The Pearly Gates
You know what bugs me? People with annoying driving
habits. Like “ass-huggers.” These drivers speed up to catch up to you, then
they stick to you like glue. They won’t pass, despite the many opportunities.
You slow down, they slow down; you speed up, they speed up. “Look at that
bastard!” I exclaim to myself. “Right on my ass!”
“Ass-huggers,” that’s what I call them. It’s not nice,
I know; but they can get pretty annoying some days. I’m not a slow driver, so
they have no reason to tail-gate me. On average, I drive 10 K over the speed limit.
That’s the best speed to make good time and not get a ticket; but that’s just a
bit too fast and a bit too slow for tail-gaiting “ass-huggers.”
But that’s not quite
good enough for the front runners. “Phony leaders,” I call them. They catch up
to you (God knows where they came from, they certainly weren’t there the
last time you looked in the rearview mirror), and then they pass you
and slow down just enough to make an “ass-hugger” out of you!
I hate being an “ass-hugger.” The very thought makes
me feel like a brown-nosing sycophant, so I either get pissed off and pass them
right back, pulling so far ahead that they know damn well I’m pissed off, or I
slow down and let them get away on me; but either way, I’m still subject to
their annoying driving habit, and I just hate that!
I have to ask myself, are these people conscious of
their driving habits? Are they aware of the effect they have on other drivers,
or are they so self-absorbed that they are oblivious to the rest of the world?
I don’t think so.
Years of probing the human psyche has forced me to
conclude that on some level they know exactly what they are doing, and they do
it because it gives them some measure of perverse pleasure; but what kind of
pleasure could that be?
Power. That’s the magic word. Driving empowers people,
and driving habits reveal the mechanics of personality. We take power, we give
power; this is the free exchange of the vital life force between people; and
driving habits reveal this subtle exchange of power.
Take the “ass-hugger,” for example. He (and it is
usually a he) will speed up to catch up to you. You’re doing 100 K, so you’re
already driving above the 90 K speed limit. This means that they had to be
doing more than you to catch up to you; but they refuse to pass. They just
cling to you like some kind of mechanical parasite that refuses to let go; and
as bizarre as this may sound, I can actually feel the vital life force being
sucked out of me!
“Oh no, you don’t!” I exclaim to myself. “You’re not going to suck my power out of me!
Earn your own damn power!” And I slow down so much that they are forced,
out of sheer embarrassment (or frustration, if they are operating on an
unconscious level), to put the pedal to the metal, as they like to say, and
pass me.
Or, if I’m really pissed off, I speed up so fast that
they just don’t have the balls to catch up to me for fear of getting a ticket.
Me, I’ll pay the damn ticket just to prove my point to the power-sucking “ass-hugger”!
I’ve often wanted to stop these “ass-huggers” and ask
them a few questions— “Please help me out here. I’m doing a study on behalf
of my behavioral science department at university to determine if there’s a
correlation between a person’s driving habits and their profession. If you
wouldn’t mind, could you please tell me what you do for a living?”
And it wouldn’t surprise me if they were to tell me
that they were all employees, not bosses. Workers who are told what to do but
don’t like being told what to do, so they follow reluctantly. They speed up to
catch up to you, telling me that they want recognition in their work, but they
don’t have it in them to pass you and become leaders; so, they place themselves
in the frustrated category of tail-gating “ass-huggers.”
“Why should I pass?” I can hear them saying, as he (again, it’s hardly ever a she)) clings
just close enough to piss me off. “If I pass, I’ll be the one speeding, and
what if there’s a cop ahead with a radar trap? I’ll get a ticket, not him. No,
I think I’ll just stay right here and play it safe,” he says to himself.
That’s the magic word that describes the “ass-hugger”—safe!
They play it safe. They are employees who don’t want
to take any risks to get ahead in life. They have absolutely no concept of what
the spirit of the law means, because they observe, with sycophantic obedience,
the letter of the law; but they don’t like it, and they suck the power out of
you the only way they can—by frustrating you, like tail-gaiting.
“Ass-huggers” follow close behind, because they want
to be seen. They need validation for their work; because if they didn’t need validation,
they would simply do their work and be satisfied in the knowledge that they’re
doing a good job. That’s why they speed up to catch up to you, but then stay
behind. And by staying just close enough behind, they lock into your sphere of psychic
power and feed on it by frustrating those who dare to take the initiative of
leadership, just like sucking the psychic power out of a front runner in a
marathon race by consciously and deliberately running just a few yards behind
him.
