Tales of Slow Brave Athena

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March 21, 2006

needs and wants

In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
—Ivan Illich

from Todd Farner's Cleverchimp blog

I was just checking out Todd's blog—he has a couple entries about his recent trip to China. Here is an interesting tidbit:

Lots of bicycles and tricycles about; perhaps 10% of the bikes and 25% of the trikes are motorized in some way, while perhaps two-thirds of all vehicles on the road we traveled were more efficient (i.e., lighter and slower) than, say, a Prius. I couldn’t draw admiring parallels to the Netherlands, though, as unlike Amsterdam it seemed very clear that we in the car were expressing a superior class distinction. Generally, the cars are shiny and the people driven by them are in a hurry, with something to prove, while the bicycles and especially the trikes are amazingly decrepit and driven by people of hard means with dour resignation.
...
But the very deepest incomprehension followed the explanation that my particular bike motorization scheme compels the rider to pedal; it was as if I were mentally handicapped about the purpose of a motor. Indeed, many riders of the popular motorized bicycles in Beijing remove their feet from the stationary pedals and rest them awkwardly on the downtube as if to advertise their arrival to the new leisure class.
—Beijing Brompton diary: part two

It just gave me pause.

I'm thinking about my own life, of course. This morning I had a public transit malfunction of epic proportions, but at least I got about a half hour's walk in. But had I ridden my bike? I would have been in in less than half the time.

I was thinking about the guide as well. It's my excuse to go out and try new restaurants and taverns. After all, I have to do those daily entries. However, am I contributing to consumerism? Yes, definitely. Should we go back to a time where going to a restaurant was a special event? No. If anything, I wish for an idealized history of corner stores and corner taverns, where we were much more connected to our communities.

This, I think, is what I find so compelling about what Jon is doing at BikePortland. He's building community. Bridges between the various bike cultures. He's out there, talking to people, going to meetings, etc.

Anyways, two different issues, consumerism and building community. The latter is where the guide is falling down.

I went through the stats this morning. I was sobering. The guide gets a lot of hits, but everything in this domain gets many, many, many more (like the person doing a web search on "fat woman on a scooter"—yikes, the truth hurts). I need to do some promotion!
...
I was invited to a happy hour press meet-and-greet yesterday. It was at a place I particularly dislike, but hey, free beer and food, so I set out walking there anyways.

I walk in, and the entire room is full of people. Someone directs me to the person with the name badges, and it feels like it takes forever to get to her. She takes my name, gives me a blank name tag, and pushes me out of the nest. I have no idea how or where to get beer (and maybe I misunderstood—do I have to pay for the beer?). I know not a soul in the room. I'm not really even sure why I was invited.

I looked around, and recognized some names, but they were already in conversations and inaccessible in the crush of people, and tables. So I bailed.

This is very different from a schmoozing event, where the schmoozers are driven by potential jobs or sales—really, all I had to gain from this was the free beer and snacks—though I would have liked to meet some of the writers.

But would it have been so hard to have several people staffing the check-in table, and have each of them briefed on who does what, or, at the very least, the art of making conversation? They could tell you, for example, how to get a drink. Or better yet, they could be sure that you got one. And then have a couple of other people who are standing nearby as icebreakers, so the checker-inners could pass the new person off to them? So, the new people have a contact, a face, a name... and a drink?

If you had a party at your house, you wouldn't let people wander in alone, not knowing anyone. No, you'd take their coat, get them a drink, introduce them to someone you think they'd like to talk to. Why shouldn't a networking event also work that way?

Posted at March 21, 2006

Comments

Posted by: Misty at March 22, 2006 12:39 AM