Yesterday’s mood was reversed by something I happened to stumble upon and actually get today. It’s unlikely to last, but it’s a rather nice feeling for the moment. I think I’d better start from the beginning…
The plan for today was a long walk, going through four or five Christmas fairs, just as something to do… I was going to walk a certain distance in order to be able to get on a bus that’d get me straight to one of those fairs, visit it and then keep walking as I’d go through the rest of them one by one, then take another bus from the last one, get off it when it gets as close to this area as it’s going to get and then walk the rest of the way back. And all of that while wearing boots that are a little too small…
With the traffic being as it is, the bus ride to the first fair turned into two long and awful hours. I could have walked there in that much or likely even slightly less, but that didn’t look like such an appealing prospect, considering the boots. So the bus was hardly moving, but it had a very effective air conditioning system, which meant it was quite hot inside. Since everyone was dressed appropriately for the weather outside, the vast majority were looking at least a little afraid after a while, trying to find enough room to get their coats off, looking for things to wipe the sweat off their faces with and so on. Eventually a woman yelled at the driver to turn it off unless he wants to kill us all, which prompted an older man to say nobody else is bothered by it and mockingly ask whether she was in heat. The woman told the man to ask the others before speaking for them and eventually, since the driver didn’t care about any of this, somebody else opened a window, which made the rest of the trip a little more bearable. Seriously, even I felt like throwing up in there, and my tolerance to heat is quite high.
After eventually arriving at the first fair, I realized there was hardly anything to see there. So I quickly moved on and started walking towards the second. Looked at what was being sold there for a while and eventually moved on, though not before a woman yelled after me to ask if I didn’t want to get something nice for my girlfriend. I’d just want my girlfriend back, thank you very much…
After some more walking, I arrived at the third fair, which was the “Smart Gifts Fair”, organized by a nice bookstore from here. But I either didn’t even get to the “fair” part or didn’t even notice when I did. Either way, that’s not why I was there. The real reason was that I took the opportunity to just look through their English books section. In a way, I was thinking to look for Victory of Eagles; then I was staring at the rather many books by Raymond E. Feist that they had… All of a sudden, I noticed the top half of a cover sticking out from behind a couple of other books that were stacked in front of it. It said Greg Keyes. My first thought was obviously that it couldn’t be what I’m looking for. I’ve never seen any book from The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone over here and besides, even if was from that series, I assumed it’d be the most recently released one, The Born Queen, which is the fourth in the series, so finding it wouldn’t be all that useful for me, since I only read the first two. But I set the books that were in front of it aside and, much to my surprise, I saw The Blood Knight, which is the third one in the series and therefore just the one I was looking for. I let out a quite audible “Hey!” and then grabbed it and looked at the back cover, thinking it’d be too expensive. (It’s not just that books in English usually are very expensive over here, but that bookstore is pretty well known for the atmosphere and their prices do tend to reflect that. So I expected it to cost over 40 lei, perhaps closer to 50, and I’m really unwilling to pay more than 35 lei (at today’s rate, that’d mean $11.85, €8.28 or £7.40) for a book.) But, to continue the surprises, the price tag said 32 lei. So I just grabbed it and rushed to the register before I got time to think about it and get scared. Only been wanting that book for the past three and a half years, after all…
So I bought that book, left the bookstore and canceled the rest of the trip since I didn’t really feel up for much of anything anymore. Despite the fact that I probably could have ended up walking less by picking other options, I was already shaken so I thought the shortest route is the one you know. That made me walk back until I ended up close to the second fair and took a tram from there, since I knew it’d get me closest to here. That tram certainly took its time, so I waited for quite a bit and people obviously ended up packed like sardines inside it for the entire trip. Also, since I didn’t exactly know what cues to look for to know ahead of time when my stop would follow, I just made my way to the door and got off after passing the last place I was certain I had to pass… Which was two stops short of where I actually should have gotten off, which resulted in even more walking.