The risk of getting a speeding ticket at 100 K per
hour is minimal if the speed limit is 90 K, but if the tail-gaiting
“ass-hugger” passes, he puts himself in the lead and risks having to go faster
than 100 K to stay in the lead, which will maximize his chances of getting a ticket;
that’s why he tail-gates; and again, it’s very seldom a she.
And that’s why “ass-huggers” are difficult people to
work with. They want recognition but don’t want to go out on a limb, so they
always play it safe; and playing it safe fosters a petty, nit-picking
personality that frustrates the hell out of employees with initiative. But
“ass-huggers” love it, because they feed off their frustration. It’s their
nature.
“Ass-huggers” can’t be blamed for anything, because
they follow the rules as safely to the letter as they dare (“I wasn’t really
speeding…”), but they cling to those who take the initiative because they’re
not honest enough to admit that they’re just employees who are asked nothing
more than to just do their job well, otherwise they would follow behind at the
appropriate distance and not frustrate the hell out of everyone, especially
motorists.
And then there’s the driver who speeds up and passes
you and then immediately slows down to your speed—or suddenly turns off,
often without signaling; which really irritates the hell out of me! It
doesn’t make sense, does it? I don’t know which driver frustrates me more, the
“ass-hugger” or the “phony leader.”
I never know where they come from, so obviously they
must have been speeding to catch up to me because I’m doing 100 K; but they
simply cannot follow at the appropriate distance which, if I’m not mistaken, is
one car-length for every 10 K.
They have to be in the lead, but it’s not a genuine
lead; it’s inauthentic. Mauvaise foi, Sartre would say. They just cannot
stand to be behind anyone, so they have to move in front. Not far enough in
front to be a genuine leader, because if they were genuine leaders, they would
not slow down to the same speed that you are doing, but just stay far enough in
front of you to feed their false sense of being in control, and frustrate you
to no end.
If I were to stop these “phony leaders” and include
them in my imaginary behavioral science project and ask them about their
careers, I have no doubt that these drivers would be perceptive enough to see
the correlation between their driving habits and work habits, and I say this
because of the basic flaw in their character—inauthenticity.
The historian Plutarch wrote that the character of a
great general can be revealed by his slightest gesture—a keen insight into the
mysterious language of symbology; and I know, from years of driving the
highways of northwestern Ontario, that the driver who passes me and then slows
down to my speed is not a great general, but a “phony leader.”
“No way I’m going to follow him,” they scream, in silent but phony outrage. They’re
angry people, these phony generals; and it isn’t anything that anyone else has
done to them, it’s their own basic insecurity, because “phony leaders” are
frustrated, unresolved people.
Authenticity cannot be purchased with false coin. It
has to be earned with honesty, sincerity, and truthfulness; but the world is a
grinding factory of compromise, and few people come out the other end without a
hole in their soul. Life’s lessons cost, and few people learn them the first
time around—that’s why they keep coming back; but to realize this, they have to
be honest with themselves, and if the “phony leader” cannot see that his
leadership isn’t genuine, he will be in for much more of the same in life—disappointment.
Disappointments can be a great tool for learning, but
we have to get over our anger first; and this is not easy to do for many
people. I’ve seen people go to their grave angry at the whole world, but a
closer look at their private lives would tell me that these angry people are
the disappointed recipients of what they themselves put out in life.
You cannot be a “phony leader” and expect to get all
the accolades that come with genuine leadership; life does not work like that.
The only thing we get by being phony is more disappointment, because reality
rejects the false.
The false will be found out eventually, it is an
incontrovertible law of life (karma, actually), and that’s the day of
another disappointment. This is so obvious to me that I cannot bear the burden
of its simplicity, and whenever one of these “phony leaders” passes me and then
slows down to my speed, I have to call upon my higher power to keep from doing
something that I may later regret— “I know why you’re doing this,” I say
to him, letting out some of my pent-up rage; “so don’t think you’re pulling
a fast one on me. But I’ll be damned if you’re going to get my power by making
a frustrated “ass-hugger” out of me!”
And I either pull back far enough so he can have all
the control he thinks he has, or I speed up and leave him in my dust; it all
depends upon my day.
And then there’s the “tax-payer” driver. This driver
loves to hog the road and hug the line. And occasionally, depending upon how
important he feels that day, he might just cross over the line to let you know
that he pays real big taxes and the road belongs to him, and him alone! That’s
the peculiar annoying habit of the “tax-payer” driver.
At first I thought these road-hogging, line-hugging
“tax-payer” drivers had a vision problem, or had trouble keeping their vehicle
under control and wavered from side to side; but no, the more I observed these “tax-payer”
drivers, the more I began to see the personality trait of their peculiar, and
really annoying driving habit.
