Meditative Reflections... Driven to Distraction
I've been doing more driving than usual recently and there's something about the thought of driving that I find quite anxiety inducing, which isn't great for my state of mind!
Whenever I can, I choose NOT to drive. If I've got a journey to any major or medium sized town or city with a train station, I'm really good at convincing myself that train journeys are a more efficient way of travelling, honestly, because I can read or work on the train.
In reality of course they're not, because I'm loosing money just by the car sitting there, and I never work efficiently on trains, especially if there are stops.
And when Lock down hit, the car just sat there for two months. It got the point where I had to just go for a drive to make sure the battery was kept topped up.
However, I haven't had much of a choice recently but to do a bit more driving - two runs down to Kent to store some stuff, a few skip runs new tires yesterday and an MOT later today.
The problem with driving, especially in the day, is that I do get anxious about it. I don't really know why TBH, I think it's just the responsibility of being in charge of the world's ultimate killing machine - both in terms of pollution and human road kill, let alone all the dead animals (I saw a good half a dozen dead animals on the road when I drove back from Kent lat Saturday).
Normally when I have to drive somewhere I can't sit down and meditate in the morning, I'm just waiting to get the driving out of the way as quickly as possible. It's especially bad when I don't know where I'm going - I remember once I had some work in a remote location in Shropshire, I actually drove up the day before so I knew my route before hand - a two hour round trip, rather than leaving it the day.
It's silly really - once I'm in the car I'm OK, I even end up quite enjoying myself sometimes.
I think I may actually be getting used to it. Today will be the fifth day I've taken the car out in a row (although admittedly the Tire fitting place was only a 2 minute drive yesterday, I mean proper local!) and I think that's a record of days-in-a-row driving for the past two years!
I even managed to meditate this morning and I wasn't too anxious. Rather than worrying about driving it was just all the other moving shit I've got to deal with - I'm now at the sharp end of having to sell my 'heavy furniture' - bed, futon, my coffee table that I fucking love - letting those go will be a real step!
Just sitting there was a bit of an effort of will this morning - but I managed 26 minutes, then I got up and did a few stretches, which was nice actually, with the last four minutes.
Anxiety is a silly thing really, mainly a trick of the mind. I think maybe I should go out for a short drive every morning this week, just to get more familiar with the car - I mean I've got a 1300 drive to Portugal at the end of the month after all!
I must remember to meditate en route, although doing that in a lay-by on the road side will probably be especially challenging!
While the car maybe perhaps the most unsustainable thing we as a Western civilization and anymore all civilizations, perhaps understanding that your intent and perspective is healthy and that perspective can be incorporated into how you use your car, can help with feelings of regret.
Such a wasteful society and unhealthy in many ways. Truly, a car represents a systemic infection of our culture representing one aspect of waste that each person can manage a lot better.
What I mean to say or rather the point I mean to convey is that, if your body has a systemic infection do we feel guilty about our limbs that are infected and first try and cut off? Maybe, who knows what a person decides to do with their own body.
Your post hits the nail on a very big and over shadowing aspect of our civilization that highlights our waste and our negligence of such. However, clearly you do not represent the wastful mindset and are very conscious of your actions with this machine.
Conscious intent and loving awareness is something you demonstrated quite clearly here and that gives me faith that you will utilize this machine in a healthy way, so as to limit its pollution and help you live your greatest life so as to inspire others to do the same!
Plus I live in Vegas. I used to work on the strip all over for 16 years before the Rona... Majority of it was me riding by bicycle to work. Eventually, I had children and bought a car. I can tell you that I do not feel safe riding a bike here much less using public transportation. So my perspective is a bit torn between a car vs bicycles or public transportation.
Great post man. Thanks for conscious awareness about issues that really matter!
Hey cheers for the comment!
I also lived without a car for many years, and only bought one when I really needed it.
I can understand the whole family, lack of safety thing completely, it's just a matter of minimising use of it I guess.
Actually I just had my video health check back - the brakes are a little corroded 'probably because it's not used very much' which is about right!
Right! My brakes are squeeking really bad right now! But we had record heat waves this summer and I also havent been driving as much since im a union stagehand that works tradeshows primarily😵😂
Aside from pollution, a car is a money pit. A blessing of not having my children with me is that I can allocate my money elsewhere like for materials for Natural Farming.
Aww I miss driving. I lost my license when I refused to go home to renew it. I might get a motorbike license in japan once I get things moving....sorry about the pollution. Do they do electric motorbikes now?
Crikey, my license is good until I'm 70, whatever country I'm in.
There must be electric motorbikes!