Riverside View

There've been a few occasions where I sat with a friend, and we just sat back and talked while a buzz of events ran around or by us. I had this unusual feeling thrice in the recent time period; twice in the SAC, sitting and just talking about a variety of issues and watching everything else around rush by in a busy, blurred semi-montage of images. The other time was slightly further back and slightly hazier in my memory; I remeber sitting on a bench by the Astro-turf, watching the school's cricket team practicing or something, and just talking about some variety of issues, as mentioned earlier.

Even before I studied Siddhartha and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for English A1, the concept of rivers has somewhat intrigued me. Thinking back to Secondary 4 Geog, linear population distribution patterns typically occur along roads or rivers, because these provide a means of communication. While it is true that travel along roads may be more expedient in that travelling along rivers often requires the construction of structures that can float; and for that matter water resistance often exceeds friction (this is dependent on surface areas, actually), rivers have their own practical applications as a source of (hopefully clean) water, as a supply of various recreational activities (kayaking anyone? or fishing or swimming, and stuff); they also make the environment nice to look at (as long as it's not too muddy, at least from my point of view). Rivers can also be used as a supply of hydro-electric power, which is nice as it's clean, little CO2 is produced, and renewable.

I remember hearing Diverse System's remix of Riverside View from Phantasmagoria of Flower View. It's essentially an acoustic guitar rendition; indeed, as I would agree with someone's comment on the song, "I can imagine sitting by the river and watching the boats go by."

When I went to New Zealand in Sec 2 (I think?), a particularly memorable experience at some point in the holiday was simply sitting by a river; it was somewhere in its middle or lower course in that the flow velocity was high and there weren't really big foamy splashes that would be more characteristic of the upper-course; for that matter if I remember my Geog correctly a river in its upper course typically is loaded with stones and the like; but that river had hardly any debris of a significant size. This probably means that much of the sediment had been worn down through hydraulic action and other erosionary processes into small particles, possibly some in solution with others in suspension and/or undergone deposition.

For me at least, rivers seem to symbolise some degree of fluidity and adaptability; they can erode through the path of least resistance in a floodplain (if i recall correctly! not sure), they can help farmers out by depositing fertile silt in floodplains. More relevant, rivers in areas where I usually view them (i.e. middle or lower course) typically flow quite fast. This high flow rate inevitably makes me think of the word "flux"; sitting by the river is relatively static, and for myself can be taken to be symbolic of watching by as changes go on; not to be completely outmoded by them, but more to be aware of them and to gain a broader perspective on what's been going on. This includes reflection as well; watching the things which you dropped when moving through the river flow away from your sight into obscurity; not just mourning their loss, though that's one thing you can do, but more looking back, and possibly figuring out how to avoid losing more items as you keep going after taking the break of watching the river.