After couple of years of pandemic, 2022 was probably the year of transitioning back to normalcy. But, that brings its own changes, and I had to move back to California from PNW. We read a lot about California exodus, that people keep leaving the State, so it felt a bit like I was defying gravity. More than that, the sheer exercise of packing up everything and moving over a weekend was akin to defying the odds and gravity.
My possessions are minimal, and including the motorcycle everything fits well within half of a 15ft truck. But, no vendor except U-Haul would allow me to tow a 4DR lifted jeep using a 15ft truck. Looks like I might be in the minority, and there’s only a small market of 4DR Jeep owners with minimal material possessions to haul!
Even for someone in such a minority situation, market provided an option. Not because U-Haul is charitable to Jeep owners, but because they simply wanted to maximize utility of their equipment. They want to be inclusive because there is a market incentive; it’s like that same American institutional reconciling gene. Private firms also attempt to solve problems by reconciling diverse requirements, while also remaining sustainable.
U-Hauling 1000 miles while towing the Jeep was uneventful. But Northern California provided a rather chilling welcome, and please note this was mid-April weather! But, thankfully that was the last of the snow I saw for rest of the year. Summer and early fall was about motorcycling the Sierras, a totally different experience relative to Pacific Northwest! Colors and the layering of those expansive vistas were just different. Can bring tears into even the most hardened eyes.
Most of the decisions we take in life are based on instinct, we might rationalize them, but life is too complex for purely data driven choices. For example — even though there were other reasons it was pure instinct which eventually prompted me to move back to the Golden State. In general its instinct which motivates us to explore, that exploration could be in the sphere of ideas or back-country landscapes or anything else we might wish. Its instinct which made me study Friedrich von Hayek and his friends, or made me explore heavy metal.
It’s also instinct which made me ride up this narrow single lane, and cliff adjacent winding path going up High Sierra Mountains. But that pure instinct gifted me the experience of motorcycling at 9000 ft. Similarly, studying the works of Prof. Hayek gifted me an understanding of the world. We can apply this instinctive mode to a lot of critical decisions we make in our life. So, even though we have become more civilized, in a way we are still a lot like our cavemen ancestors, because it’s still our visceral choices which rule our life trajectories.
Spirit of Cecilia 
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