Commuting Can Be a Time of Prayer and Silence if You Stop Playing Every Device Imaginable
It's not really the driving that is hard about the commute, per say. It's not even that a commute is that difficult. But the quiet, that you want to make yourself endure, that is the tricky part of the commute.
I have the iPhone, the radio pre-tuned to NPR, my favorite karaoke channels on a playlist on YouTube, podcasts, I even listen to TV shows which is irresponsible, I know. Or I make phone calls which is the worst. One time I ran a red light because I was on my phone in the first snow. I'm not a safe driver and I am the first to admit it.
The commute should be for me, you know? It should be for the practice of meditation, or thinking about my next screenplay or ironing out my last therapy session. But as soon as I start with any one of those tasks I am already frantically flipping on my blue tooth.
Over time, after many days of these commutes, I realize all I ever am doing is trying to escape the fact that I'm in a commute. And that is insanity. To try to deny reality or that what is actually IS. Why we do that I have no idea. It's like the one time that my high school guy friend told me a week before prom he was taking someone else "just because" but I knew that the other girl was super easy and I could never compete with that. I could not believe someone would do that, just leave me behind. And even during prom I was in disbelief that he was there with her. But that is insanity. We will always try to change what is as long as we think it doesn't serve us. I don't really think that served me other than the fact that guy was a huge dick and I didn't end up with him. I think I've made my point in a very roundabout way.
One day I forgot to turn on the radio though. I was in a hurry, I was running late, and I was angry and fussy so I forgot. I drove in silence all the way to Glencoe and when I got there I was still mad because I was so late. But about 5 minutes before I got to my final destination, so after 35 minutes of silence, I saw the sky lit up with a bright orange and pink hue at dusk and I was in awe, in silence. I don't know if it would have been the same experience if I had been singing Lady Gaga.
I have the iPhone, the radio pre-tuned to NPR, my favorite karaoke channels on a playlist on YouTube, podcasts, I even listen to TV shows which is irresponsible, I know. Or I make phone calls which is the worst. One time I ran a red light because I was on my phone in the first snow. I'm not a safe driver and I am the first to admit it.
The commute should be for me, you know? It should be for the practice of meditation, or thinking about my next screenplay or ironing out my last therapy session. But as soon as I start with any one of those tasks I am already frantically flipping on my blue tooth.
Over time, after many days of these commutes, I realize all I ever am doing is trying to escape the fact that I'm in a commute. And that is insanity. To try to deny reality or that what is actually IS. Why we do that I have no idea. It's like the one time that my high school guy friend told me a week before prom he was taking someone else "just because" but I knew that the other girl was super easy and I could never compete with that. I could not believe someone would do that, just leave me behind. And even during prom I was in disbelief that he was there with her. But that is insanity. We will always try to change what is as long as we think it doesn't serve us. I don't really think that served me other than the fact that guy was a huge dick and I didn't end up with him. I think I've made my point in a very roundabout way.
One day I forgot to turn on the radio though. I was in a hurry, I was running late, and I was angry and fussy so I forgot. I drove in silence all the way to Glencoe and when I got there I was still mad because I was so late. But about 5 minutes before I got to my final destination, so after 35 minutes of silence, I saw the sky lit up with a bright orange and pink hue at dusk and I was in awe, in silence. I don't know if it would have been the same experience if I had been singing Lady Gaga.
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