automotive mechanics or smartphone technology, and cars and phones and computers are becoming more complex every year.

That’s how motorcycles have impacted my life.

As a motorcyclist, you can’t afford to operate on a stilt. You can’t afford to not understand the workings of your bike. Of course, if you have a bottomless pocketbook you can always simply pay garages exorbitant fees for every little maintenance checkup and issue that arises, but you’re still risking not being aware of a potentially life-threatening malfunction on your bike. 

Most of us simply have to buckle up and learn some shit about mechanics. I’ve been driving a car since I was 16, but it wasn’t until I started riding motorcycles that I had to learn how an engine works, how a carburetor operates, how to change brake pads, lube a drive chain, and so on and so forth.

I still am no mechanic, not by a long shot, but motorcycles have allowed me to chop down my stilts in at least one aspect of my life. When I step on my bike and go to the grocery or pick up a girl for a date, I know that the spark plugs in the engine between my legs are igniting a mixture of oxygen and gasoline and that combustion is powering pistons which are powering a crankshaft and so on and so forth. I know where the parts are and why and how they work to move my motorcycle along the road, and the things I don’t know, I’m forced to learn, each and every day I ride.

Understanding and comprehension of a technology that is integral to our daily lives is a beautiful thing. Motorcycles bring that to us. It’s just another reason to ride, or if you’re one of those aforementioned bottomless pocketbook people, next time you need to change your brake pads, try doing it yourself.

Down With The Stilts!