Marching for Openness and Normality

What pisses me off about Poland's government for the past eight years? Above all, it's this communist-era inability to separate Party from State. The noxious lies that pour out of the publicly funded TV and radio stations, the purchasing of voters' loyalty through social transfers, the brazen use of state-owned enterprises for party-political purposes, all paid for by taxpayers' money, destroys trust in government.

Poland has been drifting in the wrong direction since 2015, and it's really down to one embittered little old man of limited outlook. And people have had enough.

I was amazed at the size of the crowds that turned out today - estimated at 500,000 - a scale that matched the two anti-Brexit demos that I attended in London in March and October 2019. Unlike those, however, held three years after the referendum, this one still is in good time. I can only hope that having a stranglehold on the public media that reach rural voters will not prove sufficient to keep PiS in power this time round.

Listening to the speeches: Rafał Trzaskowski, Warsaw's mayor, proved more popular than either Donald Tusk or dear old Lech Wałęsa, whose ramblings were received with a thunderous and ironic 'DZIĘ-KU-JE-MY!! DZIĘ-KU-JE-MY!' from the crowd as he droned on and on about himself and how important he once was. It took a while for the crowd to move from the meeting point, Plac Na Rozdrożu (Bifurcation of Ways Place), and once moving, en route for Plac Zamkowy, it became obvious just how many people were present. This was judged to be Poland's biggest protest march since 1990.

"Let me thpeak to them, Pontiuth..." "DZIĘ-KU-JE-MY!! DZIĘ-KU-JE-MY!!"

"By the time we got to Piękna, we were half a million strong"

But large crowds in capital cities do not determine electoral outcomes - something I learnt on the streets of London in 2019. Look at Hungary - Budapest was solidly anti-Orban, Orban got back in. Look at Turkey - Istanbul was solidly anti-Erdogan, Erdogan got back in. London was against Brexit - Brexit got done. 

I can only hope for Poland's long-term future that voters bid farewell to Kaczyński and his retinue of pliant party placemen. What will be needed is a de-politicisation of the Polish state; removing parties from the mechanism of administration. I'd ideally like to see Poland as a no-party state, run by a meritocratic technocracy - or technocratic meritocracy - that aims for optimal policy outcomes for society, and not securing yet another election win, hanging on to power for the sake of hanging onto power.

My view of politicians is similar to Groucho Marx's view of clubs - anyone who wants to be elected should automatically be barred from running for election. The most noxious sort of would-be politician being the psychopathic narcissist - or narcissistic psychopath. Barred from public office for life.

Ministries, state-owned enterprises and public media should not be run by people chosen on the basis of party loyalty, but by those best qualified to run them.

Poland is doing well but it could be doing a whole lot better with a government that understands the need for a stable, predictable, transparent legislative and regulatory environment. And run by people who want the best for the nation, not just power for themselves.

This time two years ago:
40th anniversary of the Osieck railway accident

This time three years ago:
Moonrise, Nowa Wola

This time four years ago:

Awaiting the Summer Sublime

This time seven years ago:
4 June - a date remembered for...?

This time eight years ago:
Corpus Christi, rural Mazovia

This time nine years ago:
25th anniversary of Poland's transition

This time ten years ago:
Poland's infrastructure progress

This time 12 years ago:
Wetlands in late-spring

This time 13 years ago:
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Puławska and Pozytywki

Jeziorki's flood of floods: Sarabandy and Karczunkowska

Jeziorki's flood of floods: Trombity and Kórnicka

This time 14 years ago:
Another time, another place

Hurry to the forest

The words of a Polish scouting song, which I'd sing over 50 years ago, come to my mind: Bracia skauci, dosyć kurzu, dosyć kurzu łykać nam. Trzeba spieszyć nam do lasu, by wypocząć trochę tam... ("Brother scouts, enough dust. enough dust for us to swallow. We must hurry to the forest, to rest a little there..." A long walk today. Below: following familiar paths, to my jumping-off point. The goal - to get to Rososz, through deep forest, skirting Dąbrowa Duża.

Below: but first, I must skirt Machcin II. My attention is drawn by this field of poppies - the first ones I've seen in any number this season.

Below: this is what I'm after - if there is a beaten track, it's one that's been beaten by hares and deer; this is not marching along a path, this is bending, stooping, clambering, double-backing, jumping ditches - a much slower pace. Although I covered over 14km, I only managed 16 minutes of medium- to high-intensity walking today. This is the kind of progress made when foraging for mushrooms.

