This is not about politics. It’s not really about sheep either. But it is about standing out from the flock; being the only sheep dressed in lycra rather than ubiquitous wool.
It’s also not really about my pathological aversion to that most arcane of socially constructed curiosities: wearing a suit and tie.
But let’s start with a game currently being played here in down town Australia. No doubt the same game is being played where you live too. Londoners will relate pretty quickly I am sure when they consider a certain Mayor called Boris. This is about what happens when we allow the cyclist we are to extend further out into life than out-of-hours ‘private time’. It’s about being unordinary when ordinary is how you would otherwise maintain your position in the flock.
It’s perverse, all this. Just consider the conundrum of someone like a politician grappling with the duality of the need to be noticed while, at the very same time, being a well-behaved member of a team. Stand out and the harsh sharp blades of conformity are likely to take off your head. Blend in too much and the folk won’t notice you are there. Is life really about the art of micro-tuned subtlety? Or can we become the erupting volcano in the room that’s pretty hard to miss?
Segue to Australia’s latest Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. I have no interest in his politics, or of any other politician for that matter (particularly the towering inanity of our own particular local member…) But something caught my eye a while ago. Picture this. The reporters were interviewing Tony Abbott in his plush Canberra office. Sitting beside his desk was his bicycle. I am almost certain that this is the first time a bicycle has sat beside the desk of such a senior politician in this country, or probably anywhere else as well. Did George Bush prop his Trek beside his desk in the White House? Does Boris do so in London town?
I didn’t hear what Tony Abbott was saying. I was transfixed by the bicycle beside his desk! Then, the next thing we heard was that Mr Abbott was competing in an Iron Man event; the media was apoplectic in shock. Now, there’s this. A Pollies Ride from Melbourne to Sydney. See the picture above (click on it to make it bigger. Follow this link to read the full story). He was going to ride his bike as part of a campaign to meet and greet; to connect and learn. And all on tax payer time! Now I am pretty sure this is getting down to seriously unique. One quote from the story is worth a vote to note:
…no one would be complaining if Abbott were doing the trip in a car instead of on a bike
Exactly. Precisely so. There’s serious difference going on here. This guy’s not playing the lame same game like everyone else. Every hack journalist in the country is laying inane sporting metaphors over the story; which serves to highlight their own insecurities rather than to serve effective derision on the pedalling pollie target in their sights. Take this intellectually disabled backfiring jab:
If the wheels of government only turned when Abbott wasn’t on his bike we wouldn’t get anything done
I bet the turkey who said that is permanently dressed in a suit; porky belly jammed up against his regulation desk. Dreaming of McDonalds and watching Australia’s Greatest Loser on TV.
But this is not just about one politician daring to admit cycling further into the highway of his life. It’s about why and how it is that so few other cyclists are prepared to go so far. Or to go so far in the shining light of the public’s unfiltered gaze. I mean, the car crowd are never shy to park their cars in the public gaze. The CEO of my last organisation even had a sign erected over his parking space so that everyone would know that that sporty little BMW was his. A statement of how he perceived himself, I guessed. (An open-topped, underpowered mini-man car). So why can’t we extend the same egocentric posturing for business hour posing to our bicycles as well?
For good reasons, that’s why! Because there’s more to a bicycle than posing. Anyone can stick a Colnago on the wall. But only a cyclist can ride it to the purpose of its design. There’s no roaring V8 of noise to confuse prowess for pose with a bike. You just look a dork if you can’t ride to match the bike you prop beside your desk. Being a cyclist is a more complete package of a statement to make than any business suit or car can provide.
I want my leaders to possess at least some degree of leadership! To lead, you have to be out front. Or at least prominently leading from behind. You can’t lead if you are invisible inside a flock. Leadership requires demonstrable qualities of distinction. Otherwise, just let the flock make it’s mob-meandering emergence like the happenstance of driftwood floating on a river. Like a mob of sheep, the flock will eventually end up in some place other than where they started. But they are still going to get shorn, in the end.
I know there’s some good qualifiers to all this, of course. You don’t necessarily need to voice your distinctiveness by stepping out in lycra and parking a bicycle beside your desk. It’s possible to use other means to escape the black hole attractions of floating with a flock. You can be distinctive via intelligence, for example. Or inventing stuff that’s totally new. Or by being immune to anger; or sticking to your principles, or anything else that maintains your orbit around the gravity well of the otherwise inane.
And yes, I am assuming it’s leadership that Mr Abbott is demonstrating here rather than just a predilection to pedal while his tax payer funded metre is running. Not all cyclists are leaders and not all leaders are cyclists (unless you are in a pro-cycling team). But his notions of pedal powered community mingling do have huge appeal; you can’t be more open to community access than that. They don’t make bullet proof cycling vests and it’s ever so hard for security hit teams to keep you under control when you are out on your bike. Especially when you are Iron Man fit and your security goons can’t keep up…
But I like the cut of this politician’s leadership suit. The message is clear. He’s in command of his security to be different; distinctive and assured. It matters not if his politics are different to what I’d ordinarily choose. That’s not the point. This person stands out. We can read him with greater clarity than is usual in the flock that goes for leadership these days. If someone is prepared to stand so high; to stand out so far; then we can at the very least admire him for allowing our judgements to be so easily made. His orbit may be heading off into outer space. But at least he is in orbit rather than decomposing at the bottom of the bog.
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