There are many options to get from point A to B in our lives and various factors that impact our mode of transportation choice. While the bicycle offers a healthier, more eco-friendly method, the downsides of traveling via two wheels seem to outweigh the benefits, as most commuters choose alternative ways. The convenience of a car, the consistency of a skytrain, the viability of the bus make these ideal options. Each one of them, has a dry, warm interior and each one of them will speedily get you to your destination, with very little effort. These modes promise immediate results, which is perfect in a society with fast internet, faster food, one day delivery, carpool lanes. Yet this immediacy seems at odds with our innate, built in need to plan for the future, consider how what we do now effects our future selves. We don’t think about the long term effects of which mode of transportation we choose to use. Cars are time effective, getting you to the literal doorstep of your destination. Though there is a ridiculousness in their ease. A 5 minute walk, a chance to commune with fresh air, stretch atrophied, office limbs, is transformed into a minute car ride. We hit people with them, we drink and crash into inanimate objects with them, we relinquish the positive, upbeat moral citizens we are outside their realms, to become demons of speed, road rage and car envy. We rely on heavy machines, we trust them, put our faith in them to work, to go, to make it. We don’t appreciate the journey, the kilometers, the unstopped, flagrant flowers. Bullets. We want to see how fast we can make it there. We want industry, industry. Oil oil! No more truffula trees. And yet, we point towards China. We point towards governments. We are just homogeneous cogs. Patches in a social fabric. We cannot make a change. It isn’t about global change. It’s about self change. It’s about self empowerment. It’s about adrenaline over coffee.
In there a message in this? Is this simply a rant that comes out of an institution-sickened mind, where even if you don’t wish to conform, you are conforming to something? Well, I think we should inspire to conform to something a bit more agreeable, as incrementally small as it is. This isn’t a preacher’s door sermon. This is a challenge. A challenge to appreciate the way there. A challenge of organization, of mapping your time, of personal strength, of will power. This is a challenge to embrace time, not spar with it. A challenge to guzzle less and breath more. If your uncomfortable with the road, with the four wheeled charging minotaurs of the road, ride with me. Call me up, text me, email me, carrier pigeon me, message in a bottle me, I will receive it and you will receive me, at your door, two wheel pride gleaming. Let’s do it, let’s explore! Start with once a week. See how it fits. Maybe it won’t fit. Maybe you’ll hate me for it. Well, I will accept your hate, as long as you attempt to garner it from me. All over the place, I wrote this all over the place. In class, in bed, in my head, in a random notebook. Here it is. Now. Unedited. Spin out of control. Imagine two wheels, two wheels, the sound of nature instead of automobile infused nurture.