Monomad: Enjoying the rain, and hating cars

It's a bit ironic, but after writing the post yesterday about wanting some rain, it very shortly after began to rain, if not a few minutes later. It has been so much nicer, the environment seems a bit more quiet as there are generally less people outside. It's a little cooler outside which makes for nicer walks, especially with some coffee. I'm hoping the weather continues like this for a while as it's just so much more fun, and I feel a bit more motivated under the colder weather, whereas the heat has driven me to a bit of laziness with procrastination. Tonight there was the plan to go bowling, but arriving at the mall, it came to our discovery that bowling at this time would cost the low fee of about $30. Yep, you read that right. $30. So instead a walk in the rain was taken instead. It was nice for the most part, seeing the cute stray dogs all tucked up and under their shelters. Hearing the rainfall and being able to wear thicker clothing. I've missed wearing hoodies a lot! It was a little dark at this point though, so my photography potential in the area was a bit thin. But still, I had a bit of fun with the camera.

That said, there is something I'm starting to despise, and it's something similar that another person here on Hive (@gooddream) recently mentioned in a post about becoming a grumpy old man. Well, to put it lightly, I am starting to hate any vehicle that appears on the road. Let me explain a bit.

Do you enjoy being able to talk a relaxing walk outside? Do you want to get some fresh air from time to time and escape your home after a long day or many inside? Maybe you're someone with an apartment that has a balcony to which you try to enjoy. Though the endless honking of car horns from the impatient is heard. Motorbikes roar through the streets at all hours of the night. The walls vibrate from their sheer force. You try to cross the street when the light is green, yet you're almost crushed to death by some idiot that needs those extra seconds and ignores the pedestrians. And one of the worst: a delivery biker carrying their slop to the lazy are riding on the pathway to cut traffic. Now, I hate the whole walkable city argument that is thrown around these days, and I understand the importance of having a personal vehicle for transportation. But cities are absolutely not built for cars anymore. Such dense living and endless noise from roads just adds to the stress, shit air quality, and anxiety felt in the people. Walking on the path and all you hear is the honking of horns as traffic builds, everyone refusing to pay attention to their surroundings to the point of just creating insufferable noise.

On this walk earlier, I attempted to cross the road, this car was already behind another and couldn't pull out into the main road, yet the driver insisted on creeping up as close as possible to the car in front, even though there was a pedestrian crossing on this single lane road, to which he would've been parked over. I refused to accept this and continued walking, to which he continued to push the car forward, almost hitting me in the process. Then, in their insufferable nature, honking the horn at me. His window down, I stood there and called him a cunt to his face.

Now, I don't have a car, I don't drive, and I have very little intention in owning a car or even some sort of motorbike variant at this point. I hate the reliance of public transport, but the more I look at the road, the more I feel that I'm content as I am. The idea that cars just pull out the worst of people, that you're throwing your life into danger by boarding the chaotic roads in which your life genuinely is at the hands of some brainless fool in another car weighing several tons of steel. To add to this, I can't stand how noisy the roads are. I can't imagine becoming part of that problem, to which then I add to the traffic in which endless horns beep. I find that it's more fun to do photography and take walks down lanes that hold outdoor cafes and more life to them, rather than wide open roads in which nothing happens, with so much space for people to walk just removed, instead delegated to a small corner by the buildings to which even there people still drive on them. There are streets in Tbilisi in which no cars go down, streets of old cobblestone where cafe lighting hangs above, and people sit outside. I can't imagine not wanting that instead of what we currently have. All that extra life around to capture, the noise of people enjoying a space instead.

It makes you question as to what space actually is, how it functions and what purpose it serves to the people, and how cities were never planned for the current function it holds. As a photographer I tend to this of these things often, looking into the spaces I roam around and finding things that stand out, particularly in a way that give me some sort of emotional reaction to them. Central areas of cities make me feel nothing but the desire to escape.

It is no surprise to me that so many people are trying to leave cities as they grow more chaotic and more expensive, but I guess the issue with this is the gentrification of those places they flock to, just adding the problems to those problems as demand increases and the current infrastructure can't match it. I remember my town in England drastically changing, becoming so Americanised to the point in which I could not navigate it by foot anymore. The result was I just went outside less and interacted with the world less, or just finding even more remote places to spend my time. I wonder how things will change going forward, I'm no fan of the shift of turning all cities into these prisons in which everything is monitored and something like vehicle ownership is banned in such spaces, but what we have now is just poison to the mind.