Recovery Post

Don't Forget Your Helmet

I'm in southwest Germany, recovering from a bike accident in the Black Forest. I was playing with the limits of my nephew’s e-bike when I narrowly skirted an obstacle and front-flipped off a forest track. I remember attempting to get up and walk it off before collapsing into a dream, and then waking up to my sister, Patricia, gently tapping my cheek.

My brother-in-law left us at the scene to get help, and Trish sat with me as the sun sank behind a nearby hill. In the fading light, we heard rustling from the forest, and a dark shape moved ominously in the distance. Trish swiftly sprang to her feet and said, "That better not be a wild pig" before dragging two strewn bikes into a protective V-shaped fortress and belting out her most intimidating noises.

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The display was as impressive as it was amusing. My sister is a medical professional who’s seen people through some truly grotesque emergencies so I doubt her heart rate ever exceeded 65 bpm.

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Since the accident, I’ve had lingering brain fog, nausea, and something called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), which means I feel the room spin if I put my head in a particular position. These are all typical symptoms of a concussion and I’m told that it might take a few weeks to recover.

I’m using this simple post as an exercise to ease back into mental work and to explain why I might be slow to publish, though I feel like I’ll be able to tackle some more complicated work soon.

I'm sure there's a way to transform this incident into an allegory for the world’s current technological conundrum - man applies mechanical mountain bike intuitions to digital e-bike speeds and is catapulted into a dark and dreamy forest - but the task escapes my foggy brain. If any literary-minded readers would like to tease it out, I’ll add your attempts in an addendum below.

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"Humanity employs savannah-era cognition when wielding AI, and is cast into the proverbial wilderness." - J. M. Jackowski.

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