traffic

the movement of people.

actions.
involvement.
change.

where i am right now, sitting in a quiet copy center in the middle of western missouri making thousands of copies on pink and blue paper and hole-punching them = low traffic. if two people walk into the shop today, that'll be above average.

so i was thinking, during lunch, about the effects of high- vs low-traffic on a place. or a person. or anything.

like carpet. (incidentally, i was just listening to a band called Inspiral Carpets. Incidentally, there is also a band called Traffic, also english.)

carpets with less traffic don't get as worn out as fast as highly trafficked carpets. that is, unless you take special care of them. in fact, high traffic demands higher maintenance. roads with less traffic aren't as developed as your average six-lane freeway. the road i live on is narrow and full of roadkill. we don't even have a paved driveway.

okay, enough about carpets and roads. traffic means people. whether it's information or drugs or just plain socializing, trafficking involves conscious action. yeah, i guess you could talk about deer crossings and bird migrations, but let's not get into that.

people.

every day i drive up and down a lonely, narrow, roadkill-littered road to work in the middle of nowhere. even my numerous colleagues hardly constitute high traffic. it's a slow-paced sort of existence. will that mean, ultimately, less wear and tear on me and my scraped-together life?

everyday i cater to the design quandaries of the locals: dear mrs edwards with her endless collection of hundred-year-old photographs, the boarding school in the next county that uses those endless copies of pink and blue forms, and endlessly streaming swarms of brides-to-be and their mothers who need invitations, programs, cards, etc etc etc.

despite my overuse of the word 'endless,' it really is slow. busy, but very relaxed.

things could be so different.