Reconfiguring our State

Chile Día 11: Puyuhuapi loop (33km)

“The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.”

Murray Bookchin

Perhaps the most obvious motivation for this trip is the very human need for a break. From both our work, and our nation. It comes in first on Jake’s list and features prominently in mine too.

We don’t owe the world an unbroken lifetime of labour. We’re fortunate to lead lives with some flexibility, and we’re willing to take a risk.

I would love to have a front page of The Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.’

Suella Braverman, UK Home Secretary, 2022

Both of us think a lot about the state of British society. A society that is extremely privileged and is, in many ways, an excellent place to exist.

"There were some mistakes we made in terms of the measures.”

Matt Hancock, former UK Minister for Health, 2022

But it also clearly has some quite frankly pathetic leadership. And in certain aspects, aggressive and reductive state policies. Complaining for the sake of complaining ought to be discouraged, but should we not expect more of our leaders?

With regards to climate, immigration, affordable housing, a balanced education system and a functioning healthcare service, our nation leaves much to be desired. Much that we desire to change.

The typical food bank user has cash flow problems episodically' and is not 'languishing in poverty.'

Dominic Raab, UK Minister for Justice, 2017

We’re jaded by these abject failures. And the lack of genuine alternative to forge a new path. Time out of that reality provides the mental space to reimagine how it could work differently.

“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

We woke at dawn, the first windows of the trip betraying us to early light. An arduous rest day ahead.

The first task: heaving myself from my air mattress - laid out on the cabin’s wooden floorboards - to the sofa, 12 inches higher. Thankfully, there’s time for a couple hours reading before addressing our dwindling foodstocks.

Jake reads Paulo Scott’s Phenotypes, becoming all the more convinced he should move to Brazil with every chaotic page. I read Kafka’s Metamorphosis and shudder at the prospect of being turned into a beetle. A beetle can’t ride bikes.

What else to do for our first chill after ten days touring? A leisurely cycle of course, this time with all the heavy bags off (bar an opportune couple to stuff full of snack bounty in town). Afterwards we’ll lug them home to enjoy in the luxury of our four-walled abode.

We are drenched en route, but the light bikes are thrilling, and the promise of shelter and pastry draws us on.

Set up in the cafe, we dissect the UK education and health sectors. Jake speaks of the frustrating nature of his charity sector job. The centralization of resources sapping time and crucial funds out of the offer for those in need. He outlines a world galvanized by grassroots organizations instead. Jack takes an optimistic but skeptical stance in response. Jake’s vision is appealing, but could it work in the face of the rampant state power we’ve grown accustomed to? Perhaps it’s the only way we make it through our reckoning with the natural world.

“It is widely accepted that carbon dioxide emissions have risen but the effect on the climate remains much debated”

Jacob Rees-Mogg, now UK Minister for Energy, 2013

Either way, the informal ban on UK news reading is working well for both of us; providing space to reflect and rethink.

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I run at dusk, out towards the foot of Queulat glacier, hoping to spy it through the Highland mists. I hear it rumbling in the darkness a few kilometers away. I’m too late to enter the park and sneak closer.

On the way back, my recent cheese intake assaults my plant based stomach. I try to make it home before the trapdoor opens but to no avail. An unpleasant roadside explosion the result.

In the evening Jake cooks ravioli and we mix it with lentils, tomato sauce, chili, pepper, mustard and oregano. That was quite a rapid jump from debris to cuisine wasn’t it. Sorry.

Our first Chilean wine accompanies the conversation deep into the roots of anarchism. Allowing us to dream big about a better world. One with more collaboration and less centralisation, where smaller communities wield genuine power over their own fates.

Where Murray Bookchin plays eco-dictator in a bamboo crown.

And where more people have bikes. Lots and lots of bikes.

“If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.”

Murray Bookchin

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P.S I will also remember today for my fave bridge name of all time. Helmut I don’t know who you are, but you win.

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