A fresh start

I woke up today half an hour before the alarm was supposed to ring. Had gone to sleep avoiding the urge to look for physical exercise, after an entire day studying at home. I was never the sports type, but as I’m growing old I’m finding more and more that my body needs a similar amount of movement as my mind – else, I begin to float off ground, getting disconnected with the world and with myself.

So I got out of bed, got my things, got my bike and went swimming. In the way, I had this funny thought: bicycles are still seen by the majority of people as a weekends’ hobby or as a sport. And there I was, using my bike as the transportation method to get to the place where I would do some actual sport.

I seldom use my bike as a sports method. It’s one of the beautiful things about riding, that you are exercising while getting to the place where you are going. I started using bicycles solely as transportation, and that’s probably the reason I still use it daily (knowing myself, if I used it only as a hobby and sport, I would ride just one ow two times per week). As I cross the city, distances matter less and less each day, and now I’m getting to other cities as well.

But as I started this this method of transportation, a lot changed in my life. When I still depended on a car (and public transportation), I wanted to get out of town, to live in the country. I actually became member of an ecovillage to realize that planned dream. But my bike changed my relation with Porto Alegre, as I started to feel the city in other, more enjoyable manner. That plan was postponed to days yet to come, when I’ll be an older man. Now I plan to ride through Latin America, maybe the world.

And, as I started to go to Porto Alegre’s monthly Critical Mass two years ago, I got in touch with some of the local cycling community. Then riding my bike became the major instrument to try and change the city itself. That transformation in my personal relationship with Porto Alegre announced to me the possibility to create new urban systems that could focus more on community integration and environmental care than on cars and individualism.

It’s been a while since I wanted to start a blog about the changes that are (and aren’t) happening around here. And since a couple of months after the February 2011 Critical Mass run over, I wanted to share some personal opinions about how this terrible incident influenced things, as well as the many struggles being fought and visibilities being made possible from the flow of events after that. That’s the first inspiration of this blog, and the main reason why I’m writing in English is to get broader accessibility.

The second inspiration comes from my field of studies, and this one has struck me just this morning. I’m starting the second year of a post-graduation on social psychology, and I’m researching public policies for youth. The term “public policies”, at least in Brazil, is exclusively connected with official, estate programs. And it is in one of those, run by a local NGO, that I’m researching.

But this association of the term – as well as the common practice that makes academic research fall inside the realm of what is socially considered as professional activities (activities that could be translated in remunerated labor) – bothers me greatly. After all, I’m following Hannah Arendt’s concept of politics, when she states it as action in the public field. And for that matter, all that we are trying to accomplish here, so connected with acts throughout the world, should be possible to be considered as legitimate “public policies”. Of the best sort, actually: policies made for the people, by the people. And to research in this field, and to intervene in it, could be considered the action of a social psychologist – as well as a citizen and a human being.

I know it offers ground to talks about how our societies are structured, how we organize ourselves and the so called “representative form of government”. I don’t know if we are going to get there directly, but at least as this blog is concerned, I imagine we will be riding through this path all the time.

And so, here is where we not so much start as keep going. And I can’t imagine a better beginning, as a fresh start after a long ride, than to get connected with the good intentions that made we get to the streets and share so much in such a great global movement. Tomorrow may be muddy, and maybe we will get sweaty or wet from the rain; but we will be as happy as children which can actually play on the streets and meet and know each other.

Peace.