More often than not, they are male and do not waver
from side to side unintentionally; they are relatively decent middle-class
people who are fed up with all the taxes they have to pay for what they feel
they have worked so hard to obtain. Accomplished, to a point, very proud, and
obsessively self-possessed; which makes them individuals who have to have
control and will lose their temper when they cannot get their own way.
“Tax-payer” drivers are dangerous. They play with
other people’s lives. They don’t care. They are indifferent to the needs of
other people, because they have become insensitive to them. How can they be,
being so self-possessed? They want to have complete control of their life, but
reality will not allow that to happen; so, they take out their frustrations on
the rest of the world by being difficult and quarrelsome, and they type
themselves.
“Tax-payers” are surly customers, the ones who are
almost, if not impossible to please. They have to have their bread toasted just
the way they like it, and if it is not the right shade of toastedness, they
will let the waitress know. “Take it back. That’s not toasted the way I want
it. I said dark. You do know what dark is, don’t you?”
The “tax-payer” is the person who says to the civil
servant, “I’m paying your salary! You better damn well listen to what I have
to say!” It’s not, “My taxes help to pay your salary.” It’s, “I’m paying
your salary!” ME!” That’s his theme song, and he expects to be
treated with respect or there’ll be hell to pay.
But has he earned this respect? Just because he pays
taxes—which, incidentally, are no more than anyone else’s in his station in
life—does that mean that the whole world has to cater to his whims? And
here, it could just as easily be a she as a he.
If you listen to the “tax-payer,” you’d think that
they alone support the entire system, and that it should be at their beck and
call; but because reality doesn’t work like that, it follows logically that
something has to give, and it’s not going to be the system.
The system is much too big for one puny disgruntled
“tax-payer,” so they have to give; and this is what helps to type the
“tax-payer” arrogant, and surly.
I came upon a “tax-payer” driver at the gas pumps one
day at our local Esso station and he was complaining bitterly about the price
of gas, which had just gone up four cents a litre, and I said to him, in all of
my innocence and naivety, “All the moaning and groaning in the world isn’t
going to change the price of gas, so why frustrate yourself?”
He couldn’t see my point, and he never will as long as
he remains centered in his self-absorbed personality; so, whenever I see a smug
“tax-payer” hugging the line (especially if I’m trying to pass), I, following
the guiding principles of the Tao, move out of my own way and let him think
that he owns the whole road, enjoying very much watching them play their silly little
game. And this enlightened attitude pleases me.
“Tax-payers” are native to their sense of entitlement,
and it doesn’t matter how much reason informs them of their selfish
perspective, they will not shift outside the suffocating box they have built
for themselves with their sense of self-importance; and the air in their little
box can get pretty stale after a few years of breathing in the same noxious
fumes, which is why these people become negative and cynical about everything
good in life.
Strangely enough, Dr. Bernie Siegel, who wrote Love,
Medicine & Miracles, found a correlation between these negative types
and cancer patients!
As much as the “tax-payer” driver amuses me with their
exaggerated sense of self-importance, the driving habit that amuses me the
most—after I’ve vented myself of my road rage, of course—is the
“career-turner.”
Have you ever followed someone, and it doesn’t matter
if it’s on the highway or in the city (especially in the city), who makes a
career out of making a simple turn?
Doesn’t that just frustrate the hell out of you? They
make their signal (very often long before it’s necessary) and turn so
slowly that it brings the rhythm of your day to a screeching halt; and I swear to
God Almighty that this innocuous driving habit feels to me like someone
scratching the blackboard of my psyche!
After years of observing the “career-turner,” I came to
the conclusion that these motorists (quite often the elders of our tribe who
should have the wisdom to know better) make a “career turn” for one of two
reasons: they either think they’re being cautious, or they are simply being mindless.
Definitely not a Zen thing to do, for the art of Zen
is mindfulness in all things; but they are oblivious to all other vehicles on
the road. It seems to me like making their turn demands all of their attention,
which is why I dubbed them “career-turners.”
Actually, this came to me quite by chance. I was driving
in the city one day when I came upon a driver who was taking so long to make a
simple turn that I could not contain my mounting rage and shouted, “Come on,
for Christ’s sake! What the hell are you doing, making a career out of that
fucking turn!”
Every motorist has a certain amount of road rage in
them, regardless of who they are; and we all deal with it in our own way. I
have to let it out while I’m driving. I can’t help myself. I have to vent; and
as amusing as “career-turners” can be in their annoying caution or mindlessness,
some days they can drive me crazy.
It’s not really the slow turn that bothers me, it’s
the mindlessness. If Christ’s salvific teaching could be reduced to one simple
imperative, I would have to say it would be a simply admonition to WAKE UP to
life. That’s what Zen Buddhism is all about too, waking up to the illusions of
life, and most especially our own self-delusions.
