{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"No Longer Having to Try","description":"Cam Marston bought an electric bike last weekend, and this morning he rode it to his writing spot without pedaling once. He calls it the best commute of his life \u2014 and that's exactly what's got him worried. Here's Cam. -----          I got an electric bike last weekend. I had ridden my brother in laws a year ago when we were vacationing on the Carolina beaches and thought it was the funnest thing in the world. I left that weekend thinking I wanted one but one of my children\u2019s cars needed attention and my hopes for an electric bike disappeared into fixing a transmission. A year later, the memory of cruising around Ocean Isle, North Carolina was still vivid and I allowed myself to take a look, thinking that I\u2019ll ask about them and see if I\u2019m still excited for one. Clint Jameson at Adventure Earth in Mobile knew he had a sale as soon as I walked into his bike shop and I asked my first question. I\u2019ve had it less than a week and let me be very clear: Electric bikes might just be the coolest things on planet earth. My wife and I rode our bikes around our part of town last night \u2013 she got one, too - and this morning before daylight I put my computer bag in my rear basket and headed off to my secret writing spot with my fancy LED light showing me the way.          The purists say electric bikes are, and I\u2019m using air quotes here, \u201ccheating.\u201d Well, if that\u2019s the case, I\u2019m cheating my butt off and loving every minute of it. I suspect abacus fans accused early users of calculators of \u201ccheating.\u201d Horse people maybe accused early users of cars as \u201ccheaters.\u201d Whatever. These bikes are cool and fun and my kids say I bought a granny version of an ebike, but I love it.          I\u2019m worried, though, that maybe I\u2019m getting a little too close to no longer\u2026trying. So many of the things I\u2019ve had to work for in the past have become easy. I\u2019m no longer having to peddle my bike. My ebike is purely recreational but a small part of me feels like I should peddle a little, right? Some sacrifice and suffering should be necessary to have so much fun. Have I lost my mind to think this?          Also, I\u2019m no longer researching things that interest me. I\u2019m just searching it up on my phone. The answers are there and, honestly, I don\u2019t care if they\u2019re 100 percent correct. Eighty percent correct or, heck, sixty percent is good enough.          I\u2019m solving complex business problems using the AI Claude. I redesigned my whole website in a weekend. What would have been a twenty-thousand-dollar, six-week project via an ad agency cost me nothing and I did it myself. And it was easy. My wife worries that I\u2019ve become more attracted to Claude than to her, which I\u2019ll discuss here next week as I worry that, in fact, she might be right.          So how important is it to try when you don\u2019t have to? I don\u2019t know. I feel like trying is too important to who we are as a species. But my mind changes each time I sit on my super cool ebike, put my thumb on the throttle and take off. I\u2019m Cam Marston and I\u2019m just trying to keep it real. ","author_name":"Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston","author_url":"https:\/\/cammarston.com\/keepin-it-real-with-cam-marston\/","html":"