Angst

I'm moving! From the hell hole that has been Ramona for the last four years to Hillcrest. My new commute is going to be a whopping 2.6 miles one way. I will be able to reclaim two hours of my day every day, instead of spending it on the road learning to hate human kind with every mile driven. I am beginning to think that drive time is destroying America. If it isn't the incessant chatter of idiots on the radio or pundits declaring us in a state of liberal or conservative emergency, it is the fuckwits next to me. Whether talking on their cell phones or putting on make-up or reading, eating, watching television, I find that I loathe them more and more every time I have to spend road time with them. Instead of shut up and drive bumper stickers, there should be FOCUS! bumper stickers. The freeway is not where I want to see great examples of how multi-tasking results in each task being less complete. The freeway should be like sex. It is okay to talk to the person (or for the lucky few, I suppose, persons) that you are with and you should be singularly focused on the task at hand. The task should require all of your attention and involve some creativity in ensuring that it is brought to a successful fruition for all parties involved. The act should not be overly prolonged, nor should it be approached with too much of a zeal to get to the end.

In my own personal universe, almost everyone I have to share the road with goes through a ceremony of putting on a white bandanda with a big red circle on it before they leave the house. They only have enough gas in the tank to get them where they are going and they are determined to make sure that they take down some destroyer of a SUV along the way. But that is about to go away. I will only be sharing the road with people for five minutes a day. This is where my angst comes in.

Am I going to find other outlets for all of the rage that builds inside me for my eighty mile round trip? Will I suddenly find that screaming my head off at all the morons on the road needs to be replaced with screaming my head off where I can be heard? Or will I suddenly begin to gain respect for human kind as a whole again? Will I suddenly see human beings around me rather than Kamikaze pilots hell bent on the destruction of their Honda Zeros? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The rage or the road? It is my hope that the road gave birth to my rage and the elimination of that rage medium is going to reverse my cynicism. And with the extra two hours a day, I will suddenly become a productive, meaningful member of the human race rather than a rat in a meaningless race.