In a little shop. I need bread and lentils; as I'm browsing, in pop Pan Heniek and Pan Ziutek. Amiably brusque, Pan Heniek places his order in the voice of a 40-a-day smoker: "Cztery najtańsze." [Four of the cheapest. (beers, obviously).] The shopkeeper, knowing her clientele, reaches for the required bottles and replies "Coś jeszcze?" [Something else?] "Szampon." [Shampoo.] "Jaki?" [Which kind?] she enquires. "Najtańszy." [The cheapest]. And then in pops a boy, obviously sent round by his mum, to buy a jar of mayonnaise. He, too, chooses the cheapest one of the three brands the shopkeeper offered. 

Left: Marian shrine at the convergence of five roads - the unpaved track to Machcin II in shot, to Zbyszków to the left, Dobiecin to the right and two roads into Rososz behind me.

The four people in the shop were the only humans I saw on my walk. Ah - and two tractor drivers seen from a distance.

Wildlife outnumbered humans: I also saw seven cranes; three walked across my path - cranes are massive birds - at first I thought they were runaway emus, but they were just across the way from the wetlands where I've already observed them, though from a greater distance. Further on, I entered a long, rectangular clearing, looked around, and saw a deer, about 80 meters away. It froze - I froze. Slowly my left hand reached for the telephoto zoom in my trouser cargo-pocket, but before I could change lenses, the deer turned, made a near-vertical bound, and disappeared off into the forest. With the long lens on, I could discern at the far end of the clearing another four cranes.

Below: after lunch (sausage, bread, beer) in this relatively less-dense part of the forest, I get on hands and knees to photograph this oak sapling - one of thousands growing here. Few will make it into maturity, destined to be crowded out or cut down.

Below: carved out of the forest of mature cultivated pine trees, a lane designated for the medium-tension power lines running north towards Machcin.

Almost home - the last bit of forest proper from my działka, before it gives way to orchards.

Spending four hours amid the trees, surrounded by nature, by birdsong, away from the traffic and noise and stress of civilisation is supremely good for the old samopoczucie.

Left: bonus shot - yesterday evening; Airbus A320 neo over Jakubowizna, turning into final approach to Okęcie. Play is an Icelandic airline, flying from Keflavik. The red of the plane against the blue and white caught my eye. Today marks the second month of flights of the airline to Warsaw.

This time last year:
Stills from Katowice

This time two years ago:
Prepare to have your horizons broadened

This time 12 years ago:
Szmulowizna

This time 13 years ago:
Jeziorki's Storm of Storms

This time 15 years ago:
How to tell you're flying over Poland

This time 16 years ago:
Poppy fields

No longer the place to live

Twenty years ago, life in Jeziorki was sweet - an ideal place to live, close enough to travel to work in central Warsaw every day, to be in the office by nine am, yet a quiet, green area. Quite the place to raise children. Since then, 'Zielony Ursynów' ('Green Ursynów' - the part of the Warsaw district of Ursynów lying to the west of ulica Puławska and the Las Kabacki forest) had been developing slowly, but that pace has accelerated rapidly in recent years.

The opening of the S7 extension (to Lesznowola last August, and all the way to Grójec last month, thus linking the northern and southern bits of the S7) has vastly increased the amount of traffic pouring through Jeziorki. 

Below: ulica Karczunkowska, peak morning rush hour. See where that tanker is in the middle of the photo - on either side of the road, you will see... no pavement. Traffic is up maybe tenfold, maybe more, but there is still no f*cking pavement. This road is not scheduled for an upgrade until 2026. Meanwhile, there is a vastly greater risk of pedestrians or cyclists being killed or injured along this stretch, not to mention the extra noise and pollution. Just behind that tanker is the junction with ul. Nawłocka (to the left), and access to the Biedronka supermarket and W-wa Jeziorki Park+Ride (to the right). Trying to turn into Karczunkowska is a nightmare, so the local residents have petitioned for a roundabout to be placed here - I hope it happens, as it will have the additional benefit of slowing down traffic as it comes charging down from the viaduct. Reminder - the speed limit here is 50km/h.

That's just the through traffic. Jeziorki is also growing organically, with developers moving in to build new estates. A new house generates one and half new cars for the neighbourhood. Below: land for sale, Jeziorki - 2.1 hectares, enough to build 24 to 30 terraced houses; once sold and developed, another 36 to 45 new cars for ul. Trombity. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

Below: one of four new estates on ul. Trombity, this one of ten houses, just completed, and up for sale. 

