Budapest thoughts

Happy Valentines day,

I wrote this in Krokow, about a day in Budapest and I am currently at a library in Marijampole Lithuania. I am getting way behind on my entries, but the days are so short and internet cafes difficult to find and its dark again so I must be off soon. I'll just post what I have written and the pictures I managed to upload and hopefully catch up in Vilnius.

There is no exciting story in this blog, just answers to some of the questions I had been getting:... thats great but what sorts of things were going through your head?

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I left you with some of my thoughts about my coincidences and as I wandered through Budapest scoping out some of the essential landmarks in the last hour of propper sunlight my head was bursting with more ideas. Ideas about rationalism, about the meaningfullness and meaninglessness of life and how in the end we should conduct ourselves.

I dont really think I knew the meaning of the word overstimulated until this point. I was walking up these sweet windy paths on the way to a central monument on a steep hill. The paths were built so that there would be a small intimate place for a couple or a solitary place for one person to meditate. There was graffiti everywhere (though none of it was english or remotely english sounding so it didnt tell me anything) the paths were high quality, newly paved, yet there were old buildings and ancient monuments all over my field of view. I kept having thoughts that I wanted to record but I really wanted to get to the top of the hill and sit down to do it properly.

I got ot one of the lookouts and paused to take in the bustle of the friday afternoon city far below. To the side and below me there was a lady standing in the centre of a circular outcrop of rock, paved and railed. Her hands were held behind her as she stared off accross the sea of city. Strangely this place had been built for people to have moments like that. Usually that thought sickens me because it was some organization forseeing meaninfull moments and trying to make a profit out of it, but there was no admission fee charged here. I wondered what sort of political will could get money for the upkeep of solitary spaces in the city. Then I wondered how many people had had meaningfull and intimate moments there. The litter strewn about the
bushes didnt bother me, it was all part of this strange new place I was absorbing.

How long had there been a city on the spot of Budapest and even before there was a city there must have been adventurous people climbing this hill for a view out over the wilderness. My globally minded "we can make a difference if we act and act together"
was slipping away because the world seemed so absolutely huge and fluid, how could we change human nature, how could our human world as rich in conflict as it is in harmony ever be fair, ever be egalitarian.

This land was conquered by a nomadic tribe who also conquered Finland, but this was so long ago that while their languages share the same roots, there are still not very similar. Who did they take the land from? Whose land was it before that? and what about the first and second world wars?

I thought af a dilema Chris had presented me from the Engineers Without Borders National Conference. Is the spreading of egalitarian ideals just another christianity? Journying to far off cultures and places and wipeing out cultural diversity; telling them that democracy is the way, that women should be equal and that homosexuals are people too?

The imediate answer that springs to mind is that NO because my ideals are RIGHT ideals. But that is exactly what the christian missionary would have said when
he was buisy saving souls from eternal damnation and caring nothing for the rich cultural diversity that was being lost.

My answer* to this question was that we need to be respectfull in our cruisade for equity. We need to tell people in cultures that we consider oppresive and backward that there is another way that we, in our little egalitarian bubble (and sometimes beyond), think is much more humane, but still give the cultures a chance.

What I mean by the chance is that if a culture can grasp and truly understand our ideal equitable society (if it exists) and reject it in favour of their own then who are we to push it any further. But if people of the society in question drop aspects of their culture like genital mutilation for example when presented with the vision of equality, sure some of their culture is lost, but members of the society made the choice and so they are hopefully better off for it.

To people in very different cultures the exchange between egalitarian cruisaders and the culture in question should be as respectfull as the mormons had been with me in Ljubljana: these are our views, we recommend you take them so you dont go to hell but its your choice and have a nice day.

Obviously this answer* I have thrown out is a crude oversiplification that leave us with insurmountable logistical problems but that was my reply. (and it took too long to explain).

I guess what I am trying to say is that I felt very small and I wanted to go home (eventually) and make myself an egalitarian, more sustainable bubble and put my views out there for others to do as they please and let the world collapse and reform.

