Red means go :: 2022
It came to my mind that my two (so far) „favorite places on earth“ (vienna´s 7th, greece of the late 20th century) share similarities apart from the fact that both places had come to me by chance. One will be described here.
The head (now former head) of that viennese district was the one who wanted to abolish all traffic signs, leave it all to the interaction between the participants on the roads instead. I think it would have worked because it already was like this - people didn’t pay attention to traffic signs, they payed attention to each other. I never saw somebody stop at a red traffic light, i saw people „walking“ their dog by bicycle instead, at night with storm lamps on ( because obviously these bikes had no light ). Life was easy. Chairs outside in front of almost every house, people chatting, drinking a coffee, reading a book or whatever.
That changed when young people moved in in these last few years, who were just different than we were. Digital young people maybe. They´d stop just because of the red light, not because of the traffic like we used to do. You´ll see 30 years old people stop and wait, while older ones just walk across the street. That´s a similar weird thing like the OLD ones driving on NEW vespas, while the YOUNG ones only on very OLD ones, like it was some years ago ( but these were WILD young ones and boring old ones, who lived elsewhere ). Different generations, different cultures. Probably.
Anyway. That reminded me being stuck in a traffic jam on a highway at 3 am in Athens, greece, once upon a time in the 90s. Finally, after an hour or so, we could drive forward, through the streets of Athens in a hot summer night. It ́s red light ! I shouted at the young greek man who I was with that time, because he had just ignored the red traffic light totally, on a busy road. He laughed at me: red means go, he said in a relaxed way. Well. I didn´t know that, i was new in Athens. It made me think. Different culture, different rules. He’d pass several red lights that night, everyone did it, it was common, normal. Has been normal through all my time in greece ( maybe still normal, i have no idea ). Different world indeed.
Red means go. I remember this when I see young ones stop and older ones cross the street in a district that was famous for having its own rules. Red means go. Like a culture of the past. The vedas or the mayas. Something to be re-constructed ( see: linguistics ). Or the hippies. Greece of the 90s. Different. # analogue times # fairy tales # books # museum #
waiting for my veggie burger/ a hike (c) 2022