Talking of through traffic - I feel very sorry for the residents of ul. Pozytywki and ul. Cymbalistów; these two roads are used as rat-runs by motorists wanting to avoid the traffic lights at the end of ul. Karczunkowska to turn right towards Mysiadło, Nowa Iwiczna, Piaseczno and all points south. Despite the 30km/h speed limit, there's a constant stream of cars charging down these streets, heedless of the speed-bumps, tearing past the kindergarten and the new housing estate on Cymbalistów. The answer here is to create a Woonerf - the Dutch solution to the problem of through traffic tearing through quiet residential areas. My solution - the działka, 26km to the south, 24 minutes by train from W-wa Jeziorki to Chynów. From Chynów station I can walk to the działka without fear, often without being passed by a single car. And above all, peace, quiet, clean country air*.

Below: elegy for a lost suburb - Karczunkowska in 2007, five years after we moved to Jeziorki, 12 years before the viaduct crossed the tracks, 16 years before the S7 extension was completed. This is the reverse angle of the shot in the top photo. As busy as it got back then, I had to wait a bit to get the cars into the composition.

The inexorable lava flow of development will take time to reach Jakubowizna; it is happening. Three new houses have appeared on my street since I bought the działka in 2017, but each one is detached, and two of them are bungalows. I cannot see the same kind of development that blights Jeziorki - or worse, Zgorzała, Zamienie and Nowa Wola on the other side of Warsaw's city limits - whole fields being turned into row after row of terraced houses with no asphalt or amenities.

* Country air pollutants: diesel fumes from tractors, chemicals used to spray orchards, and smoke from wood- or coal-fired domestic heating. But at least there's a thousand times less traffic on the roads.

This time last year:
Textures of Childhood

This time two years ago:
Stupendous sunset, Sułkowice

This time seven years ago:
Politics - the importance of fact.

This time eight years ago:
Rural Mazovian toponyms

This time nine years ago:
Carrying the weight on both shoulders

This time ten years ago:
Railway history - the big picture

This time 12 years ago:
A new lick of paint for W-wa Powiśle

This time 13 years ago:
The ingredients of success

De-growth: a personal manifesto - Pt III

[Continues from Pt II here.]

Stop and think - what is it that you want from the rest of your life? More things? A new car? More travel? More holidays? More what precisely? And how do you intend to achieve those goals?

I feel that I know the answer - I know very well, although it took me a long time to get there.

In this final part of my personal de-growth manifesto, I want to dwell on the spiritual aspects of stepping back from materialist consumerism. As regular readers know, my personal identity is rooted in the conviction that my consciousness (or soul) has existed through multiple lifetimes on earth, and that after my biological death, it will abide, most likely in a new incarnation. 

How this happens is beyond me; it is my life's quest to try to understand the mechanisms by which anomalous qualia memories (exomnesia events) happen and what they mean. I see these 'past-life flashbacks' which I have experienced consistently since childhood as conveying a deep significance. Strip away the Ego, and what is at the heart of experience of being alive - the Consciousness - is eternal. We are part of an eternal Whole.

If a future life on earth awaits our souls, our planet should remain comfortably habitable for our future selves - not a wasteland upon which life desperately tries to cling on, despite unbearable heat, depleted ozone layers, bombarded by radiation, living deep underground, wars for water etc. We can all imagine our own dystopian hells-on-earth. We should act to avoid such a future for our planet.

If we view humans as being conscious souls carried around within ego-driven biological bodies, we can grasp that sense of original sin, of the Gnostic duality of good and evil in one being. But if we merely view ourselves merely as constellations of trillions of atoms - matter, and nothing more than matter - then life is somehow empty, leading nowhere, with nothing beyond the grave. 

But even if you hold no belief in any spiritual afterlife, you must surely hold that your DNA - the genetic information passing through you - should be given a chance to continue to thrive after your body dies? By denying climate change, by carrying on emitting greenhouse gases as though it was of no consequence, you are spitting on your own DNA. Your children and grandchildren will have to live on a planet which is getting less comfortable to live on.

And drawing back from materialist consumerism has another massive advantage - peace of mind and improved mental health.

Materialism and environmental despoliation go hand in hand. The people devastating our planet are doing do primarily for material gain. Material gain driven by a subconscious desire to rise up the status hierarchy. It starts with the individual. Petition, lobby, yes; but more important is example. Bottom-up, not top-down. Not hectoring those who steadfastly refuse to change their habits, but showing them that there is a better way - a slower, internally richer, healthier, more satisfying way to live one's life.

