Hungary

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Which country has a voracious appetite?  Hungary!  

That was pretty much the extent of my knowledge of Hungary before this trip. I didn’t do a lot of research, and Hungary wasn't even one of the places I’d have mentioned if you asked me where I was headed. But I’ve been in Budapest for four days. It’s a complex, pleasantly messy chaos, oddly relaxed. I’ve noticed throughout the city that there are a large number of sculptures of old men reclining on chairs and sofas. This is not a motif I’m familiar with. I wonder, does it represent the attitude of the city? I thought they were supposed to be Hungary? Did they already eat?

Budapest straddles the Danube. In the late 1800’s it underwent a complete transformation. An infusion of wealth built cathedrals and bridges, palaces and parks. The Parliament building (pictured above) is an extraordinary exercise in grandiosity. But there must be at least half a dozen buildings here of which any one of them would be the most famous landmark in the city were it in Houston.  

I was feeling a bit mopey yesterday. My legs were sore, bored with the effort of alternating my feet one in front of the other. So I rented them some tires. Bicycles are wonderful. Immediately, I was invigorated. The bike was a bit unsteady, difficult to pedal and awkward to steer, but I wobbled through the city with joie de vivre, or the Hungarian equivalent, something like "contentment de sofa.”  

Bicycles are uniquely privileged in Budapest. They ride on streets and sidewalks, through parks and plazas, and AGAINST one way traffic, or at least mine did…   No seriously, the one way street signs literally say, “Except bicycles." Someone in Budapest clearly wants to piss off drivers. The city doesn't actually have significant cycling infrastructure, but somebody spent a lot of money on paint and stencils to apply images of bikes directly to the pavement of virtually every street, even the busy avenues crowded with buses and trams. Presumably the value of these images is that when you’re gored by a taxi, bleeding on the curb, your suffering may be somewhat alleviated by sensations of righteous indignation.  

I don’t know why bicycling where I really probably haven’t any business makes me so happy, but I survived, and I feel more alive because of it (what doesn’t kill you, and all that). I did earn one vigorous honk. It turns out that the lights at many pedestrian/bicycle crossings only get you half way across the street. Once you reach the median you’re supposed to be guided by the second light on the other side. That concept caught me by surprise. However, I did not make the same mistake twice, and I now know that honks are pretty good at reinforcing learning. I’m considering bringing a horn to my logic classes.  

Speaking of vehicles with dubious claim to the public square, I witnessed a spectacular collision between two of those annoying electric scooters. Mainly they’re annoying because I can’t get my account to work here in Budapest so that I can use one. I actually played with one in Poland, but you couldn’t ride it in the main pedestrian areas! No fun. Anyway, on a sidewalk near the zoo, a scooter raced toward me. Just as it got near, a second darted around me from behind. The two collided head on, both riders tumbling to the ground. I stopped to render aid, but they claimed to be uninterested in philosophical insight. Fortunately, they seemed more annoyed than injured. 

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Browsing a website on Hungarian food, I read that Hungary is the world capital of cake! It’s unclear to me who decides these things, but I’ve kept my eyes open.  I’m thinking someone here ought to be able to answer my questions about the nature of cake. Initially my hopes were met with disappointment. In fact, there is a type of ice cream cone made of baked dough twisted around a spool; it’s kind of like a sugary pie crust, conically shaped. It's all the rage. I fell for the gimmick and tried one in Prague; they were OK. But here’s the thing: In Czechia and Poland these cones went by some unpronounceable name beginning with a TZ; here in Budapest they call them Chimney CAKES. If I didn’t know better, I would say they’re doing this just to upset me. But one should never infer negative intent unnecessarily; it’s probably just friendly teasing.  

Having nearly given up on great Hungarian cake, this morning I stumbled across a cafe with an extraordinary display of meticulously decorated multi-layered confections. CAKE! Unmistakeable, authentic CAKE. Because it was pretty, I ordered a small square of an exquisite raspberry/vanilla topped with pomegranate and white chocolate twirls. Then I asked to speak with the resident philosopher of cake. They explained to me that there was no philosopher. They claimed that they made cake from pure inspiration (and recipes).  They expressed skepticism that there even exists a true essence of cake, and argued that it may be possible to use the term in different contexts for different purposes. They pointed to a sofa in the corner, and suggested I relax.  

I am pondering their claims. I am worried that their explanations make too much sense, and I know that existence doesn’t make sense. Besides, their sofa wasn’t that comfortable.

