Reading Downeaster above, especially "giggle and laugh", reminded me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in two ways>
One, practical: "Japanese motorcycle require great peace of mind" (Harleys are worse imho!)
The other is more philosophical, and good to think about. This was about sanity. iirc Persig says that "the way to get out of the mental lock up joint is to decide to
pretend to be sane" - and also iirc, there's the idea that everybody is crazy, but most get used to pretending sanity,
acting sane...(a few are genuine nutjobs and dangerous!) it's important act sane, to getting on, to school, to work, to live in the world of people in some degree of concert...well, of course, discipline erodes with age, and working, puttering, riding, alone we don't really need to act sane, do we? Wait! Did you feel that...
I remember Truman as president, so I remember the ways of the US in the 1950+ period, and people used to visit and talk and meet in groups, smoking and drinking and often singing songs together...very sanity-forming. They also just about all had jobs and many worked half day Saturdays...no time to get nutty. Now, perhaps, we are not so structurally, socially, formed to pretend sanity. Additionally, the agreed myths of a people seem "somewhat" blasted away, eh? What was it the old junkie sodomite Bill Burroughs said? "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" (I just looked it up)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/book...-s-burroughs/86B4D2C2713DA95CB3D9DA1031C9C67F Observant fella, of course he was speaking of an entire country, not a fella working alone on an old bike...that has it's own sanity-forcing magic, and this is inescapable. I myself often laugh for no apparent reason, the world at large seems absurd to me. Barking nuts in fact. Contrawise, the old bikes are placid and sane. Best! 40N