Originally Posted by [165]
wow - all this over people who just deliver packages on a bike. I have never heard it described in this manner by people I worked with or currently know who are messengers.
chalk it up to riding the wave.
sometimes a bike messenger is just a person trying to make a living - not a precursor to some half-assed metaphysics extrapolation.
(hopefully a tshirt printed with this article will soon be available for sale at independent skate shops around the US!)
messengering, as both those who've done it and those who've only imagined it know, is very different than most other jobs...you've never heard it described in this manner? sorry, but that half-assed metaphysics extrapolation you talk about is precisely connected to... "a person trying to make a living"...'s ABOUT a person trying to make a living (and perhaps being a bit introspective about the ever complex world they work in). did those people you speak of not have any relation to the stuff the blogger posted? no body aches? no relationship to dispatcher? no sense of their movement as an economic route? no knowledge of the subtleties of riding diff aves? no sense of freedom despite hardships?
people write about all sorts of stuff that people do and jobs that people have. they talk and write about life in general, their environment, how it makes them feel, etc.
I hope these cynical responses are because this is another post about messengering on a fixed forum that would rather not hear the artistic grandeur of such a ****ty job, and NOT because you all cannot relate to the blogger's need to express something about an experience that questioned the rigidity and order of the world around him (note: my interpertation).
I've only mess'ed for a few weeks in my life, and have had a fair share of conversations with other messengers that in some way or another touched on most references in the blog, plus much more (from God, the system, to *****es, and beyond)...and those were unprovoked on my part. messengers don't live life just to be messengers, and are very diverse in behavior, views, etc. Most messengers don't make a career out of it. Messengering is a part of their life (for however short or however long), and to appreciate the experience for what it is is something that I bet many of these people can do in some way or another. No, they may not look at the experience in the same way as the OP blogger, but stop this shiet about messengers not thinking about anything and just "riding their bike to make money" ...fuk outta here...they are living LIFE to make money and making money to live LIFE... I'll take the metaphysics...leave 'em with me if you don't want em