HASTE! . . . Traffic against native Sycamore (Plantanus occidentalis) On the road in North America.

IMGAE: A WAYSIDE SYCAMORE stands its ground in the
face of non-stop traffic. Everyone who believes that cars
and car culture are a necessary feature of the good life
would do well to exchange roles with a tree for a day.

As a meditation, take up a position next to a roadside tree.
That means—don't move. Observe the rush of vehicles.
Listen to the waves of crescendo / decrescendo noise. Ingest
the fumes. See the remarkable self-centered haste, the
hurry, the general disregard.

It has always seemed to me that there is but one way to
observe the energy behind this mechanical flow: get out of it.
But, of course, if you're in it & like it, you'll have no obvious reason
to bother doing so. That is, until the contradictions inherent in
the movement—and there are in my view many—cause it.
to come grinding to a halt. Whether we like or not.

The view through the windshield is I think not just a destructively
self-limiting cognitive frame; it is deeper than that, a kind of
tacit self-worldview. The key, the tragic point is that,
when a self-worldview is wrong—that is, self-destructive,
what is right is without exception seen as wrong. Think about it.
Unless, that is, we are inspired to stop, get out of the car, and
find out what's really going on for ourselves.

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