I was out and about today riding my bike from downtown up the hill, scratch that, a hill, one of many, to the suburbs...although, I don't know if they can really be called suburbs. I guess this is sort of the central point to my musings, was it the suburbs? Or, if not the suburbs, what then? I think it could be safely called the suburbs but it was densely wooded (for the suburbs) and the houses were large, sprawling across goodly sized lots with tall firs and cedars sprinkled throughout. I wouldn't say they were gigantic, but considering where I live in the city and my pathos of small and elegant, these were multistory, multi garage beasts and they were bigger houses than I've been in for a while. I guess they're pretty common, it must just be that I haven't been out that way in a while and when I have it must have been in a car which provides a much narrower viewing angle than a bike. I can't tell you how much I've noticed by being astride a bicycle rather than encapsulated in the car environment. Especially these last few weeks I've been without my headphones.
What is it with headphones, anyways? I can't seem to keep an unbroken pair of nice/decent headphones on or around my person for longer than several weeks. Fifty dollars for a pair of freaking headphones that I no longer have and were not even close to being worn out. On the contrary, I was rolling them up and zipping them into their case each and every time I took them out of my head. They were on the path to good condition for an extended period of time. Except for that one time, when I didn't put them back where they go. That one time, my subconscious made sure that I would lose them for good. The one time I didn't put them back in their case (like I always do), some part of my brain that secretly plots against everything another part of my brain puts into action, went and released my fingers as I was holding the 'phones above some small crack and they fell behind the bookcase or the filing cabinet or something equally trivial and likely to be frustrating once found.
But I guess that is not really the point. The point was, without my headphones I notice even more of my surroundings than if I was only on a bike (with headphones on versus a car with or without the stereo on, although car with no strereo on, versus car with the stereo on produces a similar phenomenon of me, noticing more) with headphones installed in my ear canals. And on this particularly sunny and warm day (with plenty of dark ominous clouds on the horizon) as I was riding my bike without headphones in, I was noticing these large houses with long driveways and plenty of varied green and colorful flora on the property, I thought about how much some of the houses must have cost or were worth and a thought struck me at that moment (prepare for a generalization, although I believe it applies to a fair amount of people). Some of these people who inhabit these houses must have worked or are still working at jobs that pay fairly well. Many of those jobs probably decrease the vitality of the earth or pollute in some substantial way. Or they contribute to the epic levels of dissatisfaction/discontent of our (where I live currently, Washington State, Seattle, America) society and whether or not they realize it they have worked or are working, hard(er) than they need to) to purchase a piece of the nature and contentedness of spirit that they are helping to diminish by working. I think the actual phrase I thought of was, "they are working to buy a part of the nature they are helping to destroy." Nature, meaning also the equilibrium and ease of existence that native cultures had, using what they needed and not wasting as much as we have become accustomed to.
Pretty deep. I know. Actually, I just had to get it down before I totally lost the thread. Thanks autosave.