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Travel can offer an extraordinary encounter with freedom, but there’s an interesting contradiction involved. I like it most when I don’t know exactly where I’m going, or what I’ll find when I get there, however, I want to maximize my feeling of agency. I want to be surprised, but I want to be in charge. Brings to mind a certain cliche about the having and eating of some familiar, but poorly defined confection.  

Fortunately, motorcycles and bicycles facilitate exactly this contradictory goal.  They offer the sensation that I am in control of when and where and how I move. They release me from reliance on buses, trams and trains, and simultaneously they multiply the opportunities for surprise and chance encounters, and exposure to profound unknowing.

When you’re home, you’re immersed in the familiar. You know the shelf at the local food museum on which they stock the good mustard, you know the menus at the restaurants, you know all the words on all the signs, you know the dangers and how to avoid them. But traveling, you're immersed in unknowing. Ignorance is liberating. Familiarity creates habit, habit obliterates freedom. Unknowing reveals it.

If you’ve looked at the map, you may have noticed that the Ukrainian border looms on the horizon. I’ve come within 75 miles. I’m sure it’s the worst possible human impulse that makes me want to visit. And yes, apparently you can. I went so far as to Google it.  Still, I could find no way to justify a visit. War tourism? I can’t do it. But as I pondered the thought I wondered, “Is there anything at all that I could do for Ukraine?” There is a war in progress right now, in a region nearly identical to the one in which I’m sitting. It’s not truly possible for me to imagine war. Contemporary human beings thrust together in a convulsion of devastation. Bombs dropping around my house in Houston? I have a hard enough time with freezes and storms, bombs?  

But is there ANYTHING I could do?  For a few moments I am made dizzy in a confrontation with freedom. Relative to war, motorcycle travel is as familiar to me as the age spot on the back of my left hand. I know how motorcycle travel works. My travel behavior is nearly as deeply entrenched as my routines at home by comparison to this: Going to Ukraine to join a cause. I COULD do it; there is no insurmountable barrier that prevents it. No one would want me to fight, but there are infinitely many tasks that need attention in war. I COULD help. It would be a complete break in my reality; a path ahead more completely new and unknown than any road I will ever ride. For a few fleeting moments I glimpse the possibility.

I imagine that this is the sort of moment with which the existentialists were smitten. From Kierkegaard to Sartre, they emphasize moments of choice, the either/or confronting us with the authentic ability to determine ourselves. Such confrontations with choice reveal that we’re not merely cogs in the grand device, not merely products of an algorithm, not incapable of creating and recreating our SELVES.  

Or is it an illusion?  

Not infrequently, riding mountain roads, I am keenly aware of how easily one might choose death. All it would take is a flick of the wrist. And yet, I’m not CERTAIN that I’m free to do that. I can conjure the image of choosing to drive off a mountain, but I’m dubious that I can conjure the actual beliefs which would induce the relevant muscle movements. In fact, it’s pretty clear that we are NOT in control of all of our beliefs. For instance, I cannot make myself believe that 2+3=7. I can say the words, I can imagine elaborate thought experiments in which the words or symbols are manipulated to alter their meanings, but I do not think that I can literally believe that the quantity II put together with the quantity III yields the quantity IIIIIII.  Similarly, I suspect I cannot create the beliefs which would allow me to intentionally hit pedestrians in a crosswalk, or to to throw myself into the abyss riding off a mountain.  

I thought it was me who chose the raspberry/vanilla cake this morning. Now I question even that. It was pretty, and it was raspberry; all the others were chocolate. How could I have chosen otherwise? And going to Ukraine to immerse myself in a cause? A fantasy, a delusion, laughable if not so stupid! And yet, it happens. People leap. And I’m on a motorcycle in Hungary. Does that prove nothing?  

Motorcycles do drive off mountains. A bit of loose gravel, a powerful gust of wind, a momentary lack of concentration, an unexpected inversion in one’s assessment of the value of life; are any of these “causes” different one from another? And how should we thin of them? Random events? Free play in the gears of reality? Inevitable outcomes in the cosmic circus?  

This is philosophy 101, right? The problem of freewill. But the deeper concern is that we imagine there’s an answer.  Either we are free or we’re not.  And surely, God knows. Or science knows. Or science WILL know, eventually. Or at least, science COULD know if we had access to all the data about all of existence from the moment of the big bang. Or at least…  But what if even the difference between free and unfree doesn’t really make sense?

In the face of all this unknowing you would have me sit on the couch!?  No fucking way; I’m plunging in. I’m Hungary. Cake, please.