But the driver who makes a career out of turning is
asleep at the wheel, and if I were to include him or her in my imaginary
survey, I’d probably learn that they’re ordinary folk who mean well; more than
likely, church-going people who sing their Sunday hymns by rote and listen to
their pastor’s sermon without giving it a moment’s critical thought.
Sheep. That’s the image that comes to my mind.
Lazy-minded sheep just grazing their way through life. That’s why
“career-turners” bug me—because these sheep, as harmless as they appear to be,
are primarily responsible for retarding the rhythm of life.
Oblivious to the flow of the traffic, they go their
merry way believing that God is in his heaven and all is right with the world;
but little do they realize that they, in their lazy-minded simple way, do more
harm than good. And that’s what really bugs me—their damn idiotic complacency!
And then we have your “Sunday driver.”
I, of course, like every other motorist, am guilty of
being a “Sunday driver” every once in a while; but unlike most “Sunday
drivers,” I do my utmost to be attentive to the flow of the traffic, because I
don’t want to stir up those nasty little negative forces that will, as sure as
God made little green apples, come back to bite me in the ass.
It’s all about karma, really; the imperceptible law of
cause and effect. People wonder why bad things happen to good people, but
that’s only because they’re blind to how the law of inevitable return works
in life; because if they weren’t blind to it, they would not turn heavenward to
beseech God to explain to them why there’s so much suffering in the world; they
would know that we, in our profound karmic ignorance, are responsible.
You don’t go for a Sunday drive on the freeway of
life; that’s just plain stupid. You turn off and go down a side road that has
little traffic. You drive slowly, relaxing and taking in all of nature’s loveliness;
that’s what Sunday driving is all about. It’s not about forcing the flow of
traffic to slow down just for you; that’s idiotic, and dangerous.
But that’s the reality, isn’t it? “Sunday drivers” can
be found everywhere. They impose their rules upon the rest of us and are proud
of it. They have a God-given right to live life the way they want, and by God,
they’re going to live it! But there’s a price to pay for this astigmatism; and
that price is what perplexes the Rabbi Kushners of this world.
Life has never been static. It’s always in a state of flux.
Heraclitus knew this. You can never cross the same river twice, he said; but
when we resist keeping abreast of this change, we pay the price of being
dragged behind—technologically, philosophically, and spiritually; and this
causes suffering, because we are being dragged against our will.
The “Sunday driver” wants to impose his will upon the
flow of life’s traffic, and life reacts; that’s what karma is all
about—action-reaction.
We act, life reacts. Life acts, we react; and learning
how the interplay of action-reaction affects our life is what waking up to life
is all about.
The Tao (the guiding wisdom of life) teaches us
to go around obstacles instead of confronting them, and going for a Sunday
drive on the freeway of life would not be wise.
Confrontation causes friction, and friction is
responsible for suffering; so, a “Sunday driver” who slows down the flow of
traffic causes friction which can cause an explosion of pent-up energies, like
a motor collision.
And vehicle accidents cause pain and suffering. And
God, for all of His-Her-Its omnipotence, doesn’t have a damn thing to do about
it. End of story!
Now we come to the “timid driver” who has so little
confidence in their driving skills that they take every precaution they can
think of to be a safe driver. Little do they realize that their caution is
responsible for more accidents then they would dare imagine.
The “timid driver” always drives the speed limit, or
well below. The flow of traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway, or any freeway,
does not observe the speed limit (it’s unfortunate, but true); but the
“timid driver,” for reasons which I can only assume to be caution, observes the
law to the letter, and this seriously impedes the flow of traffic.
And they invariably hug the curb. Unlike the
road-hogging “taxpayer driver,” the “timid-driver” drives on the far-right side
of the road, telling me, in the all-encompassing language of symbology, that
they are as conservative as conservative can be.
The “timid-driver” never passes. They never speed up
enough to pass, unless of course a motorist is having vehicle problems and must
go very slow; and if the “timid driver” does, in a moment of unprecedented
courage (maybe to impress a passenger) decide to pass, they take so long to
catch up to pass that they often run out of passing lane.
If I were to stop the “timid driver” and ask him or
her to participate in my behavioral science survey, unquestionably the common
trait that I would find in all the “timid drivers” would be fear. “I hate
driving,” I can hear them saying. “Especially in the city!”
I know rural and small-town drivers who are terrified
of having to drive into the city, and short of a doctor’s appointment very
little else will induce them to drive in the city. But this fear is a natural
response, given that city driving demands a whole new set of driving skills;
nevertheless, fear does inhibit the “timid driver,” whether in the city or elsewhere.
