Traffic

We in traffic are demented ballerinas, pointing our toes: gas clutch brake, stop, start, go again. I feel a certian camraderie with my fellow commuters. They slow down to let me in sometimes, and I do the same. In traffic are countless opportunities to make someone's day a little better or a lot worse. My car coughs politely and purrs, just to let me know it's still there. I cough back. Steadily we inch over the bridge, I'm turning up my music, all of us stuck in the same boat. Over the lake we all go together.

It is said that Germans are very likely not to cross the road when the traffic light tells them not to do so by glowing red. So people think Germans are stiff people that obey easily to authorities, but in fact they stop for a different reason. They stop because they need some rest. As everyone knows, Germans work very accurate and are always exhausted. (All the people you see at the Loveparade are in fact from france or spain.) When a German sees a red light, stopping is no matter of following rules, but fooling the boss. Because the German appears late and says: »There was a red light blocking me, I could not come earlier.« And the boss is happy to have such an accurate staff.

The load on a communications device or system. One of the principal jobs of a system administrator is to monitor traffic levels and take appropriate actions when traffic becomes heavy.

Is traffic like the march of ants – the buzz of bees? Or is it something greater? The lack of group purpose in traffic removes it from comparison to the insects. One goes here, one goes there, no one goes the same place, but everyone is going to a place. hence: jams.

traffic is the first attribute of the human condition. As long as our brain ocupies a corporeal presence then we are required to locomote to where the action is, to take our mind to the stage where the happening is set. it is the overlapping mass confluences of similarly locomoted minds that gives rise to traffic. This is probably a good thing (at least under the constraints of our human value system) otherwise there'd be all these mummified torsos sitting in fron rooms across the country mindlessly watching TV game shows or surfing the internet instead of connecting warmly with other flesh, palpitating with the proprioception of persons external. Oh, wait, they're doing that already. (My mother being a fine example – all she watches are TV gameshows, and she's in love with Michael Barrymore, but he's gay and she's having a hard time coming to terms with that I'd think) Traffic is fractal in structure, dualistic in nature, like most things in life, a non-orthogal juxtapositioning of love and necessity, hate and bemusement, pleasure and well-being. We shape traffic flow patterns, traffic flow-patterns shape our minds. You notice this when sitting in a traffic jam, momentarily paused in the act of conveying your mind and motor-functions to another activity-space: your locomotive requirements have contributed in a local way to this global effect, and your mind, sampling the local effect, is beginning to overheat. so you take »corrective« action and activating your motor-neurons you hold down hard on the hooter, entering into and exhibiting another mode of local behaviour, the state of excitation. Now, given that you find yourself a member of a collection of individuals, each one composed of a set of not-entirely-orthogonal basis-behaviours, according to the Theory of Complex Group Behaviour your actions can be predicted to affect spuriously the brain-activity of your surrounding neighbours, who will in turn exhibit similar behaviour, giving rise to s system of complex cognitive feedback of the unpleasant kind: cognitive agitation sets in, tempers rise, knives, shotguns, pistols, mace-sprays, CS-sprays, fists and expletives are produced and deployed to group-detrimental effect. Next thing you know a flotilla of meat-wagons is on hand to convey the result of the ensuing mass-carnage away to the already over-stretched A&E, and the place is crawling with ambitous local newspaper reporters looking for the story that will be their break into the digeratti infested world of the new-media societe'-d'elite. So, if you must go out today, take care: consult the weatherman who will tell you to leave your lover, the Lepidopterist, at home.

traffic in america is dictated by the suburbs, especially in medium to large midwest post-industrial cities. detroit, st. louis, indianapolis, and milwaukee are examples. once 4pm comes around, everyone drives home to the suburbs and the cities are empty. especially in the winter you can ride your bike around the downtown areas at 2am and not see a single person anywhere, but yet be surrounded by huge skyscrapers and the yellow glow of street lights. people are often afraid to live downtown in the city for fear of crime, but there is no crime because no one is there to commit any. but i can be a beautiful feeling to be alone in a city.