Bike

We're supposed to turn Tory when we grow up, right? Well, for me, life's journey has (so far) been steadily in the opposite direction. If the thirty-something-year-old me met the sixteen-year-old me and we got into a discussion of politics, one of us would probably punch the other one in the nose before the evening was out. I suspect the older me would end up with the nosebleed.

In some ways, though, I've gone with the flow, much to my guilt. In my early twenties I was a bit of an anti-car activist, commuting by bicycle through London. (Aside: I was once even featured in a biking magazine - pulled off the road to be interviewed and have my photo taken - fame! Lost my copy though...) When I moved to Belgium I expected a quasi-Dutch cycling paradise. On the contrary, the homeland of Eddy Merckx was (is) obsessed with bike racing, but bicycle commuters are treated as insane and dispensable by the country's city 'planners' and homicidal car drivers. At first, I agitated, co-founding the EU Cyclists Group with some like-minded colleagues who also suffered anger management issues when faced with the Brussels traffic. Eventually, though, I gave in to conformity and bought my first car (even if I've only ever used it to get out of town, never to commute). We moved to the suburbs and a direct fifteen-minute metro line proved a lot more attractive than a forty-minute bike ride up and down hills with no shower at the other end.

My cycling career has revived a bit here in Ottawa with a relaxed ten-minute ride into the office for seven months a year, eight at a push. But I haven't given up the car, and I probably never will. It's a standing reminder of the contradictions that we face in our daily lives if we pay lip-service to 'progressive' politics. How can we be genuinely committed, on the one hand, to rejecting the pervasive consumerism that's busy sending us towards a mass-extinction event while, on the other hand, we drive petrol cars, buy plastic products, fly off on our holidays, and do all those other little things on a daily basis which contribute to the ongoing rape of the planet?

I struggle with this question, which is why I don't like to think about it more than I have to. Someone with a head for maths could probably tell me how I'm a rational individual belonging to a collective with a chaotic dynamic which explains why we, as a society, continue to do things which we, as individuals, know are unsustainable. Personally I blame participative democracy and our belief in the power of the free market (I'd elaborate but I've gone on too long already). There's no such thing as sustainable growth. Our whole system needs to change, and this will not happen by committee (believe me, I know). Some individuals do choose to opt out and to make a stand, and I applaud them for it, but I don't think such symbolic gestures have any chance of developing critical mass. (That's what I tell myself when the guilt creeps up on me. Can you tell I've just spent an hour throwing away perfectly good food that had gone rotten sitting in the fridge?)

If anyone reading this knows how to fix the world, leave a comment and I'll make sure that someone gets told. In the meantime, sorry that this post ended up the bleak way it did. I'll try and make amends next time.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-70mm @ 70mm, f/4.5, 1/160s, ISO 400, black & white conversion in Photoshop. 28 November 2004, Ottawa.