Hiromi_X
Walkin' the walk
So.....I'm carless. I got rid of it because I'm sick of life-sprawl and the literal sprawl of our cities that sucks the life out of living.
At first, the financial downsizing I experienced after my marriage fell apart was hard to bear because I had to support so much extra weight. I had to call in artificial life support from my parents. By getting rid of my new car, I can function more on my own.
More importantly, I chose to drop out. I hate what car-centric policies have done to our cities. The metastasization of roadways, which feeds into and off of relentless capitalism, has not only destroyed the aesthetics of public spaces, but has also created empty homogeneity. Imagining ourselves as little more than economic animals, we accept the soulless logic of office parks and suburbs connected by concrete slabs. Places have been stripped of history and meaning. That is our world and we don't care.***
Well, like a hippie throwback, I'm opting out of this system. I'm on my bike or on foot or on a bus. But boy does it really suck at times, especially in the shitty weather we have here, where the sun doesn't feel like a distant star but like an angry schoolmarm smacking all exposed skin areas with a wooden paddle. And I find my range is necessarily limited to those friendly to me and my bike or the bus. It's hard to live by your personal philosophies, trust me. But I just could not reconcile my strongly held beliefs with my own lifestyle.
What I like best is being part of the environment, natural and manmade. When you're walking, you're down there in the bottom of the ecosystem. Likewise if you're on a bicycle. You can look out, across, and up. When you're in public transport, you rub elbows with people you'd never normally encounter, and from whom you insulate yourself. On my motorcycle, I'm not only part of the environment, I'm actively participating in my journey from A to B. I have to operate this machine that's an extension of myself. I have to be hyperaware or I get squashed by a cager. I'm doing shit; I'm not passive.
I'm well aware that my actions alone won't transform Austin or any other place. But I refuse to participate anymore. Slowly, I'm going to walk the walk, and not simply be angry. It's uncomfortable and inconvenient as fuck, but it feels good to have principles and live by them, here in my hippie commune of one.
***While polemical, The Geography of Nowhere explains a lot of what pisses me off.
Comments
Few things lead to long-term happiness better then making lifestyle choices consistent with your principles. :)
Congrats on the carlessness!
1. Posted by Tina Marie on October 2, 2007
I envy you this.
How incredibly FREEING for you. And you deserve it, Hiromi. Bravo. BraVO!
2. Posted by Darkneuro on October 2, 2007
oooooo, I love Kunstler's stuff, particularly that opening definition of sprawl: "Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built in the last 50 years," writes the novelist and reporter James Howard Kunstler in his stimulating new book, "and most of it is depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy and spiritually degrading: the jive-plastic commuter tract home wastelands, the Potemkin village shopping plazas with their vast parking lagoons, the Lego-block hotel complexes, the 'gourmet mansardic' junk-food joints, the Orwellian office 'parks' featuring buildings sheathed in the same reflective glass as the sunglasses worn by chain-gang guards, the particle-board garden apartments rising up in every meadow and cornfield, the freeway loops around every big and little city with their clusters of discount merchandise marts, the whole destructive, wasteful, toxic, agoraphobia-inducing spectacle that politicians proudly call 'growth.' " William V. Shannon's assessment of post-World War II America is pretty spot-on as well: "The loudest sound in the land was the oink and grunt of private hoggishness. This was the age of the slob." But lest we think sprawl and the business of "getting and spending" are more modern components of the American psyche, just listen to Alexis de Tocqueville from "Democracy in America":
"It is odd to watch with what feverish ardor Americans pursue prosperity. Ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured that they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach as if they expected to stop living before they had relished them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them."
The question now is when will you go green and take yourself "off grid?" (Just kidding.)
3. Posted by Brian on October 3, 2007
Thanks, Darkneuro, Tina.
Brian, as soon as I read that first paragraph in that book, I knew I met a kindred spirit. It's gratifying when someone systematizes and lays out concepts that you hadn't totally sorted out for yourself.
I see the point about Americans being acquisitive from the start, but there's something extra-soulless about it today. I'm not doing that "good old days" false nostalgia crap. Our world really is getting more and more homogeneous and empty and awful.
You know, if I had the resources, I'd get off the grid. Because I don't want to drop out of society itself, I'd need money to be able to obtain alternative technologies or else live in a place where they're readily available, and that's not going to be some cheap podunk place, I imagine.
4. Posted by Hiromi on October 3, 2007
Congrats on being a lot more aware then 98% of all our leaders and politicals. Kunstler is a great writer(and thinker) and I am fortunate to live in upstate,N.Y. because he often gives free talks here....check out his last book "The Long Emergency" and also " Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben is a GREAT read and well worth your time.
5. Posted by tom on October 4, 2007
Good show. After getting demoralized by this North Loop debacle, it's nice to hear that not everybody has backslid into the 1950s.
6. Posted by M1EK on October 4, 2007
Thanks, Tom, I'll check those books out. Also very interesting is his website, http://www.kunstler.com/. He has this great Eyesore of the Month feature on there. This hideous builing on Lavaca St here in Austin was featured in Feb 2007:
http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200702.html
MIEK, I am quite proud of my status as Anti-Car Kook. I love kooks. We make the world a better place.
7. Posted by Hiromi on October 4, 2007