The other route

Every classification establishes separation. Dealing with barriers stirs active minds. Borders are created by people to prohibit and to facilitate crossing. Contradictions of this kind form a vital part of the complexities characterising the human mind.

There are many features of the world people live in that could have been very different if a leader way back had made a slightly different choice. The accumulation of subsequent actions often make the undoing of such innocent-looking choices well-nigh impossible.

Borders between countries are no exception. In fact, they constitute a major element of shaping social systems among the earths human population. National borders involve particularly intrusive and pervasive dimensions of separation and attraction among all people. They are accompanied by heavy sets of opportunities, miseries and behavioral peculiarities in human society worldwide.

Maps present coloured lines on paper between countries, deserving question marks in the open spaces between the towns shown. Questions arise in problem solver minds of people waiting in line interminably, passport (with visa) in hand. What might happen along the border where there is no town on the map? Could that present an option?

The excruciating wait before national border crossings in the modern world is well-known at airports, harbours and unattractive national perimeter buildings, embellished by a confusion of notices, arrows, gates, turnstiles and barriers all sorts.

Uniformed officials with or without smiles at national borders are dressed in two styles. These binary sets of gatekeepers have to be faced in quick succession when air or sea travel is not involved. Segregated by THE border but unified in low propensity for lifting arriving or departing crowd mood and expectation, standard or enriched ordeals of officialdom are inflicted. Marketing their country or welcoming visitors is left to wall posters, on paper not deficient in patriotism and hospitality.

Designated First World border posts look nothing like this photo of a spot between the Kruger and Mozambique. It is but one of the answers to those questions arising from standing in customs queues for too long. What goes on where maps show blank patches along national borders is largely virgin territory in travelogue journalism.

And it remains so for moods between neighbouring nations fluctuate, economic and cultural activities wax and wane, poignantly in backwater places where the attention is rarely focused. Revealing and sometimes ironic glimpses into a national psyche come to light when a perceptive camera or pen deals with such remote but significant spots.

Isolated border terrain may delight in the simplicity of their features other than nature. There may be a fence, a river, a desert or even a wall (if you land up between the USA and Mexico, depending on who occupies the White House). Hannibal manoeuvred elephants over the Alpine border to harass the Romans. Border bush, desert or mountain, continuous across large tracts of unused land, is often hard to negotiate. The occasional traveller, solitary and on foot may not realise when a border has been crossed. 

Zero border crossing bureaucracy is a boon at a place like this, but adds its own complications. A little climb (tricky with luggage), replaces queues, rubber stamps and the need for mugshots. Over-use and low maintenance beset such facilities over time. The downside includes long walks, requiring advanced clambering and navigation skills, often with the corollaries of getting lost or caught. There may be worries about staying out of sight, answering questions when apprehended by a border patrol. And in this region always the occasional elephant, lion or snake.

Getting eaten by lion is not a vacation highlight appearing on brochures or bucket lists. Guides, if used, are paid in cash, unless they surprise by taking all the cash in a lonesome spot.

All people’s lives are full of borders, real and imagined. Geographical borders separating countries are only a small part of it, changing over time as most borders do. The mind abounds in borders, thresholds and taboos, keeping things orderly in and out, in thought and action.

Mind messages contradict, like those in the media; prone to change before or soon after reasoned adjustments. Brinks and bans come and go. Angst is often the ghost that follows. Accept the new borders and the falling of another Berlin Wall. It’s all progress, the way we live! Its also civilisation, a kaleidoscope of random colourful and bewildering road signs. Its also a mess: Pick from the unstable monkey puzzle of meanings embedded in the zeitgeist of the moment, before the paradigm shifts.

The permeable membranes of school biology are complicated by the introduction of semipermeable ones. Motherly rules create early behaviour borders, the crossing of which incur baby penalties. School and church erect and uphold mind barriers for protecting citizen bodies and souls from real and imagined evil enticements, until they don’t. The mythical shields against Satan’s ill-gotten gains become dressed to kill in heathenish graffiti on walls of the world, selectively permeable.

Learning, employment and prison serve to stabilise, are continually revamped to fit cultures driven by mind-changing targets. Institutions as vehicles of civilisation don’t last, for people don’t last as well as their cumulative ideas.

Old age is the bother besetting the individual unit of life. It arrives too soon for many. (Will there be gate keepers waiting for grouping disembodied ego rubble? What on earth, or anywhere else for?)

Contemplating the ultimate border that looms is the bane of all the ephemera of life. Yes, thats what we all are, the ephemera of life. Everything alive is but an individual unit, carrying a bit of its species theme for a while. Handing over to its child unit is its lifes meaning, enabling a next carrier, if successful. If not, it serves as ecological filler material, or decor. Nature uses cosmetics. It livens up the world show before death, merely one more border to cross.

Thought and deed pioneers of the the earth and maybe the universe translate human borders into distance. Getting anywhere is now all about rockets, capsules, uber-spaceships through wormholes where time has to be killed for reaching anywhere worthwhile. Weve come a long way as a species!

And where to? After moon and Mars, thousands of exoplanets beckon, way out there in the Milky Way and further to its many galactic mates, where travelling at the speed of light is far too slow to achieve anything meaningful. For there are thousands of lightyears within the borders of each galaxy and many more between them.

Humanitys imagined next stage can’t happen? Watch out for tomorrow’s dreamers and doers. Edwin Hubble, Carl Sagan and Elon Musk stand on the shoulders of "Adam", the man. He, Adam, was the Homo sapiens man, actually many men who shunned the Eden of the hunter-gatherers when becoming ready for bigger plans.

This happened after seventy thousand years or so ago, equalling untold generations of picking berries and digging bulbs and nutgrass, while learning which ones kill, shouldnt be eaten and which snakes bite. Adam and lots of little Cains, (fewer Abels too), started tilling the soil around twelve thousand years ago, glaciations permitting. Armed with a scant but painstakingly collected ancestral treasure of plant, animal and climate knowledge, Adam became the first farmer. Over time his offspring became clever.

Marco Polo, Henry the Seafarer, Thor Heyerdahl and many thousands of others moved border and barrier crossing forward incrementally. The increments were dramatic or unnoticed, the movement always forward with centuries of rest and consolidation. The heritage of the species was built by these steps as insight grew and determination lasted among the stronger carriers. Shoes were worn out but science became established during the long human journey.

Be proud, weve done stuff in our time as a species! As Adam faced lion, snake or poisoned apple, worthy opponents requiring his best efforts to survive, humanity now faces global warming and Covid-19, nations face their weird democracy-produced presidents, Elon Musk faces Mars, all serious challenges for minds to find solutions. And one day across the Milky Way we go, not the chocolate one.

The Homo sapiens mind identifies borders, creates their crossing. The sea route to India was a pipedream in the days when the earth was flat.