soulclapping

So I recently started bike riding a lot more in life....I am living in the DC area right now, and there is a 7.5 mile trail going from the next town over in Maryland to Georgetown. It is a rail trail, which means it is a converted train line built sometime in the 20s I would suspect. What this mean also is that it is nearly entirely wooded-over....it crosses roads exactly twice in 7.5 miles....there are about 4 variably-sized bridges, and an amazing old train tunnel. Now here's the weird part. Because I have been bike-riding on safe trails and hiking a lot and driving a lot, I have been listening to audiobooks on my ipod nonstop. For the last week or so I have been listening to William Vollmann's Europe Central, which is about in short: Nazis and Soviets during WWII, with a specific focus on figures whose creativity and individuality are particularly curbed by the respective authoritarian regimes. Now...since I am hearing this book, and I am biking, and I am on a trail that is sorta 20th century timeless....and since the book puts you in the precarious spot of sympathizing with Nazis (yeah I already have a fond place in my heart for Commies)....all this works out to this strange experience in which I feel like I need to pick sides and that I am living in the 30s in Europe.

But which side do I pick? Russians have more heart. Nazis have better clothes. Russians have better beards. Nazis have better weather. Russians have molotov cocktails. Nazis have.....

Well you can see my dilemma no?