The cool kids walk to school

Rarely do I talk about anything political or motivated on this blog because it's my intention to keep it solely about the music. People are wondering though, how is it possible that I can find enough hours in the day to listen to all the music I'm constantly on the hunt for? Part of it is being unemployed. The other big thing is public transport.

I haven't owned a car in 5 years although I do use my parent's one but for the most part it's trains, buses and my own two legs. Being 15 minutes away from the nearest bus stop and 20 to the nearest train station makes for a lot of empty space to fill in with music, glorious music. In the last 5 years, I've learned to get away with not having a car. I intentionally chose apartments close to my place of work so that I could walk everyday rather than drive. I shopped less because I knew I had to carry all that stuff back to the house. Biggest of all, I think I reduced the amount of carbon I produced in a year by about half. That's maybe 2 or 3 tonnes of carbon a year for really not that much effort.

Now that's where the beauty lies. It's daunting to make the switch I know and it's not possible for a lot of people and I'm not asking for people to run away to the hills to live out their lives hugging trees and smoking pot. I love my tech gadgets like this nice plastic and aluminum laptop I'm typing on just like the next guy in the street. All I'm saying is with a slight modification in lifestyle, one can make a difference. To be honest, it's not that noticeable a difference in an everyday environmental sense, the smog won't suddenly clear up and rainbows appear but the difference it makes to how you live life is, on the other hand, great. You walk more. Talk more (to random strangers of course!). Have a pace of life where you dictate the terms, not the other way around.

Lastly, it all comes back to the music. So much time to just tune in and really listen. Anything that gives me more time to rock out is good thing.

Read more at www.worldcarfree.net (World Car Free Day was an idea started by Adbusters, a magazine with roots in the punk scene in Vancouver, Canada).

Save some trees at www.coolearth.org (tree hugging for urban hipsters).