I am, indeed, a slow learner; it took me almost six decades to work out what life is for, why I exist, what the purpose of it all really is. Some get it much quicker. Others get it wrong. Others still never get it at all.

De-growth should be seen in futurist terms - our deep future as a species. We've been around for the tiniest fraction of the Earth's 4.5 billion years; the earliest neolithic settlements displaying hallmarks of civilisation being around 12,000 to 13,000 years old. Our star has a billion years of life left in it, if not more. How far will we have evolved by then? Or will we have driven ourselves extinct many millions of years earlier, the result of our collective folly, egotism and greed?

Reaching out to the Infinite and Eternal is a good start; to align your prospects, your long-term good, with that of the rest of humanity, the other species of animals and plants we share our planet with, and that of the unfolding Universe.

This time seven years ago:
In praise of ELO

This time eight years ago:
Making sense of Andrzej Duda

This time 11 years ago:
Work starts on ul. Gogolińska

This time 12 years ago:
Waiting for The Man

This time 14 years ago:
The Flavour of Parallel reviewed

This time 15 years ago:
Twilight in the garden

This time 16 years ago:
Late May reflections

De-growth: a personal manifesto - Pt II

[Continues from Pt I here]

I believe there is a need to de-grow the rich bit of the rich-world economy. Unthinking consumption should be curtailed, not by diktats from on high, but from a grass-roots realisation that change begins with the individual. 

Chasing your next million bucks when you've already got so much cash that you no longer need to work – and worse – your children and grandchildren will no longer need to work - is no good for the planet. Rein it in. Focus on what's important. 

De-growth means de-materialisation; determine what your life is for; what is its purpose, what you truly want. Clue: it's not about gathering material things with the aim of showing off.

The Person That Contemplates Not

Better phrased in Polish as człowiek, który się nie zastanawia, 'the person that contemplates not', the individual that charges forward heedlessly, recklessly, following impulse and instinct, is a threat to our habitat, to our planet, to our future wellbeing, when multiplied millions of times. 

Zastanawianie się in this context means distinguishing needs from wants. I need food (healthy, unprocessed); but I don't need a gold wristwatch or other such bauble. I have all the clothes necessary for being comfortable indoors and outdoors in winter, summer, spring and autumn; as they wear through, I get repaired what can be repaired, then buy used wherever possible. If I have got branded clothes from a luxury brand, it's because I bought them second-hand at a tenth of the new price. Can I borrow a tool needed for a one-off job? If not and I have to buy a tool for regular jobs (garden tools)? I buy the best. Buy tools that can be repaired, ones with replacement blades available. Also, I buy local, paying a bit more to keep local shopkeepers in business.

I scorn 'retail therapy' – the notion that you can buy happiness through the acquisition of things. When you buy, buy with your soul. Buy things that really resonate with you, buy not to show off but to click with your deepest aesthetic sentiment. And generally, I see things as equipment – kit – which should be designed for the task in hand, from walking boots and winter coats to tools with which to create. Everything should be bought for a clearly defined purpose and not to satisfy some vague want.

Tomorrow will be greyer, drabber, slower, gentler. The aesthetics will be focused on function rather than form. I no longer wear a different freshly washed and ironed shirt every day (and I'm not alone in this.) A crumpled aesthetic is more authentic, more eco-friendly.

My way is a modest, ascetic way. It is guided by the principle that we should all have the right to strive to live in comfort, free from hunger, cold, illness, stress, unhygienic conditions - but that striving to live in luxury is morally wrong. Life should be a simple as possible, to quote Einstein, but not simpler. Life is to be enjoyed, not merely endured, but pure joy is distinct from fleeting pleasures or shallow fun.

Good business and bad business

De-growth should be seen in net terms; we should not pursue de-growth for its own sake; de-growth should not be forced on all businesses to the same extent. The good should be encouraged to crowd out the bad on the market. The more reliable, easier-to-repair, better-designed product, built to last decades not months - and so more expensive - should push out cheap, shoddy goods from the market. Firms that know they have good, solid, well-designed products – tools, building materials, electronic devices etc - should fight for market share. Bespoke clothing, made to last a lifetime, should displace fast fashion that changes every season. 

I hope that AI will have a similar impact on the service sector - killing off bullshit jobs that offer no sense of purpose to the employee, should be supplanted by AI systems, freeing up time for people to learn, to create, to help, to teach – to fulfil their potential as human beings. I look forward to technology giving us control over the problem of balancing time and money. We need to support good businesses with our custom, and shun bad businesses that care not for our long-term wellbeing.

