January 15, 2009 • 11:58 pm 0
GOD and HUMAN
MOTHER and NATURE
CHICKEN and EGG
MAN and ROOSTER
INVENTOR and INNOVATION
can’t go backwards
LIFE is always forward
and equal.
be born
re-birth
revolution
sex
acceptance
Filed under: activism, art, city, community, creativity, cycling, design, education, experience, future, humanity, iran, life, love, music, nature, philosophy, poetry, politics, school, student life, sustainability, work
July 27, 2007 • 5:16 am 1
I decided to make this entry a combination of both the moral of my bicycle posts as well as my reflection on the internship experience thus far because they are very much intertwined.
I continue where I left off about the fear of riding the bicycle hands-free. With my bike here in Chicago, this task seemed impossible. The bike was sixty dollars, used and old, but repaired and admirably functionable. In my mind, when I let go of the handles, I felt insecure. I felt that this bicycle was not reliable enough for me to let go. I felt foolish for even trying because my thoughts told me that there is no way I would be able to free my hands and move from the forward lean position to vertical sitting position; it was impossible, the bicycle wasn’t meant for it.
Why did I keep trying to do it? Because of the challenge. I liked the idea of risk. I kept practicing over and over on the same trail I took every day. Finally about two weeks ago, I did it! I let go completely and I sat straight and I pedalled. It was so easy that once I did it, I couldn’t see how I couldn’t do it before. It wasn’t scary at all! The bike goes completely straight, the steering bar doesn’t move and I sit right up without any worry that I will fall… at all.
This past week I’ve been doing it a lot more — maybe a third of the trail even. I open my arms; I feel the wind; I pedal to the right of the trail; I pedal to the left of the trail. How could I not do this before? Why was it that it was so difficult the first couple of weeks? Why did I fear letting go?
As for being here at one of the most well established design firms in Chicago — if not America — amongst a spectacular staff, inspiring team with an abundance of creativity and multiplicity of skill-sets, I still found myself unhappy until just last week. Well it wasn’t that I didn’t value where I was or what I was doing; it was because I couldn’t face my ego. I had not come to an acceptance that the situation I was in was just that — the situation…and I had to deal with it. I did say to myself that I have to deal with it, but I didn’t really live it. I wasn’t it. I didn’t know who I was when I was thinking so much in anger and defending my own thoughts as reality. I was working in a team (of interns) that really wasn’t working as a team. In my mind it wasn’t working because I was so different and I am sincere but my sincerity is not being acknowledged and I’m on the back burner at all times.
What did I do? I turned it around and I made it work. I didn’t turn reality around. Reality is what it is, as in, we are who we are but our relationship with people and things are what we learn from and conduct our actions based on our knowledge through these relationships. You learn to work with what you have and accept it for what it is, not for what you think it should be. Why be angry and spend my bike rides in thoughts of anger…or fear in the case of my bike inspiration. Fear and anger go and in hand. If we can’t face our thoughts of fear and anger and really be them, then there is no way we can learn from them. Facing them means to accept them for what they are and allowing them to open your mind to reality…in all it’s potential.
Thanks SM. Beautiful time in my life.
Filed under: cycling, experience, life, public transportation, work
July 24, 2007 • 2:34 am 0
One day in the early months of last year, when I was in Toronto, I decided I wanted to buy a bicycle. Why? I still can’t remember exactly how I got into it, but after I built on the momentum, a serious cyclist friend helped me pick out my five hundred dollar Trek3900 bike — the cheapest bike in the shop. I bought it from Duke’s Cycle on Queen West. We hopped around a few places but they were all pretty much out of my range. We went back, I spent all my investments for a vehicle and rode my killer twenty four speed mountain bike from the shop to my (now former) house. My friend wished me a safe trip and I was on my way uphill along Bathurst street for a ten mile hike… for the first time. Honestly, it really wasn’t that bad. I think I was sore for the next couple days but I really loved it. I traveled from home to downtown roundtrip, I’d say ten to fifteen times that summer. I found a bike path too, so I wasn’t on the dirty Bathurst street any more. There aren’t enough bike lanes in Toronto, what’s up with that? I’m glad people inspected all the rouds and found paths for cyclists, otherwise you have to find your way beside cars and the angry drivers.
