Efficiency, Growth, and the Killing Ground

The other day, I was running errands, as I tend to on the days I have off.  I'd had to take our aging 2002 minivan, as the wife was off at another interview.  As she was driving farther, she'd taken our hyper-efficient eco-pod.  Saves on fuel costs, eh?  It was a bitterly cold day, one of the few we've had in this wildly cycling pseudo-winter.

But when I got to the van, it was nice and warm inside, even before the errand began.  I didn't need to run the engine to warm it up.  I didn't need to burn those dollar bills that we pour into the gaping maws of our gas tanks just to have our engines idling, heating up so I could be comfortable.

That's because I'd parked it in the sun, and the sun had warmed it up nicely.  The energy had been freely offered from the vast fusion reaction that sits bright in the sky, dumping power onto our planet.

As I ran my errands, I made a point of parking the critter...not the most efficient beast, I fear...with its front untinted window pointed towards the sun.  I walked to get groceries, and then dogfood, and then an electronic doodad we needed to replace a failed electronic doodad.   When I returned, the van was warm again, free of charge, not a dime spent on fuel.

I do the same thing in the summer, but in reverse.  I'll go out of my way to park in shade, even if that means a longer walk to the store.  That means less compressor time to cool the car, less money spent, and less waste.

It's a habit, a pattern, a way of approaching things.  I simply would rather use less.  I don't want to have more, or to use more, or to consume more.  That's been a family focus.  In our flush-times, when resources are abundant, we've lived that way.  We save.  We keep below our means.  Where we upgraded, we upgraded to things that use less.  

Our goal is less, and smaller.  Because that's stronger, more resilient, more adaptable, more self-reliant.    That's peculiarly conservative, but it's something else.

It's peculiarly contrary to the "growth" measures of our culture.  The expectation that we'll spend every penny we make, that we'll consume right up to the edge of what we can manage and beyond?  That has been the dream of the oh-so-confident confidence men who sell us debt and credit and the illusion of easy, unearned wealth.

But that place is a dangerous place.  "Living large" in times of plenty means you are overextended when times are lean.  Though I'm not a military man, I find myself thinking of that in martial terms.  You find yourself vulnerable, deep into enemy territory, beyond your supply lines and with no way out.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, military theorist Sun Tzu had a word for that place.  He called it the Killing Ground.

Not my favorite place.

Living To Ride

Today was a bustling errand day, and it felt it.

Beyond the various and sundry folks we had come into our home to repair and maintain, there were checks to deposit at the bank.  There were socks to be purchased for a youngling who burns through them like Bogey going through a pack of unfiltered Camels.   There was swim gear to be purchased, and books to be returned to the library, all scattered across the sprawling suburban wasteland that is Northern Virginia.

It was also a lovely Fall day, and so rather than trundle about in our utilitarian but inefficient minivan, I ran the Dad-errands on the 'Strom.  It's got a nice big lockable top-box, perfect for fat bags of factory-extruded socks from K-Mart, and for stowing library books.

The swim flippers and for my increasingly immense 13 year-old were another thing altogether, too odd shaped for the onboard storage.  But being a nicely designed piece of kit, the top box pops off neatly, leaving a nice big flat space for bungeeing things. 

The day's errands concluded with the pick up of the big guy from his rehearsal.   He loped from the entrance of the middle school, past the lines of idling soccer mom minivans and SUVs to the bright yellow motorcycle, tossed his backpack into the top-box, and got on the helmet without assistance.

As he hopped up into the pillion, I flashed back to those first few rides I gave him on the old bike, oh so many summers ago, back when his little feet first hit the pegs.   He was so small, barely a presence on the bike at all, nestled in tight and clinging to Daddy's back.

A man after my own heart.

Now?   It feels more like those times I would ride two-up to Skyline Drive with a fraternity brother riding pillion.   There's a man sitting back there.  As he leans back easy against that ever useful topbox, he fills the back of the bike.  His mass and size are palpable, shifting the dynamics and the balance.  But he sits calm and relaxed, an old hand at this, and we shout out our father son chatter as we burble down Columbia Pike. 

And so, for most of my dayful of suburban parental-unit schlepping, I make do with two wheels, racking up three times as many miles per gallon of go-juice, and taking pleasure in the tasks and the day.

It's good to be the Dad.  But it's better to be the Dad on the bike.