No End To Our Roads
I like driving. No, correction — I love driving. Especially on freeways. There's this power that comes over me whenever I take over the wheel and I step on the gas… and I escalade into the horizon. It's just me, the road and my destination (or perhaps the lack of one). It is when I'm one with the world and it is when I feel most at ease. Enter great music blasting from the car's CD players and I think I may have just had a glimpse of heaven.
Unfortunately, my stubborn quest for new things have led me to give up the luxury (and necessity) of driving. I eventually moved from a country possessing neverending roads and countless highways… to a city-state that thirsts for any road that allows the driver to go beyond 40 miles per hour. It's a trade off, however, as I've never been anywhere with a more efficient public transportation system. I had to give up something that I enjoy immensely (driving) in exchange for something else that's close to my heart (city living).
Living in the city can be overwhelming. You lose yourself to the daily hustle and bustle of activities and immerse yourself in the crowds of people with their own personal agendas in mind. You look everywhere and every person out in the streets seems to know exactly where they're going and what they want to do. There is no particular direction shared — left, right, back, forward, center — but it doesn't matter. There is no point following the pack. Just keep on going and you'll eventually get there. Wherever it may be.
As for driving, there is a general direction where you're headed. However, it doesn't always follow that you know where you're going. Aimless driving and blind hope that you'll eventually figure a destination out — it's reckless and brave at the same time.
Funny enough, that's how I feel everyday. Not about where I live though, but more about what I'm living. I have a daily routine just like everyone else, I could imagine. I live and I work, and then some. It gets old though — it's a vicious cycle of waking up and praying hard that the day will go without drastic glitches; of working to live and to survive; of looking forward to the end of the work day… only to wake up again the next morning to do everything all over again. I may seemingly have gotten my life down to a T but that may be the biggest fraud ever.
I trudge through life with no particular direction. I've got the basics covered but anything else beyond that is unknown. I'm not looking to settle down, I'm not looking to start procreating and giving life to beautiful children, I'm not looking to bag the career of the century, and neither am I looking to have a million dollars to my name by 30 (though that would be nice, admittedly). All I ask for is a direction as to where I'm going — and what I'm working for. That would surely answer a lot of questions in my head. And it would shed light on murky thoughts and uncertainties.
Life can pretty much feel like a tattered beetle VW being driven onto a straight road with no exits and no turns — and as you keep driving, you realize that you're actually back where you came from. You've been driving in circles. And until you muster up enough courage and energy, you will just keep on flirting with the idea of running to the nearest convenience store and getting a new map. And just like living in an impersonal city, it can be difficult when you realize that the bright lights surrounding you are nothing but artificial and manufactured — and that in reality, it is only engineered to mask the growing darkness around you. One can't help but think: how long can the disguise sustain itself?
Sometimes it's easy forget that we're the drivers of our own lives. We get so caught up with little details that we tend to depend too much on cruise control — and sometimes even on autopilot. We should be the ones taking control of it and not the other way around. After all, what good is it reaching a destination when the journey was crap?
I'm sick of wandering about and I'm through being Alice in Wonderland. I'm the king of my own road and I'm the ruler of my own city. Why on mother earth did I ever forget that?
I need that new map from the quickie mart around the corner.