So, cycling became my new sport. It was since I had left Iran that I hadn’t been on a bicycle. In Iran — oh my goodness, I don’t want to get to my childhood memories because I’ll cry — it was heaven. I had a wonderful childhood amongst nature, fruits and vegetables, large swimming pool and large family gatherings that will only exist in all our memories and reveal their documented beauty through photographs. Back there, I biked a lot, that was the point I was trying to get at.
I went down to Sarasota Florida (as some of you may know or have noticed) for a mobility/exchange program through my school in Toronto Canada. I lived there for five months without knowing a living soul. I met my roommate through craigslist on the phone and it turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences in my life. Anyway, again, the point is, I bought a bicycle the second day from a non-profit bike shop called the Alliance for Responsible Transportation (A.R.T). It was forty five dollars. I went everywhere with it. Biked to Lido Beach the first week, biked all around Sarasota and biked til I dropped. Florida is just natureful. It’s absolutely gorgeous. I loved the bird sounds, the palm trees, the aloe veras, the customized colourful houses and their mailboxes, and I absolutely loved the weather.
Getting back on track, so, now I’m here in Chicago doing an internship at samatamason; if you read the last post, you’ll know the details about my daily roundabouts, and if you read even before that you’ll know where I got it from.
The difference between my bike now and my previous two bikes, is that it’s a road bike. It has thin tires and you lean forward — it works your triceps a lot. It was quite a drastic difference between my other bikes. It’s really easy to pedal hands free with my Trek bike because the steering head doesn’t move and you can feel that it’s stirdy and secure. With this bike I couldn’t do it. It was way too risky and every time I took one hand off and then tried the other, I’d immediately go off balance and grabbed on to the steel. Must be the bike, I thought. Well, I’m going to write about the moral of the story after this entry, just so I can get all my thoughts together.
Filed under: city, cycling, experience, life, public transportation
July 21, 2007 • 6:33 pm 1
I wake up every morning to the sound of my twenty dollar pre-paid Cingular phone’s alarm that I bought during my first week here in Chicago at either six or six thirty in the morning (depending on whether I catch the seven sixteen train or the eight oh seven train). I get up and with the time I have before I hop on my bicycle — which is the reason why I’m writing this post — I do some or all of the following (depending on whether I feel like it or if I have enough time to do it):
I ride my sixty dollar bike for five to seven minutes from my place that I’m sharing with my roommate — who I barely see at home — who works at samatamason after being an intern like me last year. The Metra railway is outstanding. I have to say I am very proud of Chicago.
There are a lot of interesting, educational and just plain fun things to do in Northeast Illinois and Metra can get you where you want to go. The 495-mile Metra system serves 230 stations in the counties of Cook, DuPage, Lake, Will, McHenry and Kane.
On Metra you can reach Chicago’s beautiful lakefront, museums, zoos, sporting events, shops and restaurants, concerts, special events, schools and colleges as well as quaint, historic suburbs and small towns. In some cases, Metra can take you practically to the front door – in other cases, your destination is easily in reach via Pace buses, and/or CTA buses and trains. -metrarail.com (their website design does not do them justice)
I get on the Milwaukee West Line train at Western with my bike and lock it up in the designated area. The conductor comes around at every stop and yells out, “TICKETS!” for the new passengers to pay their distance-dependent fare. So, for me from Western to Elgin is five dollars and thirty cents for one way, which is the most you’d pay on that line. The system is pretty old-skool but it works. He comes around takes your cash and change, and gives you back change if you need it using his chain belt that has coins from nickels to quarters released individually with one force, like pushing a button. Then he punches the ticket paper a few times with some type of paper puncher that doesn’t actually leave bits of paper anywhere; I still don’t know what it means when I look at it. For the month of July I bought a pass for one hundred and thirty nine dollars which saves me sixty dollars a month. This pass looks like a coupon and is given to you like a coupon, as in, it’s a flimsy small piece of paper, mind you designed very badly. I sit and either sleep, or take out a book (or do some of both) for one hour where I get off at Elgin.
I could not be any more privileged to have a bike trail right beside the station that ends off right beside the studio. The trail is five miles along the Fox River without any sight of cars or buildings or noises or trucks honking at you for reasons I could only get more annoyed by. It’s a peaceful, meditative, relaxing, muscle-toning ride of at least twenty five minutes of pedalling. It is through this daily cycling that I learn about life, yet again, through my mind, self and people.