De-grow your wheels

After my daughter was born in 1993, I decided to buy a smaller, less powerful car. And so my two-litre hot hatchback was traded for a one-litre Nissan Micra, a move made precisely when most folk would see the addition to the family as an excuse for a bigger car. A car the size of a Micra proved big enough to stow all things needed for a baby. It served for 20 years, it did for a family unit with two small children, it ran valiantly around Poland, from the mountains to the sea, it was the daily commute until 2009 (in the days when I still considered driving to work somehow acceptable), until finally the cost of repair became uneconomic. And once gone, in 2013, children grown up, I felt no need to replace it with another car. No hire-purchase instalments, no insurance, no service or maintenance, no parking fees, no fuel costs. 

Without a car, I became wealthier. And healthier. How many daily drivers can boast 11,000-plus paces walked a day, every day, for ten years? I have cash, but will never part with it for car ownership. A car can be hired, a taxi taken, a ride shared. But owning a car makes no sense to me.

The pandemic and the internet have changed geography forever. I no longer need to be close to my office; I work remotely most of the time and travel to town by train once or twice a week on average. I chose my rural location carefully – rapid access into Warsaw on a modernised main line was a crucial element when I decided to buy my house in Jakubowizna in 2017.

Cottagecore 

Central to my de-growth lifestyle is where I live – in a small house on a large (for a house) plot of land. The cost of owning and maintaining such a house is minimal – over the past 12 months, the sum total spent on power, water and property tax was less than 750 złotys (£145) - for the whole year! Granted, I spent a lot up front on solar panels, offset to a degree by a generous cash subsidy from the state. But that's paid, from now on, I'm in credit. Travel to and from central Warsaw with my senior travel card is 11.40 złotys (£2) a day. Watching carefully what I eat (no confectionery, biscuits, cakes, desserts, the occasional salt-snack) I can budget for 35 zlotys a day (around £6) for food and drink (this excludes entertainment).

My aesthetics of land are summed up in the phrase "let it grow"; let flowers blossom; trim to the minimum, use no chemicals, no petrol-powered tools (lawn mower, strimmer, rotavator or leaf-blower). Lawns -–slicing grass leaves to an inch above the surface is bad for the environment. Leave the dandelions to flower, to attract pollinators. A garden full of forget-me-nots on a sun-dappled evening in late April and early May brings delight to the soul, as is a garden full of goldenrod in flower on a late-summer morning. Bees and butterflies are wonderful creatures to co-exist with. A blade of grass left to grow to eight inches photosynthesises eight times as much CO₂ into O₂ as one shorn to an inch. 

I have an acre of land; I feel a strong sense of responsibility for it, to the million or so plants, the insects, the birds – stewardship of my acre is important to me. Around me sprayed, manicured orchards are mass-producing visually perfect apples for the supermarkets - my apples, however, are unsprayed, untainted by two-stroke or diesel fumes; my cider is 100% organic - no added sugar, no added yeast, no sulphites, unpasteurised. And not for sale.

And so my land gives me great joy, a purpose, an aesthetic, a sense of belonging - of atavistic return to the Mazovian soil (my paternal grandmother hailed from Mogielnica, some 20 miles from here). 

"But we can't all retreat to the land," you will say. Take away mountains, deserts and icy wastes, and there's enough hospitable land on this planet for every human being to have two acres.

Aesthetics of self - I keep myself clean, daily shower and weekly beard-trim and head-shave - but adorn myself with no jewellery, not even a watch; wear no brands to denote status in the hierarchy. I strive to stand outside of, and above, the hierarchical system – it belongs to less-evolved primates. Understand your biology, and rise above it has long one of my guiding slogans.

De-growth and health 

Running off to the doc's every time something ails you, in the anticipation of pills or creams to make it better, is not always the best remedy. For me, healthy living is being continually aware of your health status, wanting to be healthy, and being immensely grateful for being so. The feedback loop is all-important here. Grateful-happy-healthy-grateful-happy-healthy-grateful. Never becoming complacent about health, never taking health for granted – but not wallowing in hypochondria or self-pity.

Seek joy in personal growth, in learning, in understanding – not in the aimless pursuit of stuff. In Part III, I shall explain how in my worldview, de-growth dovetails with human spirituality.

