Thursday Thoughts: Stuck

Let’s do something different.

It’s normal.  We all tend to get stuck into routines.  Sometimes various of these patterns will block others, and then that becomes a routine in itself.

Those of us who use our bikes to commute to work will tend to seek out routes.  We’ll refine them.  We’ll fine tune them.  This street is a little longer, but it’s faster.  This route is more hilly, but it’s shorter.  This route is longer, but with less afternoon traffic.  Eventually we find optimums, and then the routine settles in.

We tend to do this throughout our lives.  But there is a trap here.  A routine becomes a rut.  Boredom sets in.  A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out.

As a society we fall victim to the same kind of thing.  We may have great fun arguing politics, and shouting at each other, but we tend to seek comforting and familiar patterns.  We get in the car, when we could as well walk or ride a bike.  Why?  Because it’s familiar, and habitual.  We insist our pols give us roads, and we want them to go directly between our desired and habitual destinations.

Traffic congestion is caused by not enough highway capacity.  Right?  So we build more roads, and enlarge the ones we have.  Each build phase seems to alleviate the problem.  For a little while…

Do umbrellas cause rain?  The thing is, if it is easy enough to drive, then we drive.  And so do others.  More roads encourage more building, over a wider area.  And that, in turn causes more traffic, canalized on those big, new, high capacity roads.

As the congestion increases, some will seek alternatives, and soon those are targeted for expansion.  And traffic attracts commercial enterprise.  And more congestion.

Oddly, restricting traffic (intentionally increasing congestion) tends to decrease traffic.  We find ourselves looking for alternate methods.  Telecommuting?  Car-pooling?  Transit?  Walking?  Cycling?  We don’t usually do this voluntarily.  We’ll take our ruts, thank you very much.  It generally takes some kind of change, obstruction, or event to jolt us out of our patterns.

Sometimes, that jolt is a good thing.  It can cause us to re-evaluate, recalculate, and reconsider.  That’s where personal growth and development can occur.

What would happen if each and every one of us got on a bike, once a month, and rode it to somewhere we had to go?  (Office, store, library, post office, doctor’s office, etc.)  How if it was once a week?  Would that change traffic patterns in our area?  Perhaps the presence of a fair number of cyclists, on a given set of roadways, would have an effect on traffic patterns.  Maybe, if enough of us did it, and we got kind of organized about it, and sort of vocal, we wouldn’t have to use our cars to carry our bikes to someplace else for a ride.

What’s the difference between a rut and a groove?