Self-torture as therapy

I have lived my life with 1 main rule, to suffer as less as possible. Life is suffering, so it can’t exactly be eliminated, but there are things you can do to somewhat blunt the impact. This is why I’ve had the same job for nearly a decade, this is why I don’t want children, it’s an attempt to simplify life and make it a bit predictable.

But of course the human brain always finds a way.

When I got my first job in 2010, what little money I got was spent on doing extremely stupid things, pan-India motorcycle trips full of near-death experiences and discomfort. As I got better jobs and made more money, life got more comfortable. That’s when the fear of suffering really began.

As you get more “successful” in life, the fear of falling down creeps in. This is the worst kind of fear, because it is not about anything concrete, it’s about the anticipation of suffering. No horror compares to the one manufactured by your own imagination.

One day long ago I decided to ride from Mumbai to Bangalore on a whim. I didn’t bother to check the weather, and soon got caught in monsoon rains. I rode for 10 hours in what felt like one giant thunderstorm, wet, cold, and nearly blind. The spray from other vehicles was so bad that I couldn’t see anything, so I just followed the red taillights all the way. It was risky, it was unnecessary, and I wanted to feel that stupid again.

Of course the idiocy of youth isn’t so easy to recapture, but I tried by riding my 1982 Bertin C220 bicycle for 100 kms. I wanted to be surprised, and boy did my wish come true.

The main skill to be stupid is, unsurprisingly, to not think things through. When you’ve spent years training yourself to be prepared for any contingency, that’s quite a hard thing to achieve. The trick is to surprise yourself by doing something so unhinged that you couldn’t possibly have seen it coming.

I had fixed up the few mechanical problems that my Bertin had, new tires, re-greased rear hub, general cleanup and adjustment. I had taken it for multiple test rides since then, and each one had been a joy. I slowly increased the distance from 10 to 20 to 40 kms, and I could easily ride it for an hour or so without stopping.

One fine Monday I logged into Slack and realized that everyone was offline, a quick online search told me it was a bank holiday that I’d completely missed. The weather was glorious, cloudy but with the Sun peeking in from time to time, temperatures around 25. The idea came while showering, and it was decided, I’d attempt a century ride on my vintage machine.

Had a nice lunch, packed up some power bars and water, and off we go. My favorite cycling path follows the edge of the river Elbe, it’s a flood protection embankment with a cycling path built on top which seemingly goes on forever. Soon I was on it, and feeling great.

The main discomfort during my previous century ride had been the wind, but this time I got extremely lucky. I realized how lucky I’d got when I passed near a wind farm and noticed all the turbines were stopped. Such a day must happen only once a year, and here I was making the best of it.

I was taking it easy, this was going to be a good 5 hour ride, no use pushing too hard at any point. The surprising trick they don’t want you to know about cycling long distances is this: pedal with one foot and then the next. No one pedal stroke matters, what matters is that you keep pedaling.

Now, here was my genius move that transcended this simple ride into a nightmare of full-body torture. I knew that I could ride 40 kms without trouble, so I rode 50 kms into the middle of nowhere. By the time my brain realized that I was in trouble, I had no option left but to ride back the 50 kms to civilization, completing the century ride with me alive or dead.

50 kms into this route there comes a beautiful side-path that takes you to the edge of the river. There’s a lovely tree there, and some grass to sit on. I sat down, had some water and a protein bar, and contemplated what I had done to myself.

The seat on my Bertin looks beautiful, it has a timeless design, made by people who took pride in their work. It is however a certifiable torture device made to inflict as much pain on your behind as is humanly possible. I hadn’t realized of course how bad it was on my short 40 km trips, but now that knowledge was dawning. It is high in the center, where modern seats have a cutout to relieve pressure. It is low on the sides, where you’re actually supposed to get some support from. It is curvy in all the wrong places, it is slippery, and not wide enough.

The handlebars are another piece of art, they have this lovely vintage look to them, a low-slung racey feel. Too bad they only have one usable position, at the very top, and everything else is torture. The drops are too low, there are no brake hoods, and what you end up with is the perfect wrist destruction machine.

And then there are the pedals, they of course look fantastic, the chrome matches the cranks and the overall aesthetics of the bike. But they suck so bad at being pedaled, I think they are designed to be used with those old timey cage things, without them they’re just weird. My feet kept slipping off, they are not wide enough, and there’s a weird metal bit that kept digging into my toe.

The human body connects to a cycle at 3 points, this machine has turned each one of those connections into portals to hell. But of course, I couldn’t do anything about it. Just suffer.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in my life, every inch of my body was in pain by the 75 Km mark. What made it worse was that both sides of the sloping embankment are covered in lush green grass, and it kept beckoning to me to come and lay down. It was surreal, hypnotic, I could hear the greenery calling to me. I couldn’t ignore it anymore and stopped by the side. Threw the cycle on the grass, laid down myself and napped for some 15 minutes.

The advantage of putting yourself into such a desperate situation is that you’ve cut off all your alternatives, so there’s no reason for doubt to creep in. I was cycling back home, it may take me 3 hours, or 10, but that was the only way. The lack of choices was beautiful, the certainty was refreshing. Suffering in real time is no biggie at all, I can take physical pain, it’s the unknown unknowns of the far future that scare me. It’s therapeutic to know that it’s all in your mind.

The next few hours were spent with me cycling for 1 minute, hanging my behind on one side for 15 seconds, slowing down to a crawl, and then cycling for another minute. I made the best of this discomfort by stopping often and taking lots of pictures, even made a video.

I couldn’t stop for too long though, I had become so hungry over the last few hours that I’d finished all my food. There was still some 25 kms to go, and all I had was water. Running out of food is a better place to be than running out of water, but neither are particularly desirable. I have bonked before, it’s that point where you hit a wall and can’t pedal anymore, and I didn’t want that to happen this time.

The good thing about being in unbearable pain all over your body is that it annihilates the future. Your thoughts only go so far as the eye can see. I kept looking for landmarks that told me I was getting closer, and getting to them was the only thought in my mind. Lifting up my head to look for the landmarks was becoming impossible though, so soon that motivation would be gone as well.

I tried cycling without holding the bars to relieve some of the pressure on my hands and shoulders, but that meant more pressure and pain on my backside. I removed my helmet to relieve some of the pressure from my neck, and tried tying it to the bars while cycling, and nearly crashed off the embankment, twice. Found a bench to lay on for a bit, and gather strength for the last march.

Of course I made it back home. Now sitting here a few days later it doesn’t seem that bad, a funny story to tell to friends and family. When I was on the ride I wanted to die, for the torture to be over, but I also loudly laughed at myself throughout that trip, while also loudly swearing at myself for getting in that situation.

I guess torturing yourself forces you to “live in the moment” as they say, the anxiety of the future fades away when punching your ass produces no nervous sensation. Maybe trying to preemptively stop suffering is a futile and meaningless exercise, embracing the suck the only viable strategy.

I think in the end this is the human condition, I want comfort and certainty and calmness in life, and the moment I get them I want the opposite. Maybe I’m just trying to explain away my bad decisions in a smoke of pseudo-philosophical ranting, but one thing is for certain, the sleep I had that night was the best sleep I had in years.