This time last year:
Old signs in Wrocław and Gliwice

This time two years ago:
Are aliens good or bad?

This time three years ago:
Thoughts - trains set in motion

This time five years ago:
Great crested grebes and swans hatch

This time seven years ago:
Jeziorki birds in the late May sunshine

This time eight years ago:
Making sense of Andrzej Duda's win

This time nine years ago:
Call it what it is: Okęcie
[UPDATE 2023: it's still called 'Okęcie' by most Varsovians]

This time ten years ago:
Three stations in need of repair

This time 11 years ago
Late evening, Śródmieście

This time 12 years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time 13 years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time 14 years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time

De-growth: a personal manifesto - Pt I

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout de-growth, de-growth's a popular word... [Below: Warsaw graffiti, photo taken in early 2016]

Our pursuit of perpetual economic growth is a major cause of climate change and social dissatisfaction. Businesses are expected by their leaders and shareholders to produce more goods, to offer more services, to increase revenues and profits; consumers are expected to consume more, to work harder to earn more money to buy more things; businesses and individuals are expected to pay more taxes so that governments can spend more and more on their countries' voters. The pressure to produce more profits for shareholders means more pressure on costs; the CEOs who can push down those costs (by capping pay or outsourcing) get rewarded, wealth rises to the wealthy.

Now, increased efficiencies have brought incomparable improvements in living standards over the past century. We own more things than ever did before; we travel farther and more frequently than ever before; we use up more of the Earth's non-renewable resources faster than ever before; and there are more of us than ever before. 

But now it is clear that this constant growth has come at a price - anthropogenic climate change, caused by greenhouse-gas emissions inexorably driving up average global temperature, leading to extreme weather events of increasing regularity and intensity. We may argue about the extent of the threat, but we cannot deny it.

Having reached a comfortable standard of living, having freed itself of want, the rich world now should draw back from the mad gallop for material possessions. For its own long-term good! We - the two billion inhabitants of the rich world - are all responsible. And we should reflect upon our own responsibility to stop climate change from becoming a runaway disaster from which there's no way back.

As a species, we need to slow down, we need to get off this escalating spiral of materialism. More and more politicians, ecologists and commentators are pointing to de-growth as the answer. Once you've personally reached comfort level, once you are truly independent financially - stop, think, realign your priorities.

I'm all for de-growth, but with one large and absolute caveat. De-growth should never be imposed top-down. A wealthy elite should not be preaching de-growth on poorer people struggling to get by. Instead, it should spread as a new cultural norm, an aesthetic, a meme, an idea that people adopt because they can see the sense, because they want to. It's something for me, something I choose to buy into.

SUV owner/drivers (much as I dislike them) should not become the new kulaks - scapegoated, hounded, then persecuted. In the USSR, the definition of 'kulak' soon expanded to mean "anyone owning slightly more than me". I can foresee a 'green Stalin' and his commissars barking out orders to expropriate all luxury goods - this is no good for humanity. Remember Pol Pot and the Cambodian genocide carried out in the name of making Cambodia a self-sufficient agrarian socialist society. Between 1975 and 1979, it resulted in the deaths of around 1.8m people, nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population. Environmental protection cannot be conducted by coercion.

An ideal that becomes perverted and twisted back upon itself, imposed by a tyrant, destroying people it claims to be acting on behalf of, cannot be right. The hierarchical model is bad - just look at any other country in which one man has wrested total power for himself - North Korea, Russia, communist China.

De-growth should be led by example, not "do as I say, don't do as I do." The sight of fleets of private jets at Davos each January, where the global elite gather to wring their hands about global warming, makes me sick. Inflated egos, showing off to one another, entitled billionaire to entitled billionaire.

De-growth must come from within the conscience of the individual consumer. When I say 'consumer', I mean someone who works, spends and votes, and uses their labour, money and vote consciously to steer their personal direction of travel in a wiser direction. Multiply by a couple of million influencers, and a couple of billion might just follow.

But left to our own devices, have we the will to shape our own future?

Part II: my own recipe for de-growth here.

This time last year:
Start Late, Finish Late - more on the Speed of Life

This time seven years ago:
Swans' way

This time eight years ago:
Sam Smith, Shepherd Neame and the Routemaster bus

This time 10 years ago:
Rainy night in Jeziorki - no flood this time!

