The Dao of Driving

 I would like to take a moment today to introduce a philosophy that I call, the Dao of driving.

For so many, driving can be a trying experience wrought with distress. I have never felt this way about driving. My car has always been my safe space. When I was in high school I had a room at my parent's house. I was allowed to put pictures on the walls, arrange the furniture how I wanted, and even blast my music as long as it wasn't too late. My room was a sacred space of expression and individuality growing up. But still, there was always a part of me that knew that my room only existed as a part of a whole called a house, and that the house belonged to my parents.

In contrast, my car was mine. Despite the fact that my parents payed for the damn thing, I was on the registration. My car, to this day, is very high on my list of safe places (you know, the one's you think about when you're trying to bring yourself back from an episode of anxiety).

My first car was a 1994 BMW 530i. It was a maroon station wagon that drove like a really fast boat because the suspension was completely shot. I would bob up and down over the slightest bumps in the road, playing music out of the front left speaker (the only one that wasn't completely blown out.) Eventually the CD player stopped working and I was left with KUSC's classical music station. The car was about knee deep in petrified fast food – french fries of yesteryear spilling out from beneath the seats – and it constantly smelled like stale smoke. Every inch of the dashboard was littered with tobacco. Bits of rolling paper stuck amongst the little green flecks speckling the entire car.

This may sound like a comical scene, a car stuffed full of teenagers leaking smoke like a Snoop Dogg music video rolling through the suburbs, but to me it spelled comfort. When I was at a party and anxiety would start to set in (I've always done somewhat poorly in superficial social situations) I would retreat to my car, turn the keys half-way in the ignition, and tune in to 91.5FM in the hope that Chopin or Debussy would come on and that my heart would stop beating its way out of my chest.

What does all that have to do with Dao you ask? Let me tell you.

So, the point is that I have always loved driving. I can't explain why, but I don't even mind being stuck in traffic, or running out of gas.

A couple years ago, I tried driving full time for Uber (don't do it, it's not worth it) and I got to do a lot of contemplation on my ten hour shifts into the wee hours of the morning. It was around this time that I came up with my three concepts of the Dao of driving. These concepts developed as logical answers to three questions that had always been floating around my head while I was in the car.

Where are all these people going?

Are we there yet?

How can I speed this up?

First off, just where the heck are all these people going anyway?

We are all going the same place. I have aptly named it, there. This was a vital realization for me. I had always thought that everyone was going different directions, on separate journeys, to separate locations. Driving 40 to 60 hours a week however, proved otherwise to me.

Much like how the Greek words chronos and kairos delineate between a tangible, concrete timeline of events and the supreme moment in which everything occurs, there is all of our destinations. I believe that there is a platonic form of sorts floating out there that is the holy mother of all destinations and that it is inclusive of all of our individual loci.

How do we get there? Onward of course. Perhaps even forward – never straight. It's a lot like life actually, the road that is. We are all scurrying about, vying for the “bestest” position on the flow of traffic so that we can get there just a little sooner. In our great hurry, we miss the main course which is the journey, not the destination. Often I will be so busy asking myself “are we there yet?” that I will forget that there is a wondrous here for me to be enjoying.

So, are we there yet?

To this, my answer is that we will get there, when we get there.

Accepting this has been a vital step in coming to terms with road closures, DUI checkpoints, and massive accidents (you see a lot of those at 3AM.) Understanding that we are all going there, and that we will all get there was the first time I had come to a realization of a unification of all of the cars into one unified flow.

Flow is defined as a steady and continuous stream. Traffic is a flow, and we are at its mercy entirely. When I find myself stopped for an hour while blood is cleaned off of the asphalt miles down the road from me, it is not that I am no longer moving towards there. Rather, only that my journey there is no longer being measured by the distance my car has traveled, but but by how far the police are from clearing away the pile-up blocking the freeway.

This again mirrors life outside of my car. I spent the better part of my teenage years both literally and figuratively standing still. Standing still in my education, my career development, my willingness to accept responsibility, and even in my desire to grow into a decent human being. But in hindsight, what appeared to be stasis was actually the impetus for a metamorphosis.

Many of the most stable and static objects have secret agendas and bigger plans. Eggs eventually hatch. Seeds eventually grow. Cocoons eventually pop open and reveal winged animals baring almost no resemblance to the larvae that submerged into them. The traffic jam seems like the thing that is holding up my life when it's happening, but in hindsight it was my path, not my obstacle.

Life is a flow, and the flow is completely cyclical. Just like how traffic comes twice a day for the morning and afternoon rushes (or all day if you live in LA) life has seasons of hurry and seasons of leisure. The times that things seem the darkest is right before the light comes – the times that things seem the most stuck is right before things start moving again; then I realize that in some way, things had been moving the whole time.

So, the last question.

How can I speed this up?

To this, I have found myself responding with another question... why?

If I find that I want to move faster so that I can get there faster... well I need to chickity check myself before I wreck myself. Was I not listening to any of that crap I just spouted off? Is the journey not really more important than the destination? I can't live a life contingent upon results anymore; I've tried it. It's an uphill battle. Today I try to live a life based on actions, indifferent to the results.

Now, on the flipside, if I want to drive fast because I enjoy driving fast and could care less about getting there sooner, well there's nothing wrong with that. As my friend Felix used to say, “Drive fast, take a lot of chances, and don't look back!”

And that, my friends, is the Dao of driving.