I do some of my best thinking while in the car riding alone. I always have, going back decades to those late nights when I'd drive my way from western Nebraska to eastern Nebraska. You could get a lot of thinking done in those days driving along the mostly abandoned highways and interstate in the wee wee hours.
These days, most of my solo driving takes place in the morning, which really is the perfect time to collect your thoughts. Although my morning drives don't allow as much time to conjure up the song lyrics and poems and movie ideas and daydreams that traveling those hours-long stretches across Nebraska did, I still manage to compact a lot of notions and schemes into a short time frame.
Way back in the day, I made several solo road trips across various parts of the country. I was in my mid-20s, just about dirt broke, and there weren't a whole lot of career prospects on the horizon to keep me tied to one place unfortunately. But what I lacked in professional production, I damn sure made up in life experience. My skin got pretty thick and tough during those days, and living essentially on nothing made me grow up in a damn hurry. You learn to make a lot of different things last when you're not sure when or if you're going to be able to replace them again. I probably didn't appreciate the lessons of longevity I was learning then while making a sandwich stretch into two meals or a bottle of water last all day so that I would have gas money in the next town, but I sure appreciate the lessons today.
Not having a lot of possessions to keep you preoccupied means you cook up others things that can take up your mind's attention. You devise plans. You create mythical situations. You think about past and future relationships, repairing them, bridging them, replenishing them, creating them. Given a lot of alone time in a moving vehicle, you learn to see. You learn to observe. Your intuition begins to sharpen and take over. You learn to trust yourself, have confidence in yourself, relearn what it was you once found appealing about yourself. You become honed and formidable again.
I wish I had more time for road trips these days. I long some days for the years when I could pack everything I owned into one car, when I could take off and had no place to necessarily be or a time to necessarily be there. I regret I didn't take better advantage of those days, but I'm eternally thankful for those times I did experience. I know many people never do. I know many people never leave their comfort zones or their backyards for that matter. I can't imagine who I'd be today if I hadn't.
Riding in the car is magical for some people. For me, it's magical for the solitude it provides. I'm not a true appreciator of cars in general, and I barely know one model from another, but at least from the perspective of the freedom that four wheel and a black top provides, I completely understand and covet the magic of the automobile. I've spent plenty of time sitting behind the wheel thinking about this and so many other things.
These days, most of my solo driving takes place in the morning, which really is the perfect time to collect your thoughts. Although my morning drives don't allow as much time to conjure up the song lyrics and poems and movie ideas and daydreams that traveling those hours-long stretches across Nebraska did, I still manage to compact a lot of notions and schemes into a short time frame.
Way back in the day, I made several solo road trips across various parts of the country. I was in my mid-20s, just about dirt broke, and there weren't a whole lot of career prospects on the horizon to keep me tied to one place unfortunately. But what I lacked in professional production, I damn sure made up in life experience. My skin got pretty thick and tough during those days, and living essentially on nothing made me grow up in a damn hurry. You learn to make a lot of different things last when you're not sure when or if you're going to be able to replace them again. I probably didn't appreciate the lessons of longevity I was learning then while making a sandwich stretch into two meals or a bottle of water last all day so that I would have gas money in the next town, but I sure appreciate the lessons today.
Not having a lot of possessions to keep you preoccupied means you cook up others things that can take up your mind's attention. You devise plans. You create mythical situations. You think about past and future relationships, repairing them, bridging them, replenishing them, creating them. Given a lot of alone time in a moving vehicle, you learn to see. You learn to observe. Your intuition begins to sharpen and take over. You learn to trust yourself, have confidence in yourself, relearn what it was you once found appealing about yourself. You become honed and formidable again.
I wish I had more time for road trips these days. I long some days for the years when I could pack everything I owned into one car, when I could take off and had no place to necessarily be or a time to necessarily be there. I regret I didn't take better advantage of those days, but I'm eternally thankful for those times I did experience. I know many people never do. I know many people never leave their comfort zones or their backyards for that matter. I can't imagine who I'd be today if I hadn't.
Riding in the car is magical for some people. For me, it's magical for the solitude it provides. I'm not a true appreciator of cars in general, and I barely know one model from another, but at least from the perspective of the freedom that four wheel and a black top provides, I completely understand and covet the magic of the automobile. I've spent plenty of time sitting behind the wheel thinking about this and so many other things.
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