traingang

"A car represents freedom," they told me.

I'm beholden to the petroleum industry for the stuff that powers my car. I'm beholden to the company that insures my car. I'm beholden to the bank that gave me a loan for my car. I'm beholden to people in the trades that can repair my car. My car chains me to so many people who genuinely do not give a rat's ass about freedom.

I was lucky enough to have been born with two feet and a heartbeat. Those come with almost zero operations and maintenance cost. Far less expensive than a car. And there are places I can go on foot that I could never go with a car. They represent freedom only on the surface.

it's true. for 20 years i have made personal/professional sacrifices to move toward less dependence on a car. this seemed to me the most logical and clever choice by far, and it has generally been treated as an amusing eccentricity. also bizarrely unmasculine by the really indoctrinated.

paying more for a shittier place, moving across country for the lower paying job in the medium COL area where the shittier, but convenient places aren't all snapped up. it's been a whole set of major life decisions that run counter to the prevailing ideology of bigger, bolder, and better.

along the way i meet people of the same mind as me. older, committed bike commuters and all-in pedestrians, but they are maybe 10-15% at most. many are still "i love my car, my commute is my relaxation", which is so wild to me.

or, more understandable (but completely fragile), people who wanted something nicer with more space to have a family and all they could afford was something that only works with a personal conveyance to carry them to work / material needs on a daily basis.

i am rapidly closing in on a permanent situation where i can get to everything i need (except like a twice yearly appointment) with a little baby electric scooter/e-bike in less than 10 minutes. its just barely in my affordability range, it is going to require some major investment of money and my own sweat to get right. but I'm here for it, and i feel like im just barely making it in time since ill be reliant on shipping to get the various building and household infrastructure materials to make it right (safe/potable water, electrification, serious kitchen garden, etc). so really im like a few years yet from some kind of resiliency. i have been talking to my family about this for over a decade, and it never seems to pierce the veil.

i don't know what to say to people who are behaving like oil/fossil energy shocks weren't on the menu for the foreseeable future. i know many people are actively lied to by the media apparatus in the US, and many have never seen how other people, outside the US, live without cars. hell, shitloads of people can't even afford to live anywhere and are stuck living wherever they can find shelter.

but i just don't get how so many people of means haven't noticed that this is always where things were going to take us... expensive fuel is just the beginning.

maybe if fossil capital wasn't such a powerful political project, we could have transitioned more calmly into a transitional arrangement like electric cars and electric freight. but the decision makers have foreclosed on that and locked us all into possibly the most difficult and uncertain future.