Nothing to Say

Well, I wanted to start a blog.  But to do that, you probably need something to say.  I've got nothing.  Oh well.  I'll come back to this when I've got something. 

Cars

A lot of people find it weird that I am both a car enthusiast and very much anti-car.  How so?

Cars are wonderful machines.  They're frankly amazing when you actually start to look at them.  The internal combustion engine is probably one of the greatest, and certainly most important, inventions in human history.  It's an ingenious way to extract energy...not perfect by any means, incredibly wasteful, but still excellent.  Aerodynamics in cars is very different from aerodynamics in planes, and is equally fascinating.  It's why Formula 1 is so cool - the racing itself can be boring sometimes, the comical veneer of opulence is sometimes off-putting, but the mechanical and engineering details matter even more than any of that.  Cars are wonderful, beautiful, functional machines.

Cars are also the biggest mistake a society ever made.  Forcing people into cars in order to get around has destroyed cities in a comical and totally predictable way, a problem which people are only now starting to rectify.  By designing society around the car, people have ruined their health, their environment, and so much more.  Books and books and books have been written about this.  When we look back at car culture a century from now, from our overly warm planet, we'll wonder just what the hell we were thinking.

It's not hypocritical to think that.  Cars are wonderful, the way we've used them is not.  I'd like to see cars go the way of the sailboat, or of horseback riding - something people do for fun and for sport, not something essential to the basic functions of daily life.  Driving an awesome car fast around a racetrack is way more fun than sitting in traffic on the way to the grocery store anyway.

Becoming

     At some point, depression becomes a part of you.  It's not a disorder, it's not an abnormal state of being.  It's who you are.  It is all-encompassing.  It's affected every decision you've ever made.  It is an integral part of your character.  To be sad, to live without self-regard, to hate yourself.  

     The process takes years.  You wouldn't even notice it.  You think it's normal - after all, you've got no frame of reference to say otherwise.  Really, you're growing up - you've never done that before.  It's not something you can compare objectively.  Plus, everyone feels weird growing up, that's just part of the process.  How would you know that you're different?  How would you know that it's supposed to pass eventually?  You wouldn't.  You roll with it.  You deal with it.  You let it take over.  

     When it's too late, you'll start to see signs.  You'll notice, once everyone else starts to settle, that you haven't changed.  The weirdness passes, except for in your case.  Something's wrong.  But it's already too late.  You are who you are.  

     You've been condemned.  It's a life-sentence.  So you deal with it as you always have.  You suck it up, beat up on yourself, and force yourself to continue.  It's miserable and, unlike before, you know there's no end to it.  It will continue forever.  But there's no alternative.  You have no choice.

Nobody Will Sit Next to me on the Bus...

I don't really want to blog. 

I want to write!

But blogging can be writing.  It's like a diary that's online, where you just jot down your thoughts and broadcast them into a vast ether so everyone can see it.  The very opposite of privacy. 

I want to write, but I have nothing to write about.

Of course I do.  There are always things to write about. 

Thoughts bounce around my head.  They are so clear, so lucid.  But I try to catch one and can't.  Especially when I've managed to get somewhere where it can be recorded or described. 

It's hard.  It's something I just need to work around. 

Promising thoughts die in the translation to text.  The proper word, easily described in the mind, has no verbal equivalent.  Being tripped up in this way, the thought dissipates like a stale fart. 

Thoughts can be translated.  I just happen to profoundly suck at it. 

So are my thoughts worth recording in the first place? 

Maybe not. 

But how do I know unless I try? 

Can't these thoughts be improved once they're out in the open?  Under the harsh critical eye of...an actual eye? 

Build an idea in layers, like coats of paint.  Each coat covers an increasing area of a wall, and it looks better and better as the color fills in.  Until you've got a pleasant room.

Or one that's putrid.  But at least it's a finished putrid. 

Hmm...

I wonder if maintaining a blog, and updating it regularly, without any following is the internet equivalent of that guy muttering to himself on the bus? 

Maybe it's time to grow a scraggly beard and stop showering?

The High Line

I went into New York City on Friday, which is always wonderful.  Although I've enjoyed living all around the country, although I have raved and always will rave about Seattle, New York stands above.  For reasons entirely unoriginal and covered in quite literally every work of fiction and non-fiction in every different medium known to man, so I won't recap.

I had heard about the High Line park many times and always wanted to see it, and finally got to walk it.  Really, it's wonderful.  The park itself is beautiful, even when everything's dead and bare.  The views are mind-boggling, and there's a lot of development and redevelopment going on in the immediate vicinity so it will only get better...although the more Detroit areas along the walk give it some character as well, so hopefully that won't entirely go away.  This is a great thing that other cities should be falling all over themselves to emulate.

Speaking of Seattle, the sensation of walking along the elevated park reminded me of something.  Driving north along the Alaskan Way Viaduct, elevated above ground level, it felt sort of like you were soaring through the city.  It was wonderful as well, although tempered by the high probability that rather than soaring you were sitting in traffic.  Plus the constant realization that the viaduct was permanently damaged by an earthquake and could probably collapse at any minute (not really, but still...the mind wanders).  Why couldn't they High Line the Viaduct?  Sure, it shouldn't be supporting cars anymore, but it wouldn't have to.  Landscape it and add access to the Market.  Or something.  It would be interesting.

Anyway, the next time you're in New York, take some time and visit the High Line.  It's a quick walk, and it's well worth the trip.

If You've Never Heard of Brainpickings.org...

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/12/03/anais-nin-love-debbie-millman-1/

"Anxiety is love's greatest killer.  It creates the failures.  It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you.  You want to save him, but you know he will drown you with his panic." - Anais Nin

If you've never heard of Brain Pickings, the blog created by Maria Popova, you're missing out.  It's quite wonderful, in its self-described interestingness.