The M25

Last night, I had a quintessential English experience.   

Driving into London, I found myself in a traffic jam on the the M25.  Its not the type of experience you see advertised on English travel brochures, but surrounded by hundreds of others, I couldn't help but ponder our shared moment.

 The M25 is the ring road that entours London.   It struck me that surely as many English folk who have visited Stonehenge or Westminster Abbey have experienced the geographical space known as the M25.   In fact, given that going in and out of London you must use it, and if the thousands of people around us are a sample of days and years past, even more people have probably been here!

The other day I read something about the lost civilization of Atlantis.  Questions of history aside, there was a seperate idea in the article that struck me.  The article claimed that despite the fact that no metal Atlantean artifiacts have ever been unearthed, Atlantis was a civilization more evolved than ours.   The narrator suggested that was in fact more evolved because it didn't require the use of metals and all the related industries in its realization of civilization. 

  Interesting!

The reality of the bleak, packed, and pollutted M25 experience that so many endure  is a consequence of our civiliazation's use of metal.   These traffic jams are a consequence of the M25.   How advanced is our civilization if it requires enduring such a space for even 30 minutes a day?   Many of course commute for hours each and every day on this space.

While waiting for a major accident to be cleared the happy and cheery vibe in our car changed dramatically.  Was it just us?  Perhaps it was the culmulative effect of hundreds of others around us and their building frustration effecting us.

It would seem that there must be more evolved and advanced ways to live.

Where's my bike!