I'm going to start with a real attention getter this time. Ready?
I was hilariously trampled by a deer last night.
It was about 2 a.m. and I was camped out in my little one man tent on a mountain pass outside of Prague in the midst of wild Bohemia. Here's how it happened: Picture me sleeping. Suddenly, my eyes wink open. Thundering Hooves! KlicklatklicklatkclickickickickiBOOM!
...Thump. (...klick...klick...klicklatklicklatk....kli.......)
I guess I tripped that thing pretty hard-it managed to take out my entire vestibule, leaving me confused and disoriented as I was left staring dumbly into the woods. I spent some time mentally recovering. I spent some time laughing like a maniac.
I didn't sleep that well after that, and so got an earlier start than I'd wanted this morning as I headed into Prague. Today was my last on The Greenways Route, and after some hard riding yesterday I was ready for an easy day (I'm still waiting...I'll hopefully get one tomorrow). I won't go into specifics, but today felt like being trampled by a deer really set the tone. A broken derailleur cable in the high mountains, plodding through ankle deep mud in the rain, and a hard time getting into the city: Par for the course, and all worth it now that I can stare out at the city lights of Prague, perhaps the most beautiful city in all of Central Europe. It's all a rollercoaster of emotions, but today the track seemed to match my elevation graph (imagine someone let a sugar-high 6 year old play with crayons after seeing too many pictures of seismographs).
(THIS IS AN ASIDE: The person across from me, a drunk British lad, just screamed "I'm a novelist! I'm a Poet! I'm an ARTIST! I'M FROM THE FUTURE! I WANT TO SIT OVER THERE!", and is now explaining a picture on his Facebook, saying "That's me from 800 years ago. I sat on a throne, pretended I was Odin. It was quite good." There is no meaning in my sharing with with you, just as there was no meaning implicit in the original phrases. Now back to the story:)
My last days in Vienna were fantastically relaxing. I enjoyed the immense hospitality of my friends Lukas and Lena, who allowed me to sleep on what was perhaps the most comfortable couch I have ever encountered. What is more, they cooked my meals, DID MY LAUNDRY, and helped me to take my fledgling steps into the world of Lawn Bowling (exceedingly popular in Vienna). Truly there is nothing finer in the world than sipping a Radler (like beer-lemonade but good (fun fact: Radler means Biker)) while watching a movie on one of Vienna's massive outdoor cinemas beside a cathedral on a warm night.
Leaving Vienna was a little bit hard. I don't just mean it was difficult psychologically, either. I mean, it was, but what I mean to say is that it was literally very challenging. I knew the entire route to Prague was layed out ahead of me, but the 7 kilometers to the proverbial "trail head" were completely unlabeled. It took 3 hours to find (average speed: 2.3 km/hr, a little slower than the average garden snail's cruising velocity, but once I did the route turned out to be one of the better labeled than most I've encountered. I'm not going to bore you all with all the details of 4 days of bicycling; instead I'm going to bore you with some ideas I had along the way (I hope this is alright).
Even 20 years after the Iron Curtain was pulled from its rings, it leaves marks that seem permanent on the face of the countries it affects. The Czech Republic is economically weak (i.e. affordable), disheveled, and dotted with bunkers and military relics. They have a culture that accepts hardships face on, like a bison in a snowstorm (fun fact #2: When a bison is in a snowstorm, it faces directly into the wind, presumably just for the heck of it). They eat meat, potatoes, and meat-and-potato-dishes. This, of course, is changing (especially due to the role of tourism in improving their economy), but it is amazing to see the degree to which a specific political doctrine, poorly implemented, destroyed and impoverished a nation that would otherwise likely have developed much more similarly to their prosperous and happy-go-lucky neighbors: Austria.
(DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING IS THE SORT OF RAMBLING POLITICAL THOUGHT THAT PRESENTLY FLOODS THE BLOGOSPHERE. THERE IS NO MORE RELEVANT NARRATIVE HERE. READ IT IF YOU'RE BORED, OTHERWISE, YOUR WORK HERE IS DONE.)
After thinking an awful lot about the effect of Communism in the Soviet Union I began considering the role of doctrine-based-thought in the modern context. My conclusion: No matter what the dogma being professed, I don't like it.
The U.S.S.R. is one excellent example of a country that got obsessed with a term (an idea! an ideal!) and took it way too far. That's all there is to it. They saw one way of thinking and decided it was the golden word of Karl Marx descended from the heavens to supersede all common sense, giving them a basis to destroy their nation under the guise of necessity and "progress." When it comes down to it, however, their whole situation seems a bit silly.