Out of fear of making a dangerous mistake, the
motorist who has not built up their driving confidence compensates with extreme
caution. With time and experience, the “timid driver” can outgrow their fear of
driving; but some don’t. They continue to be “timid drivers,” because they are
basically timid people; and short of a radical personality transformation, fear
will always be central to their life. That’s just their nature.
And now we come to the complete opposite of the “timid
driver,” the driver who is so outrageously confident in his control of the road
that he has become the recipient of motorist curses no less damning than
Christ’s curse of the fig tree—the “transport driver!”
I have experienced “transport drivers” too often to
let them off the hook when they excuse themselves by telling us that they have
to gear down and gear up, which is why they try to maintain a steady speed; but
they push, and push, and push regardless of weather conditions (which can be
outrageous in our northwestern Ontario winters) until we get so pissed off with
them pushing us that we—and I don’t know of any motorist who hasn’t cursed them—cry
out in sheer frustration, “For Christ’s sake, get off my ass!”
It’s only a guestimate, with no scientific data to
back it up, but after more than a quarter century of driving the Trans-Canada
Highway, I’ve come to the conclusion that “transport drivers” are responsible
for at least twenty-five percent of all motor vehicle accidents. It’s only a
theory, mind you; but until I’m proven wrong, I’m going to stick by it.
Transports command respect, and when all is said and
done, the reason why “transport drivers” are cursed by motorists so much is
because they abuse their authority.
I can count on one hand the number of times I have
observed a “transport driver” going the speed limit of 90 K, and on two hands
(and maybe my feet as well, to be fair) going 10 K over the speed limit; more
often than not, they love to drive between 110 and 120 K.
On my way to the Lakehead one day a “transport driver
got on my ass, and he pushed me. I was travelling my regular 100 K, ten K above
the speed limit; but he was right on my ass and kept pushing me. I sped up to
110 K, and he kept pushing me. I hit 120, and he kept pushing me. I said to
myself, “Alright, you bastard—let’s go for it!”
We were approaching the KOA campsite hill just on the
outskirts of the city, a few miles from the Terry Fox Scenic Lookout, when he
decided to pass me. I’m going 125 K down the hill now, and he pulls alongside
me; but I speed up to 135. He speeds up. I hit 140, he hits 140, and we’re neck
in neck. I hit 145, and he hits 145. I look ahead and see that we’re running
out of passing lane, so do I let him pass?
Yes, I let him pass. But I don’t curse him. I just
wanted him to know that the game he was playing with me was a very dangerous
game, but I played. I got tired of him deliberately pushing me, and I played to
get his attention. And that, I honestly suspect, is one reason why “transport
drivers” cause accidents; they try our patience until we can take no more, and
we do something very stupid—like I did!
How many motorists refuse to go over 100 K when a
“transport driver” has pushed them to their limit? And by the end of the day,
how much time will they have gained by pushing the way they do? If it were possible
to take a survey and balance out the minutes that “transport drivers” save at
the end of the day by pushing the way they do with the frustration they cause
motorists, would they stop pushing?
I believe they would. The time that they save at the
end of the day by pushing motorists would not be worth all of the frustration,
anxiety, and anger that they cause by abusing their authority; and if they
don’t feel so good at the end of their day—a splitting headache or queasy
and upset stomach—it may not be because they were on the road so long, or because
of the greasy restaurant food they ate along the way; it may be because of all
those curses heaped upon them by all the outraged motorists that they
frustrated.
And St. Peter said to the “transport driver” when he
came to the Pearly Gates— “Let’s see. It says here that in twenty years of
driving transports, you saved an average of fifty-two minutes per day. Not bad,
not bad. You made good time. But were you not aware of the law of inevitable
return?”
“I beg your pardon?” says the “transport driver.”
“Do you honestly believe that the time you saved by
speeding was free time?” St. Peter asks,
with a deep frown on his angelic face.
“I don’t understand,” says the “transport driver.”
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” St. Peter replies, sternly. “There is no such thing
as free time, my boy; no such thing. You pay for every second of time that you
steal from life. Now, if you would give me a moment to figure this out…Yes,
here we are. You stole an average of 52 minutes per day, times the number of
days that you drove transport…Yes, here we have it: 379, 600 minutes. Take a
look. See this number?”
“Yes," the “transport driver” replies, puzzled.
“That, I’m sorry to inform you, will be the amount of
time that you will have to serve back down there.”
“But—”
“No buts. It’s the law!”
“But—”
I said NO BUTS! Now, let’s look at the other files of
your life. Humm, this looks interesting…”
——
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