Patterns & Metaphors
Bicycles and cycling
Template:
A bicycle is composed of two equal-sized wheels rotating at the same speed, on parallel axes within the same frame. One wheel is steerable by hand and rotates as a result of contact with the ground over which the frame is moving. The other receives the force provided by the leg movement of the person seated on the frame between them. Cycling, as the most efficient means of converting human energy into propulsion, is only successful over varied terrain when a dynamic equilibrium can be maintained by continual adjustments to direction, body position and speed of forward motion. The momentum of the wheels causes the frame to resist disequilibriating forces.
Metaphor:
Whilst it may be possible for especially talented individuals and groups to maintain their social development on the basis of a single behavioural cycle (whether of economic production, emotional phases, etc), most people are more able to harness their social energy effectively within a framework of two complementary cycles. For such a social innovation to be successful, the cycles chosen must be appropriately defined and positioned within a framework to support the individual or group. It must be clear which provides the motive power (e.g. a work cycle) and which can be used to provide the direction (e.g. an emotional cycle). The art of cycling requires a learning period with its associated falls.
[Features] The degree of integration between the function of wheels, frame and cyclist.
[Contrast] There is emerging awareness of the complementarity of certain social processes which may be conceived as cyclic (e.g. cycles of work and leisure activities, cycles of innovative and adaptive learning). In Eastern cultures there is explicit recognition of active and passive cyclic forces. In the West much attention has been given to the complementarity of the cycles of right and left-hemisphere brain activity as well as to those of other favoured dichotomies. It is not yet clear how a bicycle might be put together, but the parts are certainly available.
[Keys] Frame design. Advantage of smooth pathways or roads. Loss of maneuverability in tricycle riding compensated by elimination of need for any skill in balancing. Hindu and Buddhist concept of wheel-like chakras.<
