Whizzing along

I really don't like to step out of my comfort zone, but when I do I am please with the results. There is something comforting about being on a train, by the window, watching trees, houses, wires, pylons, ploughed fields, red brick houses, sheep going whizzing by. The green carpet seats, the business men in their ostentatious ties, the hungover students in beanies, the unfamiliar announcements. And the giving up of control. Car culture is about control. One drives oneself. LA culture is car culture. LA culture relies heavily on ego. Trains level you out. They equalize. We're all in this together mates. We can discuss the relevance of grammar schools, Theresa May's latest speech, our dependence on our phones. There is a subtle communication that goes on here in the carriage. None of us speak but we spend a lot of time trying not to look at each other, or touch each other, even if we are inches apart. It's a far cry from the Fuck You! car culture I am used to. He cut you off? Give him the finger! Are you turning or not, you moron? Who cares? I will take Fountain. 

This is peaceful in its cold discomfort. In its 1960s era heating systems, in its containment. 

There are paths everywhere where I live, many of them stomped and shaped over thousands of years by so many men and women before us. It's that stuff that takes away one's self-importance. I am just putting one boot on front of another, on this muddy path, where so many more interesting people have come before me.