giving and getting

High tension wires block the view of life along the track.  Elevated highways, bridge crossings, cranes and boats moored in estuaries mix up the vistas.  Life goes on as bits and pieces of Americana flit through the window.

At times when the train pulls close to the highway we move along faster and with more comfort than those in cars.  This train is fairly quiet.  It sways a bit but the track sounds are muffled and smooth.  The seats are comfortable and you can get up and get food or go to the bathroom without having to pull off the highway.

Changing location by train instead of car is something i haven't done in years, and you know, i kinda like it.  No stops for gas, no cramped legs and achy body, food available at any time.  The train picks you up in one metropolitan city and plops you down in another city center with such ease.  i don't know why we don't have more of these all over the country.

Making the world a better place starts with interpersonel relationships.  Trains are great places for interacting with people you don't know and makes visiting with family and friends that much easier.  All the people we have interacted with so far on this trip are a reflection of mankinds innate ability to get along.

With family and friends we keep in touch with each other, we air our grievances, get over them and move forward learning more and more about how to communicate.   Unfortunately in this fast paced world our technologically connected way of life has removed the emotional aspects of interpersonal relationships.

Today a few curt words in a world peopled by emotional misfits is not the way to make the world a better place.  Ending marriages, friendships, business partnerships and romantic liasons by texting or e-mail has become more commonplace.  Treating live human beings as if you are in some movie is not the way to make the world a better place.  Luckily on this trip we have not experienced the underside of the connected but we have heard much about it.

Elders complain that the young have lost their ability to empathize, that they don't take the time to really talk or interact.  Friends complain about other friends ignoring them at dinner to take texts or phone calls. Today the connected don't know how to emotionally engage, they have lost the knack.

i've always felt that communicating with enemies and friends alike is the only way to connect on a higher plane.  When people cut off communicating they hurt themselves.  We can't ever make the world a better place if you have to discard people that annoy you.  Removing them from your life doesn't remove them from the world or your mind.  They will always be there and their negative impact won't go away, which is why I guess I'm against the death penalty and don't believe in "an eye for an eye."

i've had the window seat on trains and planes which allows me to gaze upon the ravages of man.  Hedgerows, roads, fences and rivers delineate boundaries humanity has carved upon the earth.  From the air our handiwork doesn't look so much like a quilt but like a series of ever meandering attempts to claim ownership of uneven surfaces.  Veins and capillaries run over the earth feeding and destroying equally.  Towns and cities look like open wounds bleeding outwards.  Not much is untouched.

i'm doing this blog right now and failing to connect with those around me.  They are doing things i'm not involved in and i need to move along and get back to the living.  So if this reads funny its because I'm in a rush to get back to the living.

Looking at the landscape reminds me that it is not so much about giving these days, our way of life has become more about getting.  Too many of us forget to give, forget to play it forward, forget to help those that helped us.  So stay connected even if someone annoy's you for it will pay off in the end.