This time 11 years ago:
Wide-angle under Pl. Wilsona

This time 12 years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time 13 years ago:
Questions about our biology and spirituality

This time 14 years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time 15 years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time

Czachówek Wschodni and its new raised platform

Last summer there was a bit of a hoo-hah when it emerged that the new trains that Koleje Mazowieckie had bought (with EU regional funds) could not actually be used to serve the line to Góra Kalwaria because the platform there, and at the intermediary station stop, Czachówek Wschodni, were too low.

The platforms, at the same level as the railhead, made it impossible for those with impaired mobility to get on or off the new-generation trains, FLIRTs, Impluses or Elfs (even though Elf = Electric Low Floor). A hurried solution was suggested - running new trains on to Czachówek Południowy, and from there a shuttle service using the old rolling stock (modernised EN57s) to Góra Kalwaria. After interventions from local politicians, PKP PLK came up with a better solution - raise the platforms at the two stations. Not for the full length, only enough for a four-car unit. 

Work was completed in March, and now the new rolling stock serves passengers all the way through from Góra Kalwaria direct to Warsaw and back. 

I went to revisit Czachówek Wschodni. [Last summer's trip related here.] One thing struck me - the work was done on a budget - raise the platform level from 30cm to 55cm and do not do one hand's turn more than that. The old paving slabs were re-used (good!) and new platform edges built up to the statutory level. No new signage (about more anon).

Below: approaching the island platform from the north. Note the yellow barrier; to the right, the old platform level, closed off to passengers. To the left, a ramp sloping gently up to the height of the new platform.

Below: seen from the southern side of the tracks, a Warsaw-bound FLIRT unit pulls away from Czachówek Wschodni station. From this side, there is no signage whatsoever referring to the station, even the 'do not cross the tracks/no trespassing' signs that were once here have been removed. It may be that some day a Park+Ride will be established here, tempting local commuters to take the train to Piaseczno and Warsaw. One thing is more likely, the entire Skierniewice-Łuków line is up for modernisation, which is why the bare minimum has been spent on the two passenger stations along its length.

Below: a former East German BR232 diesel loco (made in the USSR) hauls a coal train through Czachówek Wschodni. Privately operated by CTL Logistics. Note the platform surface; the central part is made of the old paving slabs, to either side, with regulation yellow line, the new surfaces.

Below: a real shocker. To the uninitiated, the 'Private Terrain Entry Prohibited' sign looks like it applies to the one and only official path from the street to the station. There is literally no other sign around here. Nothing to tell anyone that there is a railway station beyond (what I gather) this point, a station from which hourly trains run into Warsaw. It is scandalous that this misleading sign exists here; it is even more scandalous that there's no big white-on-blue signage as found outside every other PKP station across the land. And of course, there's no mention of the station at the nearby bus loop, a mere two-minute walk away, where the local L30 bus route from Góra Kalwaria terminates.

Below: old level and new - photo taken from the eastern end of the (old) platform. In the distance, a barrier, and a rise up to the new platform level, which is about half of the old platform's original length.

Below: a curious Marian shrine in the village of Czarny Las, in the form of a cylindrical pillar. Looks more like a Napoleonic war memorial than what one expects from local devotions.

Below: photo taken looking east along the Skierniewice-Łuków line, from what was the platform of the no-longer existent Czachówek Środkowy station, towards Czachówek Wschodni. Standing waiting for a signal is the same coal train I snapped earlier.

Below: photo taken from Czachówek Górny of a Warsaw-bound FLIRT set having come off the spur linking the Skierniewice-Łuków line to the main Warsaw-Radom line. 

Below: the way things were at Góra Kalwaria, shortly after passenger services from Warsaw were reinstated - the platform was too low - and too short.

Below: (bonus shot) the old bridge over the river Czarna, between Czachówek Południowy and Sułkowice, has been demolished and a new one is being built, and, I presume, new asphalt will be laid on either side of the bridge improving local road infrastructure around here, allowing mud-free access to the village of Ławki from Sułkowice at last. [See here how it looked a few months ago.]

As I wrote last year, there are three Czachówek stations (Czachówek Górny, Czachówek Południowy and Czachówek Wschodni - and none of them are in Czachówek. Górny is located in Bronisławów, Południowy is in Gabryelin, and Wschodni in Czarny Las. And, as I mentioned above, there was a fourth Czachówek, Środkowy (demolished in 2013, serving passengers until 2001).

