Portland To Portland

Reflections on the American Infrastructure

The Covered Wagon

The epiphany, I suspect, can be credited to just the right ratio of caffeine, Adderall, and McGriddle—combined with the high-intensity atmosphere I found myself in while pulling the covered wagon through Chicago during morning rush hour. The “covered wagon” was the teardrop trailer I had purchased to serve both as a shelter from the elements and as a means to transport my earthly possessions on my trip from Portland to Portland. As I traveled down the six-lane freeway, I watched the cars bob and weave around me, each piloted by a lone occupant—each one clearly behind schedule.

I wondered if any of them, like myself, were questioning the validity of the artificial environment that surrounded us: the infrastructure on which we were traveling, and the purpose of their journey.

The Industrial Question

Throughout the trip, I sought solace in national parks while searching for answers to the questions that had first driven me to a career in Industrial Design. To what extent have the products of industry been conceived with regard to long-term human evolution? How much was created merely to fuel the ego and wallet of a few men and their progeny? How much consideration was ever given to the social, geopolitical, and environmental consequences of a product’s conception?

Why do I feel most alive with only the essentials for survival—confined to what I can carry on my back while hiking through undisturbed natural environments? Why do I feel only dissonance when surrounded by the corporate and fossil-fuel infrastructure that so dominates the American landscape? Is our energy-demanding civilization truly a manifestation of divine mandate—or is it all just the result of wishful thinking and pure, unadulterated hubris?

Revelation on the Freeway

It was in that moment—on a bustling Chicago freeway—that I realized nothing around me was the result of a grand master plan for humanity. The intelligent design I experienced in the national parks had not been utilized in the creation of the environment in which I found myself, but buried beneath it.

Conduct not driven by a moral code of equality for all life and respect for ecological law will ultimately manifest as the destruction of divine creation. It was then that I made the conscious decision to trust the intuition within my DNA—gifted by my ancestors—and to reject the culture I was born into.

It has become imperative that we recognize the ills of a society based on competition and envision a model founded on collaboration if we are to continue evolving on a planet with finite resources. At that point, my journey east from Oregon to Maine became a symbolic reversal of the settlers’ westward expansion—a counter-migration to the self-proclaimed divine mandate that once justified conquest. Their belief in dominion over nature—and over all other cultures they would encounter—had birthed the very landscape of alienation I was now traversing.

The Lost Wilderness

Yet I found myself envying those early settlers in their wagon trains—for the wilderness they encountered, and the hope that drove them forward. Their lives were hard by modern standards, yet I am certain they were filled with wonder at the boundless, untouched land, and the endless variety of flora and fauna that made them feel connected to something greater than themselves.

My experience was something else entirely. What I witnessed was an endless parade of metal, rubber, plastic, and glass—vehicles traveling on blood-stained asphalt, cutting through ecosystems and migratory routes lined with roadkill in various stages of decay.

There was no reprieve from the repeating corporate monuments—the “winners” of the grand game of Monopoly—and their products of enterprise in the form of fast-food chains, big-box stores, and service stations. There was no access to the unique and vital ecosystems that once thrived beneath the pavement, no open land beyond the gates and fences, no stream to drink from, no game to hunt, no berries to pick. No stars above the glow of perpetual illumination. No peace attainable by moving at a human speed through the open air.

A Missed Opportunity for Wisdom

It is regrettable that the pilgrims did not take greater interest in the cultures and rituals of the native tribes they met along the way—that their quest for a new life was not also a quest to amend their own oppressive culture. After all, was it not the class system and inequality that drove them from their ancestral home?

Imagine what they might have learned had they made an effort to understand the indigenous social customs and land-use practices of those who evolved within—and as part of—the ecosystems they sought to occupy. If encounters with indigenous tribes had been met with a genuine desire for cultural exchange and amalgamation, would we still be facing ecological collapse today?

Perhaps if they had resisted prejudice and sought human commonality—if they had listened with open hearts, smoked the peace pipe—they might have remembered that all culture is secondary to universal human kinship: a truth understood at birth but buried beneath the weight of indoctrination.

Had the westward-bound pilgrims envisioned my experience traveling east, would they have chosen collaboration over conquest? More importantly—what will be the experience of the future traveler if we do not question the fallacy of our dominion over nature and not manifest a system of conduct through homage and utility of devine creation?