Let me be very clear. I do not enjoy driving. In fact I resent the imposition constituted by the fact that to make even a relatively short trip, one must expend an enormous amount of personal resources. In plain English, it would be cheaper to take a tram; but no, that is not a possibility in the country which is so deluded as to call itself "free".
So, I drive. And it is an unpleasant experience. I cringe every time I get into the car. what madness possesses the individuals who design these cruel roadways. First there is the fascist mentality which delights in placing cameras everywhere. But, then there is the anally retentive approach to traffic lights: make them invisible until the driver is right on top of them.
And the way in which these large roads connect up --or mostly don't connect up--makes
driving a mad, risky business.
The sheer scale of the roads is insane. All calculated to promote maximum stress for drivers and maximum consumption of fuel. Oh, I know that it is done in the name of "efficiency", but I doubt whether anything good actually results. And I will repeat myself: I believe that nothing good comes from this system--no actual increase in well being.
The myth that faster is better is refuted at every turn. Just look at the omnipresent obesity of the local residents....
In addition, when you are traveling everywhere at fifty or forty-five miles per hour, and the roads are chaotic, without clear warnings of what's up ahead, with surprising twists and turns, it's a constant nuisance.
Arriving at "Starbucks", the coffee is inferior to that which I had ten or more years ago in the train station in Salamanca. It is inferior to anything I had anywhere in Portugal. And the bullshit coming out of the mouth of the person who gave it to me.... Well, in the USA it is impossible to simply get what you want. Every conversation seems predicated upon the assumption that you do not know what you want, and the person at the other end is going to suggest and seduce and insinuate until you buy something you do not want.
Then the music as well is canned.
the air conditioning is excessive.
and when I watched the overly large people emerge from the overly large trucks to order and drink their skinny lates or god knows what, I could have easily slit my wrists or jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge just to avoid letting their presence (the trucks and the large persons) register upon my consciousness....if there is anything characteristic of Americans (citizens of the USA) it is simultaneously an innocent naivete combined with a bizarre arrogance and single-minded confidence and thrusting of one's self forward into public space, the overweening confidence that this is the way to act, speak, live....... but of course, politically speaking, they are wandering around with their eyes closed, all the while confident that they are on top of the world......, in that situation a little bit of disillusionment can be a good thing......... a little disillusionment would mean just a little bit more awareness of reality....
get me out of here!
FOOTNOTE
Talk about ugliness. The actual establishment (theoh so USA coffee shop) is located in a parking lot--not a wooded area, not a place offering a vista. It is in a parking lot. If you choose to sit at an outdoor table, your eyes gaze upon asphalt and enormous trucks.....and you can probably smell the grease from the nearest purveyor of slow death if the wind is blowing right....
I have never lived in a place where the smell of grease was so common....
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