08 On Transportation

And then the ice-cream man said, speak to us of transportation.
And he answered and said:

Verily the world is in motion, even as the glaciers do not rest. Everything is in constant flux, transforming itself and all else in time and space.

Nature has such unnerving patience. Patiently the fig leaf is harnessing the sun’s life-giving rays, restoring a tiny bit of order to your tangled gardens.

Humans, though we too be born of nature, are less patient than our mother. We buzz about in our jolting jalopies, and floating fortresses such as the perforated bucket bobbing behind me, leaking fuel oil into your waters even as I speak.

Alas I am no efficiency expert, but I do know this. Internal combustion engines are big on explosions. These are fabulously loud, but irreversible. To wit: The faster you seek to transform your world, the less efficient you will be. Patience, people, patience. Patience, I’m afraid, is the key.

Your cars are to you the very symbol of your freedom when actually, they are the fetters that make you immobile. You would do better to see the car as the symbol of your mania. The bee does not leave its hive to collect pollen from just one plant, yet you think it nothing to fire up your engines for a million single-errand, one-stop trips.

And when you speed past a hitchhiker, do you feel a moral obligation to stop? Perhaps you should.