With Freedom Comes Great Responsibility!

I have found an odd phenomenon in riding the motorcycle. People who become someone else the minute they hit the seat.

Actually I think this happens to each and everyone one of us when we hit the seat. I think it comes from the thrill of doing something outside the norm and scary. There is an edginess and also a beauty to riding.
People who don't ride don't understand this about riding. They just find it scary. I find mostly the beauty of it, especially when you are out on the open road and there are just miles in front of you. I find that all life's cares and concerns just melt away and all that is left is the road, the bike, and a sense of oneness with the environment.
Growing up I experienced this with riding horses. I missed it for a long time until I started to ride the motorcycle. I just get lost in my thoughts and find that I can reconcile issues easily in rolling through the landscape. All of my senses are going at once. I can hear, taste, smell, see and feel the entire experience. Yet I am not experiencing the landscape from a controlled environment and therefore I become a part of the landscape. I am in my story and experience, not on the outside looking in. There is a wonderful peace that washes over me as the ride takes over and life's issues cease to be important. The road takes over and off I go.
I find that I look forward to and long for this feeling. When we take off on vacation I feel the real world start shedding away. I hate coming home and returning to normal life. I long for the feeling of the open road.
I don't however lose my sense of right and wrong and my innate moral compass. I still find a need to do the right thing by people I experience along the way. I am a total rule follower and I still consider the rules of the road and consideration for my fellow travelers. I also try to consider the people whose environment I am experiencing and they have been kind enough to share with me.
I was taught the golden rule as a child. " Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". And just because I am riding a motorcycle doesn't mean that my humanity should end. I still need to consider people who live in communities I experience. The mountain road with the great Twisty's was not put there for someone on a motorcycle to experience. It was put there to connect communities and people together that live on those twisty roads.
So just as I don't appreciate someone racing up and down in front of my house and endangering those that I love and care about, neither do people who live on the twisty roads want to be invaded by a bunch of crazies on motorcycles who are trying to push that next turn that much faster. Especially when their child or their loved one could be just around that next turn and my actions could endanger their ability to exist.
We all have to live together and share the roads and the environment. So when a Biker chooses to take the turn that much faster or pop the wheelie going down the freeway, they are not just potentially endangering themselves, but they are endangering my 22 year old son, or my wonderful crazy neighbor, or my Joe coming home from work. Just because I enjoy the thrill of riding that motorcycle does not give me the right to endanger other people in my realm that are just trying to get through life in that moment. I don't have the right to invade their space and change their personal history because I want a thrill.
So when you are out riding, enjoy the road, enjoy the motorcycle experience, but be part of the environment and know the true freedom of the road. Just remember that with freedom comes great responsibility!