It’s a mistake to think that all significant events are unusual or out of the commonplace, or surrounded by some sensational circumstances. Take a man or a woman rounding a corner on a bicycle. That looks, maybe, like a pretty routine occurrence. But perhaps it isn’t.

The turning of a corner is a wonderful thing to experience and even to watch. Going around on two wheels is not proper for the motorist, who in any case does not even notice where he is going so long as he gets there, but for the cyclist it is both necessary and very, very nice.

Perhaps it is not pushing summer symbolism too far to suggest that the bicyclist in wheeling around a corner, his feet resting on the pedals, his arms guiding the handlebars with confidence and authority, is the most enviable of figures. He is in partnership with destiny, even if the moment be brief. His effort is in the past, his next challenge is ahead. He leaves an eddy of air and a soft purr behind him, and he is without a vexation in the world as any lord of motion ought to be.

Space slips by with decent rapidity, but not too fast, and the ruler of motion is the same for the time being as the ruler of the world. A world, anyway.

And this figure on the bicycle is going from the old into the new. Destiny is with him, yes, and free will too. He changes his course completely with a slight pressure of the hand, a slight masterful shifting of his weight.

The boys or girls can take a corner without even putting their hands on the grips of the handlebars, but that does not mean anything. Your mature bicyclist, although generally past that particular gesture, has a riper thrill that gains from a feeling of security and easy guidance.

Is there a conclusion to this thought, or a generalization? There always is, unfortunately, but in this case it is homely and simple. What the world needs is more serene turning of corners, in individual lives, the lives of groups, in the progress of nations.

— from Singing in the Morning, a collection of essays by the late Henry Beetle Hough, published in 1951.