2003-02-18 9:38 pm

Bus

The more we progress, the more dissatisfied we become.

You'd think not. You'd think that we would become more and more relaxed as our urban lives became more and more luxurious. But we don't.

Here's an example of what I mean.

Imagine a man (ie. me) who gets the bus to work every morning. Each day the bus is late. His rage when the bus is late is relatively small, partly because he knows in advance what is going to happen and is able to plan for it, and partly because he has grown accustomed to the vagaries of the public transport system.

Gradually, however, the transport system improves. It does this invisibly and ruthlessly, without a thought for the carefully ordered and neutralised dissatisfaction of the man at the bus stop. Soon the bus is never late, but when he realises this he does not throw his hat in the air. Instead, he grumbles that it is about time. Then, whenever the bus is late, which happens once in a while due to exceptional circumstances, Acts of God etc etc, the man is scandalised beyond belief. He has not prepared for the late bus emotionally or logistically, with the result that he is half an hour late for work. He complains to other members of staff. The rest of the day is a wipe out, and the following morning he approaches the bus stop with distrust, half an hour early, in order to pre-empt another disaster.

But the bus arrives on time. He now harbors the neurotic belief that the bus system is trying to wrong foot him deliberately. He does not mention this to his colleagues, but the thought still causes him immense irritation, both because he knows it is ridiculous and fancies it might be true. The amount of mental energy he expends in thinking about the bus system is out of proportion to the importance of the bus system in his life, and an enduring neurosis is born, that quickly extends to other areas of his life. He becomes disillusioned with urban life, and thinks wistfully of a rickety farmhouse in the South of France. Hitherto he has never needed to imagine the farmhouse, and has been content with urban life, but now urban life suffers in the comparison, as it must do - the farmhouse, after all, has been chosen specifically to combat an illness that is not really there. The neurosis deepens and becomes permanent. Even being mentally aware of what has happened is not enough. Charting a journey does not erase the footsteps. The bus system, with its damnable, infernal inconsistencies, has broken a man's sanity.

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