I ride by a tank thinking "I'll bet a lot of people thought 'does this seem appropriately communist?' when all this was happening".
Did people really believe the term mattered at all? Like applying a title made crimes against humanity acceptable? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?
The terms are empty. Most of them mean nothing, and none of them confer any sense of bad or good in them at all (okay, maybe an overstatement: Fascism conveys bad in a way that Communism and Socialism just simply don't hold a candle to).
There can be good communism (like you see working perfectly well in small groups of hippies dotting the U.S.) and bad communism (U.S.S.R.)...good capitalism (mom and pop stores, American businesses) and bad capitalism (corporate America today). There are crazy racist conservatives and well-read libertarians. There are impractical liberals and there are countries successfully following the Nordic Model to glowing success. The point is that the "good" or "bad" exists external of what the political term is to such a degree that framing it in such a way seems like a cop out. "Good" and "bad" are all in the application of ideas as solutions to problem. The terms? meaningless.
Communist, anarchist, socialist, fascist, capitalist; these titles seem to, overwhelmingly, provide a basis for individuals to restrict their own political thought and criticize the thoughts of others without actually thinking them through, and the more I think about it the more dangerous this seems in the modern day. Our own American political discourse has been poisoned with this thoughtway, and it has led to a dualistic political scheme that is overwhelmingly partisan. We vote on parties, not issues. When most conservatives I hear on T.V. criticize "Obama-care" they do so because it's "Socialist" (like the American public schools most of us were educated by, Scandinavia, and Canadian Healthcare), not because it's likely to waste money and diminish the quality of medical service. I'm sure the same could be said of many liberals.
My point is this: when we allow our political discourse to be reduced to this kind of blathering meaninglessness, we create a polar system based on an irreconcilable dualism: We don't approach the questions of democracy as problems needing solutions. We make the world of politics a battle of ideas, allowing people to be caught in the crossfire. While in the U.S. of A. these problems seem benign, the U.S.S.R. was different. Let's learn from their mistakes.
The drunk British lad from earlier just fell out of his chair, and I think he has realized it is time for bed.
Come to think of it, not a bad idea for me, either. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance (and better internet.). Goodnight, World!
I was hilariously trampled by a deer last night.
It was about 2 a.m. and I was camped out in my little one man tent on a mountain pass outside of Prague in the midst of wild Bohemia. Here's how it happened: Picture me sleeping. Suddenly, my eyes wink open. Thundering Hooves! KlicklatklicklatkclickickickickiBOOM!
...Thump. (...klick...klick...klicklatklicklatk....kli.......)
I guess I tripped that thing pretty hard-it managed to take out my entire vestibule, leaving me confused and disoriented as I was left staring dumbly into the woods. I spent some time mentally recovering. I spent some time laughing like a maniac.
I didn't sleep that well after that, and so got an earlier start than I'd wanted this morning as I headed into Prague. Today was my last on The Greenways Route, and after some hard riding yesterday I was ready for an easy day (I'm still waiting...I'll hopefully get one tomorrow). I won't go into specifics, but today felt like being trampled by a deer really set the tone. A broken derailleur cable in the high mountains, plodding through ankle deep mud in the rain, and a hard time getting into the city: Par for the course, and all worth it now that I can stare out at the city lights of Prague, perhaps the most beautiful city in all of Central Europe. It's all a rollercoaster of emotions, but today the track seemed to match my elevation graph (imagine someone let a sugar-high 6 year old play with crayons after seeing too many pictures of seismographs).
(THIS IS AN ASIDE: The person across from me, a drunk British lad, just screamed "I'm a novelist! I'm a Poet! I'm an ARTIST! I'M FROM THE FUTURE! I WANT TO SIT OVER THERE!", and is now explaining a picture on his Facebook, saying "That's me from 800 years ago. I sat on a throne, pretended I was Odin. It was quite good." There is no meaning in my sharing with with you, just as there was no meaning implicit in the original phrases. Now back to the story:)
My last days in Vienna were fantastically relaxing. I enjoyed the immense hospitality of my friends Lukas and Lena, who allowed me to sleep on what was perhaps the most comfortable couch I have ever encountered. What is more, they cooked my meals, DID MY LAUNDRY, and helped me to take my fledgling steps into the world of Lawn Bowling (exceedingly popular in Vienna). Truly there is nothing finer in the world than sipping a Radler (like beer-lemonade but good (fun fact: Radler means Biker)) while watching a movie on one of Vienna's massive outdoor cinemas beside a cathedral on a warm night.
