What's the main difference between a stationary bicycle and a bicycle?
...this is not a trick question...
Riding a stationary bicycle isn't useless (though it can be if you use exercise time to justify doing all the activities that undo it later in the week...). But riding an actual bicycle has the added perk getting you places, among other benefits. One may work up a sweat on either a stationary bicycle or an actual bicycle. But, only one of these bicycles can carry you many, many miles.
Here I name a phenomenon I'll call the Stationary Bicycle Snare. It is the condition of getting something from an activity (e.g. exercise), but not nearly what could be gotten done for the cost of the effort put into that activity. It is also the condition of being either incredibly bored, incredibly distracted, or incredibly conditioned to being incredibly bored doing said activity.
Just as riding a stationary bicycle isn't totally useless for most people, and indeed can be a very powerful training method if applied prudently, the Stationary Bicycle Snare can can be thought of as a special case of good is the enemy of great. Doing stationary bicycle like tasks may indeed have their payoffs, and may even be parts of training methods advocated by very capable people. However, only riding stationary bicycles is very likely to only take you so far.
Sooner or later, you'll want to hit the road.
What is this metaphorical stationary bicycle?
Being on a stationary bicycle is getting something done. You move your feet, get your heart rate up, and burn some calories. But beyond those things, what is being accomplished? You are moving for the sake of moving.
Such is the metaphorical stationary bicycle: moving for the sake of moving.
We may replace the word "moving" with many others.
Studying for the sake of studying.
Practicing piano for the sake of practicing piano.
Having a significant other for the sake of having a significant other.
...and so on.
The Stationary Bicycle Snare is saying that some activity is intrinsically valuable for what it is, and continuing to do that activity believing that ultimately, staying on the stationary bicycle is a good use of time. It is getting something done. It isn't even that bad.
There are opportunity costs to riding stationary bicycles
Compared with alternatives like downright destroying yourself, the stationary bicycle looks like a positive alternative. Rather than not exercising at all, why not chill out and ride a stationary bicycle with some catchy music or addicting TV show? Why not get some exercise while enjoying some nice things?
This is the trap.
Exclusively riding the stationary bicycle and avoiding the "outside world" is costly. This cost, I argue, may outweigh the benefits of riding the stationary bicycle. The solution? (Spoiler alert) The sooner we decide to quit the stationary bicycle and hit the road, the better.
Use it or lose it
As the old maxim for foreign language study goes—use it or lose it. What is it?
Presumably, it is the foreign language you are studying, aka the "target language". If you don't actually use the language you aim to learn, not only will you lose what you have thus far learned, you will not develop further. Therefore, if you intend to learn a foreign language, you must use it. Hence the maxim, use it or lose it.
But there is more to lose than just language ability. Failure to make things useful to us costs motivation, passion, and all those other feelings of being alive.
This is one of the hidden costs of riding the stationary bicycle. For a long time (years), I studied a number of foreign languages without applying them much anywhere. It was erudition. I learned foreign languages for the sake of foreign languages. What was the pay off?
Ultimately, those languages became less interesting to me. I saw how other activities, such doing statistical analyses or building up relationships with people were more interesting than studying languages in a void. After all, what use is a language if you have no one to use it to communicate in it with?
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| Solipsism |
Paying interest
We may lie to ourselves and say the activities we do are really, really intrinsically interesting. But I think that our many interests intersect, and an activity that is ultimately not very useful cannot be very, very interesting. While learning a bunch of foreign languages may be interesting in its own right, doing so becomes much, much more interesting when we look at the potential payoffs for such a practice. Learning many languages can let you communicate with many more different sorts of people.
Similarly, learning about the history of Sub-Saharan Africa may be fine and well as an intellectual exercise. But, unless talking about Sub-Saharan Africa does something to spice up conversations with people (whether in "real life" or on the Internet), make a living, or otherwise give some more material benefit above knowledge in the clouds, all but the purist intellectuals will sooner or later be frustrated or bored at how little payoff their work invested in Sub-Saharan Africa are paying off.
A professor once gave me a wise piece of advice. She said something to the affect of, "no matter what you decide to take the time to read or research, have a plan to channel what you spend effort on into publication". With the (relatively narrow) goal of succeeding in academia, this makes sense. Time is limited and you are competing against specialists. Many of these people are more charismatic, harder working, and more well-established than you. So, if you are going to bother spending your attention on something, you might as well get paid for it (whether in $$$, publications, or what-have-you).
Skin in the game
Wherever we invest our interests, we have "skin in the game". Time and attention spent on something represent a very real cost. If we put our resources into something, we should expect some sort of payment in return. If we aren't receiving reasonable compensation for our efforts, we ought to ask "why am I even putting effort into this?".
It is prudent to ask, "why am I riding the stationary bicycle?".
There are costs for kinda doing the right thing, but not the optimal thing. Of course, we can't always know what "the optimal thing" is, but I think that we can develop a sense of what are better choices among alternatives.
So, why do we sometimes put up with stationary bicycles?
Courage is the secret sauce
The Stationary Bicycle Snare can also manifest itself as a product of perfect is the enemy of progress, wherein one becomes unable to do much of anything in the present moment because of the fear/uncertainty/doubt (FUD) of failure to achieve perfection later. Being a "perfectionist", as construed in the previous sentence, is not virtuous, but the manifestation of a dangerous concoction of cowardice and price.
Often we ride stationary bicycles because we are afraid.
Rather than taking on more interesting (and often more risky) projects, we settle with a good-enough-better-than-doing-nothing alternative. This is the Stationary Bicycle Snare.
The remedy, unsurprisingly, is courage.
Faced with FUD, we seek a risk-free path. "Learning is intrinsically valuable," we tell ourselves as we fill our head with ideas without testing them in the real world. "I make it a point to exercise," we tell ourselves as we hit the stationary bicycle on a kinda regular schedule punctuated by excessive eating & drinking, inadequate sleep, constant distractions, and other contributing factors to ill health.
Wheels on the ground
It is hard enough to "exercise" sometimes—just a little bit—by getting our butts onto stationary bikes and listening to some music/podcast/audiobook, catching up on some show, etc. Anything but exercising. Who are those crazy people that go run marathons? Or go on weird diets and lift weights as regularly as surely as Chik-fil-a closes on Sundays?
Suffer.
Huff puff huff puff.
Suffer.
How many minutes have gone by?
This, unfortunately, a very common mindset. Having personally found myself in the Stationary Bike Snare, I empathize with try-hard suffering. So, what does it take to break the cycle?
In short, a very broad answer is to introduce reality into the picture in some for or another. Now, don't you start getting existential with me—we all know what is meant by "reality" here. This is what many parents may call "applying yourself".
There is some solace in learning for the sake of learning. There is some peace in learning about other cultures but not becoming part of one yourself. There is some comfort in having a handful of "I have been working hard" points to shoot off when the reality that you haven't accomplished much surfaces.
Is this enough?
I think not. The FUD perfectionist path of avoiding making mistakes and failing is ultimately unfulfilling. We gotta do stuff. And there will be many setbacks. Practice informs and motivates theory. To become better at theory, we have to practice. To understand what is perfect, we must be willing to fail and criticize our failures. Observing the activities of humans from the clouds is not a recommended strategy for a fulfilling life.
