Now I live about 3 blocks from a bus line, though it's easier to ride my bike 2 miles and leave it near a main bus line. It used to be 1 block.

I regard "freedom" as being able to get where I want to go affordably and in reasonably good time. I'm not willing to give that up. I don't drive on local freeways between 2:30 and 6:30 PM. Too crowded. And the kids who are growing up now regard those jams as normal.

And "individuality" is another question. That "individuality" is expressed quite often through ownership of a mass-produced car with a bumper-sticker. I suspect there are other ways to express 'individuality'.

The Asian countries have learned to deal with this, and their cultures teach one from young childhood to live closely to each other, to maximize the utilization of critical resources. We have always made fun of them for their deference to each other, their unwillingness to look strangers in the eye and so on. They seem to manage individuality.

I believe we are all excruciatingly dependent upon the whole. And as the population gets more and more dense, as wages go down due to globalization and the standard of living necessarily drops, society will change. Whole sections of my city resemble portions of the larger cities in Mexico. The suburbs are slowly dying, and as more and more of the flagships of the major malls close with no replacements they will more resemble third-world countries.

And like Mexico, where the government doesn't control vast areas of the country, I don't think that will happen without violence. Not in my lifetime, nor yours, but the seeds of revolution were sown when the Constitution was written.

Musings, meanderings. Of no meaning. You're right, maybe I am more willing to contribute to the whole, or maybe I'm just a'woofin'.

Arf