The Absence of Angst
I coast along the streets of Europe via bike. It’s the easiest mode of transport. I have knocked into a few cultural potholes along my travels, this is not one of them. On any level of wheels, car, scooter or bike, you go with the cultural flow or, literally crash. From India, to Dubai, Cyprus, Manila, Egypt and the US, I have driven through them all. Much as I love fast cars, bikes are my mental escape.
So now, here I am winding my way through cobblestoned Europe on a bike. I join the peddling crowds as we weave through tiny roads crammed with cars, pigeons, cafes and people. We all seem to flow together. It’s a very odd, cultural thing. I have yet to come to a crashing spin or get creamed by a honking car. My well-honed Cypriot curses grow neglected and forgotten. This is indeed a minor miracle. Anyone who has had a license in Cyprus is forever driven to uncontrollably curse all things wheeled. Even Canadians get broken by the experience. I know this for a fact. Eh!
The US “says” it’s bike friendly. But I question this when confronted with all that “protective gear”. It seems to be required to get out the door and face the outside world. Biking back home is a production in preparing for battle. Helmets, gloves, knee pads, mirrors, cameras plus, plus, plus. Small wonder the need super light bikes to cruise around town. All that biking gear adds some heavy pounds. As usual, in good American tradition, fear is big business. Accessories promise to protect you from all manner of unimaginable catastrophes. My conspiracy theory is that the insurance companies run the whole show. Sort of a super power “shadow government”. We are programmed to be afraid of the “out there”. Insurance companies assail our darkest nights with imagined “what ifs’ only they can defend us from. Sign here, pay $$$ there. Just saying, think about it…
As a Portlander, I had made it my Don Quixote quest to seek out the psychos in charge of laying out all the bike paths through the city. They must have been smoking some very bad weed. Like too many Murphy’s in Ireland, I have yet to find them. In Portland, bike paths morph into stairs, mysteriously vanish as you pedal, and toss you like a sacrificial lamb, directly into full speed traffic. It’s a biking war zone.
Here, I flit along, helmetless with only a basket and bell between me and the world. I wend my way through traffic, pedestrians and hundreds of other bikers. We tinkle along in the most socialist of ways. Where is all the road rage? That shoving for space, the passive aggressive need to be first? Where is that capitalist angst I was raised with? Instead, I am surrounded nods and the odd smile. Even Starbucks is laid back. People wait, non jittering and patient in line for their coffee. That is just NOT normal… Any true-blooded American would be freaked out. Is socialist coffee different from ours?
In another complete reversal of thought, regular, plain bikes are coveted here. The norm. As if just doing the job they were created for is enough of a purpose for existence. Such madness.
Those pesky Jones’, down the road we are avidly determined on beating would only despair of Europe. Here, nobody cares that much if it’s bigger or more expensive. Where is the meaning of life without fierce competition, I ask you?
IKEA and the Swedes have comfortably set up the socialist model of consumerism. Choose from a colour palette, but everyone ends up with sort of the same thing. If your bored, make up for a homogenized home by walking (or biking) outside. Cafes abound for sitting, socializing, or admiring medieval architecture. Sculptures are scattered around like confetti and many lack the puritanical decorum of a well-placed fig leaf. Forget masks, cover your eyes!
But, consider this. If we give up the rat race of trying to “one-up” each other, suddenly there is so much time to enjoy a coffee, long dinners or a stroll through the markets. What a novel concept. Time to enjoy life, now- not in a maybe future.
I may have stumbled onto the real, terrifying difference between socialism and capitalism. Beware. It is, the absence of angst. On our average bikes, here, we all just go with the flow.
