From Two to Four

Dear Bicycle, 

A bicycle at your most rudimentary and generic form, you are a mode of transportation nationally associated with youth. But, you are much, much more, you are a fledging sense of freedom that within its restraints allows for the juvenile development of reason and responsibility, as well as the repercussions that are associated with the lapses of. In a more materialistic sense you are something of great hierarchical significance, consuming the superficial thoughts of adolescence. Schwinn or Mongoose, mountain or road, all decisions that affect one’s social interaction and one’s place in their kernel of friends. In all aspects you are an object of vast significance in one’s childhood development. Something almost no kid can live without.

But, as time progresses and one grows in age, your necessity wanes. You shift from an object of great possibilities and something that facilitates one’s everyday thoughts, to something that only rarely takes presence, only when seeking a form of leisure. All priority surmised. All major implication on life lost. Something whom once habitual presence in thought is now a void, now filled with the fascination of the new possibility of four wheeled transportation.



A car, an object that has precedence in the thoughts of many teens alike. You are the gateway to an even more expansive set of freedoms only obtained through the standardized process of obtaining your license. Which is yet another auxiliary attribute associated with your highly praised nature amongst teens. These extensive freedoms you provide however are not without their implicating consequences that are associated with their abuse. Most of these in which are drastically greater in severity than those associated with the juvenile exposer presented by the previously revered bicycle. But, as stated by one of the more peculiar authors of history Albert Camus, “freedom is nothing but a chance to be better” and that is exactly what you present. These freedoms are but a milestone in teenage development further realizing the great capabilities in responsibility one possesses. In a physical sense you are something that provides an immense improvement in capability when compared to that of which are associated with the object that has prior been the source of unparalleled qualification. It allows for increased range and speed which all lend it’s broadening of the scope of possibilities. With your aid we are able to go places a bike simply would not permit. And as I press down the peddle I contemplate the location in which my weathered bike will find rest within my basement.

Sincerely,

Matt