In these moments it seemed that there could be one or two nuclear bombs dropped

and we could be wiped out by natural disasters that our green house gass emissions had contributed to

and we could stop being able to use gas as car fuel, saving the fossil fuel for things like the manufacture of bicycles etc.

and there could be pandemics and epidemics stemming from poor sanitation

and wars could break out over who gets to use what unspoilt remenant of natural resources

Sure there will be huge suffering and maybe large parts of the world will be irradiated or leveled by war, drought, huricane,

but looking at the layers and layers of civilization and ideas apparent here, humanity will go on in some chaotic form.

But what sort of reassurance is that? its a step back fuckitall approach. And thats not what we are about. If everyone thinks about it like that then there really is no stopping it. Maybe we can prevent such collapses, maybe we can make them go down smoother. Its not that the end is near its that we have some work to do. How can I do all that work. I was wedged somewhere between carefree complasancy and mind shattering worry and guilt.

So now you get an idea of why my mind was exploding. And I was out of breath from pounding up the hill. I missed most of the gorgeous sunset because I took a wrong turn and went the long way around the building at the top. Then I couldnt find a bench to sit on and wright it all down.

When I finally found a bench, my fingers were too cold to wright ao I just eat some much needed food. I was in a particularely unremarkable part of the hill, with some muddy paths, no view and dusk had fallen on this side of the hill. I felt like I was missing out on the view, on the experience. But what did it matter. Just as the world might go to hell, I was thinking of the meaninglessness in my attempt to see
everything 'worth seeing'.

I havnt done my research so I dont know what is truly special about this spectacular place. Who cares if I miss a medeival church, a charming backstreat, an ancient monument or a peacefull park. Especially if I dont know what it means and cant afford to pay 100 modest enterance fees to learn the history and meaning behind everything. But then what was the point of my coming if not to learn about the places? Am I just a self indulgent cheapscate pleasure seaker, passing through,
oogling at things that everyone oogles at but not taking the necessary time?

I decided that I am just trying to get a flavour of the places I visit. Some concept to fill the blankness in my mind when someone says: Southern Hungary, or Slovenia's Mountains. Im not superhuman, I guess Im on a private journey that could probably be much 'better', more thorough, more educational, more fun. Who can be all that and spontaneous and free?

I had held illusions before I started the trip that I could help out along the way. That I could make my coming somehow positive for where I visited... and more than just by buying lots of bread, tuna and nutella, no peanutbutter whatsoever, let alone the good stuff, and in one store in Slovakia there was no nutella either AHHHH, in a huge box store in Dolny Kubin, Slovakia, I found some stuff that was made with peanuts but had been coloured to look like nutella. As though peanutbutter was nothing in
its own right, it had to be nutella-made-with-peanuts-instead-of-hazelnuts, called nugeta, a cheap ripoff. It tastes worse than either of them but I digress bigtime.

The truth is that as a super low budget travellor, I ask people for rides and sleep in public forests. I make sure to leave no trash and pick up some when I leave, but that seems to be a Canadian ideal, about the prestineness of natrure: leave no travce. I
recycle my milk cartons when there is the option, but when it comes down to helping people out, nobody wants my help, the help of someone they see as in need of help.

I spilt some water in one conveniance store because my water container had come open and the lady wouldnt let me clean it up even though she was angry. The truth
seems to be that the only good you can do in my way of travelling is by making people feel good when they do favours for you. I'm going to come away from these trips oweing one hell of a lot to the world. And I'll spend the rest of my life trying to pass on these favours tenfold to others that I meet.

Wow I knew I had a lot of non-travel stuff to wright but that was ridiculous. I think it still has a place on a travel blog because it was inspired by travel.

I'll start with my story next entry.

One day I'll learn grammer, so that I dont have to break my run on sentances with paragraphs and use dashes and brackets all the time.

love from Lithuania

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