Riding A Bicycle

We have the phrase in English, "it's just like riding a bicycle." It means that some things are either so easy or so natural that you will never truly forget them once you learn how to do them. I will admit that I once forgot how to get on a bicycle, but once I figured that out, I had no trouble actually riding it.

It should come as no surprise that I will say that writing is just like riding a bicycle, but the question is why that is so. The thing with bicycle riding is that it is only so complicated. Basically, it's pedaling your feet and maintaining balance (not too difficult). So how is it possible that something as difficult and frustrating as writing?

The key to the phrase is not the fact that it's simple to ride a bike; it's why we never forget. This of one of the easiest physical acts in the world: walking. When we are born, we don't know how to do it. We have to learn how to walk, which is time-consuming and quite demanding. Once we learn how to walk, we do it all the time and never stop. If there ever came a time where we didn't walk for weeks at a time, it may be difficult to do, but we would never forget how to do it, so that mechanic will always be in our bodies.

Riding a bicycle works in the same fashion. It is very difficult to learn how to do at first, but once you learn how, you ride it all around, all day. After that, years could go by and you would still be able to ride around all day.

Writing is like riding because it is extremely difficult and time-consuming to learn how to do, but if we practice certain things a whole lot, we will never forget them. Certain broad concepts like coming up with interesting ideas is out of the question, but techniques like proofreading are totally possible. From my experience in journalism, it was heavily stressed to never use the same word twice in a paragraph (or at least not in consecutive sentences). I may slip from time to time (or just break the rule all together), but whenever I write, I always feel uncomfortable when I repeat a word too many times.

If you have not written anything for some time, or if there is some particular aspect of writing that you have not used in a great deal of time, realize that you will not be starting from square one. You may need a refresher, but you'll be back to full speed in no time. After all, writing is just like riding a bicycle.