Euphoria overlooks reality

Australian cycling enthusiasts, along with many others, were jubilant as Cadel Evans rode last night to victory in the Tour de France.

The 34-year-old Northern Territory born Evans, set up his tour win in the final individual time trial of the tour in the penultimate last stage of the tour.

Cadel Evans in the
 colours of the world
 champion- a title he
 won in 2009.

Evans started that stage 57 seconds down on the tour leader, Andy Schleck, and demonstrated his clear edge in time trialing to finish a minute and 34 seconds ahead, gaining more than two minutes to effectively win the tour.
The ride into Paris, the final stage, is largely a formality with huge honour going to the rider who wins the last sprint for the tour on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Evans had no need to feature in the sprint, rather simply finish with the peloton.
Evans’ win prompted enthusiastic comment from many quarters with some declaring him to be the complete road cyclist with only success in the Olympic Games having eluded him.
Many in the cycling fraternity were euphoric about an Australian winning what they, and many outside the sport, consider the greatest sporting event in the world, even bigger than the Olympics.
Some declared it a seminal moment for Australian cycling as it illustrated to younger and emerging riders that they were not geographically denied opportunity of reaching the epitome of road cycling.
Embedded in the ecstasy of Evans’ success, the commentators predicted the growth in cycling over the next ten to 20 years, but overlooked some critical realities I can’t ignore, although the sheer virtuosity of the Australian’s success made me stand taller.
The tour, in its modern manifestation is a product of the industrial age and so despite its world embracing magnitude and complexity it edges towards collapse as the world uses more and more of irreplaceable resources; resources upon which such massive events are built.
Our world is moving toward “peakeverything”, the peaks for some resources such as oil have already passed, and within decades it will become increasingly difficult to sustain events such as the tour.
Humanity, and so by implication events such as the tour, faces a crisis of sheer existence brought on by the collision of multiple peaks – food, water, soil, oil and innumerable minerals – with a changing climate brought on by our seemingly irresponsible use of the very resources that are becoming exhausted.
One hundred years ago, the Tour de France was just that and limited largely to local riders and maybe that scenario will soon return.
In riding to victory in the Tour de France, Evans rode over several seemingly impassable peaks, but interestingly the peaks that both he and humanity may find even more difficult are yet to come.   

Swing dancing is about collaboration, as is resilience and community

The nimble feet of a group of swing dancers stole my attention and the uninhibited joy and co-operation of the dancers helped me understand that success for the human project should be relatively simple.

Swing dancing has
much to teach us
about
 the human condition.

Rather than bruise the other by adhering to ways that suggest we are not only cautious about demonstrating care for our fellows, but virtually paralysed by the fear of leaking any emotion that might hint at love, we should bond with others just as swing dancers do.
The swing dancing “craze” dates from the 1920s, but it was just recently I watched as a diverse group brought the fad of last century into this with an overt public demonstration of the beauty and success that arises from collaboration.
Communities, and individuals, everywhere could learn from the enabling spirit of swing dancing and so realise the wonderful solidarity and harmony groups experience when they work as one, rather than individuals.
Swing dancing comes in many variations that are complex and varied reflecting, in a sense, the life of a community and the dance’s adherents demonstrate, clearly, that working for an agreed to and understood goal, can produce beautiful results.
Watching the swing dancers gave me a warm felling, one that I always experience when I see a group of people combining their physical and emotional resources to produce something grander than the individual.
The way ahead is clearly not about the isolation and aggrandizement of the individual, rather it is about the consolidation of the community and so collaboration of all those among its number.
Communities need to elevate their aims as they embrace collaboration and like swing dancers heighten their timing ensuring they remain in step with compatriots
Interestingly it was only July 15 that Tim Dixon and Matt Browne wrote in the Melbourne Age under the heading: “Mature debate on our future needed, not Tea Party-style militancy” in which they said Australia’s present mining boom was the most favourable outside economic event in the nation's history …… “also, probably the last great boom Australia's fossil fuels will bring”, they noted.
Considering that, we, like the swing dancers, need to collaborate to combine our physical and psychological assets to ensure the benefits of “the last great boom Australia's fossil fuels will bring” are invested in a resilient and sustainable communities, rather than squandered answering immediate wants.
The nimbleness of the swing dancers led me to think about similar athletic thinking and swift strategic social and political manoeuvering demanded as we step into a future underwritten by a wholly different energy diet.
The next step in our dance of life will be quite beyond existing human experience and only possible if, like the swing dancers, we collaborate and combine our resources, both intellectual and psychological.