In all, I was out for just under five hours and therefore walked for slightly under two hours. The public transportation part was really unpleasant and my feet are complaining about the way the boots treated them. Expected a couple of toes to be in a rather bad shape for a while after this and it looks like a few other areas have also been affected besides them. I’ll also need new boots, obviously, but realized these were too small after buying them two years ago and didn’t exactly have any winter since then to need to wear them, so now that we finally seem to be getting a whiff of a proper winter, with a fair amount of snow on the ground, it’s noticeable. But getting this sure means it was worth it!
It would seem that I find myself being able to make purchases much more often lately. Worryingly so actually, at least for me, since it’s been just over a month since the last time I bought something. It’s not just the social anxiety that makes me very uncomfortable with the idea of purchasing things, after all…
Yet another winter solstice passes and once again it saddens me. Though I may delay feeling crushed by the longer days a little this time around, because even I was thinking that it may be getting dark a little too soon since my body decided that 3 PM is a better time to wake up than 2 PM. But I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable with anything more than that extra hour of light, the equivalent of the hour lost by getting out of bed later, so I’m sure I’ll start feeling as crushed by daylight as I usually do as soon as the sun will set at least an hour later than it does right now. And, even until then, I still don’t like the idea of the days getting longer at all…
There’s little to say otherwise, because everything I said last year still stands. Just replace “three years” with “four years” in that post and you’ll get exactly what I’m thinking and feeling right now.
But at least we seem to actually have a winter this time around. There’s a fair amount of snow and it’s quite cold enough for it to settle nicely on the ground, which hasn’t happened in recent years. I don’t know if it will last, but these days do remind me that what once was lost can be regained, even if it’s completely out of your control. That should help whenever I need to once again lie to myself by saying there could still be some hope for me in this life. At least for a little while, as long as the sky will still be black and the ground still white…
I was looking out the window as a nice snowfall blanketed everything in white and thinking everybody should be enjoying something like this. Yet the news say otherwise, because you keep hearing of all the problems caused by snow and ice and all the people who are unhappy because the weather isn’t allowing them to do what they supposedly have to do. So I have to wonder why must people think that what they want is so incredibly important? Why can’t they understand that Nature is way greater than they are and simply stop and enjoy its beauty, being thankful when it decides to give us a glimpse of it?
Things are different when the natural phenomena in question are clearly destructive, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, heavy hail, floods, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. The effects of such phenomena should be mitigated as much as possible when they are relatively rare occurrences, though I maintain my opinion that people should move away from areas that are frequently hit because it’s obvious they’re not exactly suitable for humans. But when the phenomena in question are not particularly destructive, why put so much time, effort and resources into fighting against them when we could just slow down and smell the roses (or the snowflakes), even suspending all nonessential activities if that’s what’s required. I think we could all benefit from this…
What you keep seeing and hearing at such times are complaints from people who are upset because they can’t get where they want to go, or simply because it’s difficult to get to their desired destination. They’re saying it’s difficult or even impossible to drive, trains and flights are delayed or even canceled and so on. Which is all true, obviously, but my question is why do they insist on traveling at such times, when it’s obvious that the conditions don’t exactly permit it?
Yes, having some way to travel is essential because emergency vehicles and other critical services shouldn’t be hindered, but I’m talking about regular people here. And it’s these people who insist on traveling in such weather that make it even more difficult for the authorities to clear even those sections of road that’d be required in case of emergencies, therefore perhaps even causing worse problems than the weather itself. But they don’t see it that way. I doubt they even think of it, considering how important most people think they are. They just know they want to get somewhere and they must be able to do so, Nature be damned…
But this is not just about the fact that, despite global warming tending to make the people from many areas forget this little detail in recent years, it’s perfectly normal to snow in winter. It’s about the greater issue of how people view the weather and natural phenomena in general, which becomes even more obvious, and worrying, when you think about all the attempts at controlling the weather in order to ensure adequate conditions for various events, despite the fact that the methods that have so far been used for this purpose often tend to have undesirable consequences. Though this may not be the best example, since it gets me right back to the issue of snow, the most terrifying weather control project I have heard of so far is the proposal to eliminate snowfall from Moscow…
Which just gets us right back to the even greater problem: People insist on thinking that they are more than they are, that they matter more than they do, that the world must bow down to their wishes and allow them to reach their goals, no matter how unreasonable those goals may be. And, unfortunately, the few who don’t share that view are constantly trampled over by the many who do… But that’s another issue…
I want to quote a phrase from an article from this month’s edition of National Geographic Magazine: “We were smart enough to invent our worries, ambitions and jealousies; then, dumb enough to allow ourselves to be ruled by them.” I quoted this because I think it’s relevant in this particular issue, because society makes a lot of people behave as they do. This rotten society we have created for ourselves tries to tell us that it’s of utmost importance to do everything it wants us to do, regardless of circumstances. It’s one of the reasons why, just after the first significant snowfall, newspapers tend to print titles like “the first snow fell and the only ones enjoying it were the children”.