Leaving Vienna was a little bit hard. I don't just mean it was difficult psychologically, either. I mean, it was, but what I mean to say is that it was literally very challenging. I knew the entire route to Prague was layed out ahead of me, but the 7 kilometers to the proverbial "trail head" were completely unlabeled. It took 3 hours to find (average speed: 2.3 km/hr, a little slower than the average garden snail's cruising velocity, but once I did the route turned out to be one of the better labeled than most I've encountered. I'm not going to bore you all with all the details of 4 days of bicycling; instead I'm going to bore you with some ideas I had along the way (I hope this is alright).
Even 20 years after the Iron Curtain was pulled from its rings, it leaves marks that seem permanent on the face of the countries it affects. The Czech Republic is economically weak (i.e. affordable), disheveled, and dotted with bunkers and military relics. They have a culture that accepts hardships face on, like a bison in a snowstorm (fun fact #2: When a bison is in a snowstorm, it faces directly into the wind, presumably just for the heck of it). They eat meat, potatoes, and meat-and-potato-dishes. This, of course, is changing (especially due to the role of tourism in improving their economy), but it is amazing to see the degree to which a specific political doctrine, poorly implemented, destroyed and impoverished a nation that would otherwise likely have developed much more similarly to their prosperous and happy-go-lucky neighbors: Austria.
(DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING IS THE SORT OF RAMBLING POLITICAL THOUGHT THAT PRESENTLY FLOODS THE BLOGOSPHERE. THERE IS NO MORE RELEVANT NARRATIVE HERE. READ IT IF YOU'RE BORED, OTHERWISE, YOUR WORK HERE IS DONE.)
After thinking an awful lot about the effect of Communism in the Soviet Union I began considering the role of doctrine-based-thought in the modern context. My conclusion: No matter what the dogma being professed, I don't like it.
The U.S.S.R. is one excellent example of a country that got obsessed with a term (an idea! an ideal!) and took it way too far. That's all there is to it. They saw one way of thinking and decided it was the golden word of Karl Marx descended from the heavens to supersede all common sense, giving them a basis to destroy their nation under the guise of necessity and "progress." When it comes down to it, however, their whole situation seems a bit silly.
I ride by a tank thinking "I'll bet a lot of people thought 'does this seem appropriately communist?' when all this was happening".
Did people really believe the term mattered at all? Like applying a title made crimes against humanity acceptable? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?
The terms are empty. Most of them mean nothing, and none of them confer any sense of bad or good in them at all (okay, maybe an overstatement: Fascism conveys bad in a way that Communism and Socialism just simply don't hold a candle to).
There can be good communism (like you see working perfectly well in small groups of hippies dotting the U.S.) and bad communism (U.S.S.R.)...good capitalism (mom and pop stores, American businesses) and bad capitalism (corporate America today). There are crazy racist conservatives and well-read libertarians. There are impractical liberals and there are countries successfully following the Nordic Model to glowing success. The point is that the "good" or "bad" exists external of what the political term is to such a degree that framing it in such a way seems like a cop out. "Good" and "bad" are all in the application of ideas as solutions to problem. The terms? meaningless.
Communist, anarchist, socialist, fascist, capitalist; these titles seem to, overwhelmingly, provide a basis for individuals to restrict their own political thought and criticize the thoughts of others without actually thinking them through, and the more I think about it the more dangerous this seems in the modern day. Our own American political discourse has been poisoned with this thoughtway, and it has led to a dualistic political scheme that is overwhelmingly partisan. We vote on parties, not issues. When most conservatives I hear on T.V. criticize "Obama-care" they do so because it's "Socialist" (like the American public schools most of us were educated by, Scandinavia, and Canadian Healthcare), not because it's likely to waste money and diminish the quality of medical service. I'm sure the same could be said of many liberals.
My point is this: when we allow our political discourse to be reduced to this kind of blathering meaninglessness, we create a polar system based on an irreconcilable dualism: We don't approach the questions of democracy as problems needing solutions. We make the world of politics a battle of ideas, allowing people to be caught in the crossfire. While in the U.S. of A. these problems seem benign, the U.S.S.R. was different. Let's learn from their mistakes.
The drunk British lad from earlier just fell out of his chair, and I think he has realized it is time for bed.
Come to think of it, not a bad idea for me, either. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance (and better internet.). Goodnight, World!
Glad the deer didn't rip your tent or break your leg!
ReplyDeleteWow... and wow! Long arduous bicycle rides might be the recipe to solving the world's problems. One thing we've learned is don't camp on a deer migration path. Thanks again for sharing your trip and your ponderings! Keep up the good work.
ReplyDelete