Postscript 25 May: I visited Czachówek Wschodni at the weekend; travelling into town today I saw a Góra Kalwaria train passing through W-wa Młynów. To my surprise, it was composed of two five-car units - way too long for the platforms at Czachówek Wschodni and Góra Kalwaria. So on my way from town, I caught a Góra Kalwaria train to see what was going on... At Zalesie Górne, the train conductor boarded the rear unit and walked through it's length, asking every passenger to where they were going. Everyone travelling beyond Ustanówek was asked to move to the front unit. I asked the conductor why - he explained that the new, raised, platforms at Czachówek Wschodni and Góra Kalwaria were too short for a ten-car set, so the rear five-car unit needed to be emptied of passengers before the train turned off the main line south of Ustanówek. The whole procedure suggests to me a short-term remedy - my hope is that one day before too long then entire Skierniewice-Łuków line will be modernised, and that passenger trains will return to the whole line, not just serving two stations along its length.

Below: Looking south from the platform at Ustanówek towards the northern apex of the Czachówek diamond. To the left the train I'd travelled on (a FLIRT), waiting for the spur to the Skierniewice-Łuków line to clear, to its right, a Warsaw-bound train (an Impuls) that is joining the main line on its way from Góra Kalwaria. Photo taken at the long end of my Nikon Coolpix P900's zoom.

This time last year:

S7 extension progress

This time two years ago:

Town and country

This time three years ago:
Covid and economy recovery

This time four years ago:
Electric cars for hire by the minute
(but a memory now!)

This time seven years ago:
Mszczonów - another railway junction

This time 11 years ago:
The Devil is in Doubt - short story, part I

This time 12 years ago:
Stormclouds are raging all around my door

This time 13 years ago:
Floods endanger Warsaw

This time 14 years ago:
Coal line rarity

Ego - self-consciousness - pure consciousness

Untroubled by the external world, I move about my personal realm, my acre, in a state of pure consciousness. I notice, I observe, I wonder, I ponder. Every now and then, I receive a small shock when seeing my reflection in a glass surface which will remind me of the body I'm in.

In social circumstances, the ego kicks in. "What story do I tell?" You have to be able to tell compelling stories - about anything, business, economics, science, art, the human condition, to be relevant to others. No one wants to listen to a dullard or a bore. To tell a story, you need to project, to profess, to be armed with a thousand and one rhetorical devices. Start 'umming' and 'ahhing' indecisively and your listener(s) switch off.

But without listeners, without social interaction, I become pure me. Unconcerned about physical appearance when in my own space, all is well. However, I am concerned about physical fitness; to have a fit body to carry around my consciousness longer, so as to gain in wisdom. In solitude, there is no danger of faux pas, of embarrassment, of inadvertently hurting or being hurt. Of misreading others' intentions or emotions.

I woke last night at 01:20 for a wee. In the darkness, I became aware of the outline of my occipital orbits, my cheekbones and the shape of my nose, as perceived from within, by my eyes. A consciousness within a body, a 65-year-old one, albeit one in good shape [mustn't ever be complacent!] in the darkness, a frame of reference. Looking out, from within. No ego, but self-consciousness...

Suddenly I am at primary school, first year juniors, awkward and isolated. As a child I had a pronounced squint - rectified with an operation at Moorfields Eye Clinic at the age of nine. Until then, I wore small, round NHS glasses, sometimes with the right lens taped over in the belief that this would make my left, 'lazy', eye do what it was meant to do. This negatively affected my social life at school, something I only realised after the successful operation, when, without glasses, I quickly gained acceptance among my classmates. Maybe this when the ego awoke, leading the charge, going on later to win student elections, a splendid and popular fellow. But was it really me?

Self-consciousness (as opposed to self-awareness) is a preoccupation with oneself, associated with shyness or narcissism, its polar opposite. I don't like having to think what other people (in particular strangers) think of me, preferring to move through the world unnoticed. Trying to blend in, to look 'normal'. To see, but not be seen. 

As one ages, the ego subsides, pure consciousness kicks in. Intuition guides understanding. Competitiveness, showing off, comparing oneself to others, are all ultimately futile forms of behaviour. I feel best being my consciousness - and maybe this is why one gets to feel happier as one ages - the fading of the ego and its sense of entitlement.

This time four years ago:
The Day the Forecasters Got It Wrong

This time five years ago:
Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time

This time nine years ago:
W-wa Wola became W-wa Zachodnia Platform 8 two years ago today 

This time ten years ago:
From yellow to white - dandelions go to seed

This time 11 years ago:
The good topiarist

This time 13 years ago:
Wettest. May. Ever.

This time 15 years ago:
Blackpool-in-the-Tatras
[My last visit to Zakopane - good riddance to the place]