DeanWuBlog

Riding

I will never be a professional motorcycle rider. That is a liberating limitation, realized long ago and shortly after my entry in this hobby. It serves as a reminder not to speed in trying to catch a pack, allowing me to set my own pace that is enjoyable. Yet this realization does not stop me from trying to improve, in judgment, handling, and the myriad skills required to keep the rubber side down and the shiny side up. To the contrary, it returns me to the great pleasures of riding for it’s own sake. I remain ambitious. I’d like to decrease the day to day risks I face as I ride in traffic, increase the distance I can travel in a day on a long-distance trip, and so on.

Although I remember the quip that “it’s bad enough when your enemies succeed, it’s worse then your friends do,” I have become convinced that there are the appropriate uses of competitive instincts – professionally -- and there are equally appropriate contexts for the gifted amateur. As a teacher, I see that there is much more than training the best litigator. The transactional lawyer who never sits foot in a courtroom also needs basic background in the rules of civil procedure; so too the politician, the business person, and the scholar who enters my classroom. Few of us will perform at the top of the field in every endeavor. Society would be worse off, and each of us as individuals, too, if we entered the fray only in activities in which we were certain to prevail. We cultivate a hundred great readers to produce one greater writer; the ninety-nine greater readers, if they must take pride in their accomplishment, can be assured that it is an honor indeed to be a great reader.