On Dynamic Meditation

Happy New Year.
I look forward to your continued support of Circles and "How to Build a Sphere" this year.

The start of the year is a time when, for some reason, we are allowed to pause. As a small goal for myself this year, I want to step slightly off the speed defined by society and begin to create a rhythm that feels comfortable to me.

Thank you for sticking with me.

At a speed unseen by anyone

Do you remember the actor Robin Williams?

He loved bicycles dearly. I remember exchanging a few words with him at NAHBS in Portland in 2008.

That his love for bicycles was profound is evident from the collection that was auctioned off after his death, but I don't believe his collecting was the whim of a celebrity or a flaunting of possessions.

I suspect that what he sought in riding a bicycle was precious time to step away from the role of "Robin Williams of Hollywood."

It is said that he owned over 80 bicycles in his lifetime.
There were road bikes, historic ones, oddly shaped ones, tools for speed, and even playful ones all mixed together.
In his own words, I read in an interview that time spent on a bike was "Mobile Meditation."
He found it essential to have time where he was freed from roles, removed from judgment, and left with nothing but his breath and the wind.

A man who kept the whole world laughing,
moving forward at a speed invisible to anyone else, occasionally stopping to look around.
That, I believe, was what the bicycle was to him.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to visit NAHBS back when it was on such a small scale.

The reason for stepping off the speed

Human beings are very fragile creatures, and perhaps I, too, at some point began searching for an excuse to run away from the yardstick of speed.
But because I never gave up on the bicycle, and because I continued to do and think about things that only I could, I am certain now that it was never laziness.
I also believe it was a very natural, personal process for surviving in this world without losing my own precious senses.

What it means to leave the mark of one's hands

There is a strange gravity at the scene of craftwork.
Somehow, titles, achievements, speed, and results lose their efficacy there.
What emerges instead are very straightforward questions: "Why make this?" "How?" and "Who by?"

It is for the same reason that Circles continues to bring handmade frames to Japan.
It is not simply that we want to sell "cool tools" or "good tools"—though, of course, they are truly wonderful.

A simple beauty honed to the limit.
The joints between the tubes.
Within the evidence of human creation lies a "freedom" that a bicycle possesses, something that can never be measured by efficiency or specs; it is surely carved into them because of this.

Perhaps handmade bikes were not created merely as tools for competing with others, but as rhythm devices for one's own growth.

People who live at their own speed

Changing the subject, let me talk a little about Kiyoshiro Imawano, whom I personally love dearly.

He became captivated by cycling after he turned 50, and as readers may know, he saddled up on a Cherubim road bike and rode all the way to Kagoshima with his bandmates.

"All hills eventually come to an end,"
Is there anyone who knows that famous saying of his?

The sight of him always pedaling while laughing was in a completely different dimension from cyclists who favor speed.
He even called the bicycle "the blues."
Fun, painful, but incredibly cool.

What Kiyoshiro chose was not off-the-shelf speed,
but a bicycle that matched the stride of his own life.
I believe that was exactly the way of life as a cyclist that a great figure of the past called an "unracer."

What was it that drew expressionists like Robin Williams and Kiyoshiro Imawano to the world of bicycles and handmade bikes in the latter half of their lives?

Perhaps it is because their way of life simply couldn't fit into the "pre-determined framework" of ready-made products.

Not a speed prepared for someone else,
but a rhythm that one feels is comfortable for oneself.

For years, I have been thinking that I want to properly create a place that takes on that feeling in a concrete form.

I don't think Circles Tailored is a finished answer yet.
It is in the midst of trial and error, holding onto both confusion and hesitation.
But because of that, there are things I believe in.

That a tool tailored for just one person
has the power to properly affirm that person's life.

For the cyclist who is an unracer, there is no need for a finish line.
There is only an endless road where you are allowed to proceed at the speed of your own choosing.

Well then, everyone, take care, and see you next week.