the experiential self is happy

i decided to test out Google bike maps (beta--yes, i will submit comments based on my experience) and followed a route from Hacienda Heights, CA to Pomona College, Claremont, CA (my alma mater!) at 7: 30 am this thursday morning. i made modifications to the route to reduce the number of turns (and hence, directions i needed to memorize or refer to). see map of route here.

Google maps predicted 1 hr 47 min there and 1 hr 28 return for nearly 19 miles each way. i clocked in 1 hr 30 min there and 1 hr 15 min return. gravity (heading further into the basin) helped shave off a good 15 minutes. my speedy road bike helped me beat Google predicted times. huzzah!

it was quite the experience and must now express regret for not having tried this during my undergrad days. i saw parts of the cities of Pomona and Diamond Bar that i did not know existed. for example, the southern face of a large lush hill with exposed granitic rock along Mission Blvd (on which i hit 33 mph going downhill--wowza!) resembles hillsides in Scotland on a pleasant sunny day. i'm always taken aback when i see any sort of largish, natural, undeveloped space in LA suburbia. in navigating the urban landscape on bike, the couple of miles that separate the hearts of Pomona and Claremont cities disproportionately represent the wide expanse between affluence and poverty.

as i pedaled home around dusk, riding alongside weary commuters seated behind their steering wheels, i sensed that the difficulty of our respective daily journeys home separated our greater world views and attitudes. the difficulty for me was physical exertion; my legs felt each upward curve of the road, however slight. my commute was measured by traversing the physical landscape, and entirely dictated by horizontal and vertical distances. for drivers, however, distance is quickly and easily eliminated with the step of the gas pedal. the difference between going 10 and 30 mph up a hill is a slight increase in pressure applied to the gas pedal. these commuters were fixated on minimizing time, nearly independently of distance. suburban and city commuters measure space in the form of time. the consequence of this, i sense, is a tendency to overlook most things that lie between points A and Z.

the way we navigate space in a car is very different, and in my opinion, much less complete (insert pejorative emphasis here) view of our built and natural environments. instead of experiencing communities, we observe them through the barrier of a car window. the result is a fragmentation of the sense the scale at which community operates, a skewed sense of physical distance that blurs with sense of time, and a undervaluation of the intricacies of our landscapes.

of course, this takes us to the 10000 feet question (to borrow a friend's phrasing) of what defines a "good" and "preferable" lifestyle choice. (yes, i am still referring to the latent world view effects of driving a car) for me this is the difference in living an "enchanted" or "disenchanted" life. i am, by no means, a Luddite, nor am i advocating that people should cease driving, but i do posit that society could benefit from diversifying our mode of transit, if not for the benefit of our environment, then for an appreciation of the beautiful minutia that comprise our surroundings.

for full meaning of this post title, watch Daniel Kahneman's TED talk.