online: 5 april 2019
modified: 29 march 2019
25 march 2019 mobility
mobility . . . a word now used in California and elsewhere for the
abstract qualities for owning a car or using public transport and other
such abstractions from the natural . . . and a very real part of what we
call modern life . . . mobility can also be movements of thoughts as
well as of matter and preferably the two together which is not easy to
get . . .
mobility nowadays reappears as the driverless car which i prefer to call
traffic automation with its far reaching magical quality (like the magic
carpet) of wishing to be there and very soon getting there . . . in a
real sense of movement but often with stasis or stoppage or traffic jam
to the point where many people do not enjoy it . . . except for a few
enthusiasts to whom it is a joy in itself even to contemplate without
travelling in them . . .
besides these semi-trivial examples there is something profound about
this mania for transport, public or otherwise, as there is in spiritual
entities such as the fastest car or aircraft . . . or getting to the
moon (or mars in 18 years there and back) . . . and i was about to
mention the car of heaven a theological concept and then i thought of
something else that i have already forgotten in this too fast review of
the character of what we combine in one word mobility . . . (all in
jumbled writing)
i remember John Page saying that the ownership of a motorcar is not
necessarily a selfish thing . . . it is the attainment of geographic
freedom, a worldwide benefit if there ever was one . . . it is On the
road Jack Kerouac's cross-country driving as a form of living too fast
for some of us and for others it is a new way of living on the go . . .
i could go on and on describing such examples of the movement of people
assisted by machines . . .
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