Traffic

There’s something about traffic jams that chips away at me. Stop. Start. Crawl. Stop. Green light. Crawl. Stop. 

I don’t like when a 30-minute journey ends up taking 50 due to traffic.

That’s one part of it, the mismatch between my expectations and reality. The other part is the stop and go nature of traffic jams. If I’m in motion, traveling from point A to point B, I want to be in continuous motion. Unplanned stops and uncertain restarts are unappealing.  

I wrote the above on a bus, a couple of weeks after I started taking the bus to get to university. 

Revisiting it today, 1.5 months later, I don’t feel the traffic jams as much. There’s no need to rush (not all the time, anyways).  And what is the rush for, who or what are we escaping today? What is waiting for us at the end of the journey? How does rushing prepare us to tackle what's waiting for us? 

This quote from Nassim Taleb sticks with me:

“I don’t run for trains.” Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. 

I love this attitude. I wish I can say I fully embody it. I don’t think I do. It’s there in pockets of time, but not always. I sometimes still get frustrated when I’m delayed or stuck. 

But I think I’m in a reasonable middle ground. A rush (or being more organised) is preferred in certain situations - I wouldn’t want to be consistently late for social and professional obligations. However, generally, having that elegance helps me navigate the day with a sense of presence. In this presence I sense the roots of a life I want to live. Grounded, where I need to be, at all times. And in no rush to get to the next destination.