But what if adults would learn from the children and remember what society made them forget? What if we’d do things differently? What if people would stop worrying about getting where society tells them they need to go when it’s snowing or raining or windy and start thinking about playing in the snow, kissing in the rain or simply feeling the force of the wind on their faces? Or, if they don’t enjoy those things, they could simply stay inside, either watching Nature’s spectacle through the window or ignoring it entirely, catching up on various other activities while using the minimum amount of energy, by keeping all doors and windows shut and preferably also living in a thermally insulated dwelling, to keep a comfortable temperature in the room they’re in. In short, what if we’d see Nature as an ally instead of an enemy to be defeated or a slave to be ruled?
I think a lot of time, effort and resources could be put to much better use if we’d stop trying to keep the roads clear enough to allow everyone to go everywhere they care to when it’s snowing, or to keep rain away from this or that apparently important event, or to constantly rebuild the places that are repeatedly hit by destructive natural phenomena. I also think many people would feel a lot better if they’d realize that the world will not end if they take it easy and take advantage of what Nature throws their way now and then. And the more people realize that, the easier it will be to change society as a whole, until this kind of behavior will be encouraged as much as the opposite one currently is. Because, though few seem to realize this, society is created by people and can’t exist unless they accept it. But, once again, that’s a different issue…
Since Avaaz managed to get such an incredible number of people to sign their “Save Copenhagen” petition, I feel I need to do my part, as little as it may be, and help promote it even more. Sent the link by e-mail to pretty much everyone I knew how to reach last night, but adding a blog post to that certainly can’t hurt.
I maintain my opinion that climate change is just a symptom, one of the many of the illness we have inflicted upon Earth, and that too many are focusing way too much on it at the expense of the real problem, which is that way too many people are using way too many resources and spewing forth way too many harmful substances and materials… But focusing on one environmental issue, even if it’s just a symptom, is at least much better than not focusing on any environmental issue. And when we’re talking about such an incredible number of signatures and an organization that can deliver them properly, even a petition could have an impact worth mentioning.
By the way, this month’s edition of National Geographic Magazine contains a nice article about climate change, called The Carbon Bathtub. I think it’s a pretty nice analogy…
I first wrote about Australia’s Internet censorship plans about a year ago. Unfortunately, I find myself needing to mention this issue once again today, because it really looks like those plans are about to be implemented, regardless of the criticism.
How many other “Great Firewalls” will be created in the near future, once a country that received a perfect 10.00 for civil liberties in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy and a perfect 1 in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Index will create its own? Dare we risk allowing even the idea to pass? Will we be able to turn things around once it does? I doubt it…
I don’t really feel like reiterating all I wrote a year ago, so you may want to read that post if you want a more detailed opinion regarding this particular issue. But the general problem is that banning content that is illegal or can’t be rated paves the way towards forbidding people from challenging or even discussing any law or issue, such as euthanasia, which is being given as an example because it actually seems to already be covered under this law. No matter how they try to justify it, censorship is censorship and that’s where it leads, especially when it’s worded to allow such an interpretation from the very beginning.
The point is that the Internet must be free, allowing anyone to post any content they choose, as long as they don’t try to trick others into believing it’s something else, and also allowing anyone to view and use any public content they choose. Any laws and regulations that infringe this definition of the freedom of the Internet are harmful and must not be allowed to pass.
Actually, there seems to be something called the Freedom on the Net Index, which could help in the future. Right now it seems to be only a test, since so few countries have been analyzed, but even so it’s obvious that Internet use is already restricted to a certain degree everywhere. But maybe it’s not quite too late already…
