I was pleased to read so many responses regarding my Zen Driving post. Most of you like the term and the meaning I assigned to it. Some even suggested various improvements to the procedure. I, my self, am also new to that thing, so I will have to try everything on the street. I will even test some ideas of my own. If only I had a theory to support the practice... Well, let's make some.
The Butterfly Valley in Rhodes, Greece is full of butterflies, (most of the brown stuff is butterflies - no, they are not dead, they are resting). This is irrelevant to the post, since you can't drive through the valley.
First of all, we need to clarify the purpose of Zen Driving. The purpose of Zen Driving is to have a personal experience that involves your vehicle and the environment. It is a way of feeling the environment through your vehicle. Now maybe some people will think "travelin-blogger just lost it", but the truth is I have always been a little crazy.
I believe that modern humans have a special relation with their vehicle (1). Your car is more than a mean of transportation, it is an extensions of yourself. Hey, I'm not the only one saying that! Besides, if you use a car, you know what I mean. Your car is part of yourself, in the same sense that your haircut or your shoes are part of yourself (personally, I'm more identified by my car than my haircut - and I almost don't give a shit about the car).
Your car is part of yourself, but does it help you extend your perception of life, the world and everything? Goggles, if you use them, help you improve your perception, while a hat might be reducing your ability to sense what stands above you. What about the car? In which category does it fall into? Well, it can be both ways, depending on how you use it (2). How can I use it to expand my senses and reach a greater understanding of the environment?
Let me put it in other words. We travel, and drive and move from one place to another. Technology give us better and better cars that can move faster and be more convenient for us. The more convenient we get, the less attention we pay to the landscape (whether it's natural, urban, or whatever). We drive through so many different places, but we ignore them. Think of all the neighborhoods you ignore every single day as you drive to work, or the seemingly similar fields you don't look when you drive long distances. It's a shame (not the same), because every place has more than one stories to tell and we miss that because we are too preoccupied with driving our own car. The car isn't meant to be used that way. Cars were supposed to give as more places to visit, more strange lands and towns to reach. Cars were supposed to expand our perception of the world, not the other way around.
In that sense, Zen Driving is the right way to use a car: Push the pedal to reach some velocity, turn down the radio, open the windows and let it go (but be careful not to hit anything or anybody). Use the car as a long distance bike, so that you can hear the sounds, smell the air, feel the temperature, get wet by the rain, get dirty by the dust, get hot when it's hot, get cold when it's cold.
I hope the above summarizes the theory behind the practice, or it's the first step to build one. I probably need more references to support my thoughts, so if you have any, please suggest. I will also be glad to read your comments (private or public, there are no restrictions).
I believe that modern humans have a special relation with their vehicle (1). Your car is more than a mean of transportation, it is an extensions of yourself. Hey, I'm not the only one saying that! Besides, if you use a car, you know what I mean. Your car is part of yourself, in the same sense that your haircut or your shoes are part of yourself (personally, I'm more identified by my car than my haircut - and I almost don't give a shit about the car).
Your car is part of yourself, but does it help you extend your perception of life, the world and everything? Goggles, if you use them, help you improve your perception, while a hat might be reducing your ability to sense what stands above you. What about the car? In which category does it fall into? Well, it can be both ways, depending on how you use it (2). How can I use it to expand my senses and reach a greater understanding of the environment?
Let me put it in other words. We travel, and drive and move from one place to another. Technology give us better and better cars that can move faster and be more convenient for us. The more convenient we get, the less attention we pay to the landscape (whether it's natural, urban, or whatever). We drive through so many different places, but we ignore them. Think of all the neighborhoods you ignore every single day as you drive to work, or the seemingly similar fields you don't look when you drive long distances. It's a shame (not the same), because every place has more than one stories to tell and we miss that because we are too preoccupied with driving our own car. The car isn't meant to be used that way. Cars were supposed to give as more places to visit, more strange lands and towns to reach. Cars were supposed to expand our perception of the world, not the other way around.
In that sense, Zen Driving is the right way to use a car: Push the pedal to reach some velocity, turn down the radio, open the windows and let it go (but be careful not to hit anything or anybody). Use the car as a long distance bike, so that you can hear the sounds, smell the air, feel the temperature, get wet by the rain, get dirty by the dust, get hot when it's hot, get cold when it's cold.
I hope the above summarizes the theory behind the practice, or it's the first step to build one. I probably need more references to support my thoughts, so if you have any, please suggest. I will also be glad to read your comments (private or public, there are no restrictions).
Subnotes:
(1) I don't mean that kind of relation, you David-Cronenberg-ian perverts!
(2) Oddly enough, that sentence also answers the following question: if a
need a penis to be gay (not lesbian), does having a penis make me gay?
2 comments:
The only problem with Zen Driving (TM) is that it is opposite to the main inherent values of a car. The car is designed to get you somewhere fast, without noticing any of the places, incidents on your way. Unfortunately the car favors the destination not the journey. (The heater or the air-condition, the ABS, the EPS, the stabilizing systems, the lights, everything is designed to eliminate all the specific properties of the place/weather for safety and speed).
Even with your gear on neutral on small slope, you can't feel the breeze of the air, the taste of the asphalt, the background sounds. It is on the right path to enjoy the journey, but it is just a start.
For myself, if you want to be real Zen Traveler, you have to walk the paths, cycle the asphalt, taste the rain, feel the snow and cold, swim the seas, dive the depths. In general try to embrace the forces of the nature. Be one with them.
This Zen approach can be found in any means of transportation - activity! Cycling is far more Zen than Driving. Sailing is a Zen sport compared to motor boats or being in a cruise. Free diving compared to scuba diving, and so on...
Finally, I can imagine that as someone comes closer to the absolute Zen transportation, he makes a journey into himself rather a journey between physical places!
@mythomania: I think I have to agree with most (if not all) of what you say. Still, I have to commend back.
The only problem with Zen Driving (TM) is that it is opposite to the main inherent values of a car.
Do cars have values? Maybe not by themselves, but we assign some values to them, as long as we see our cars as something more than an object. Are they means of transportation? Are they status symbols? Are they extensions of ones manhood or womanhood (or both simultaneously)? I believe the answers to those questions vary from person to person.
The car is designed to get you somewhere fast, without noticing any of the places, incidents on your way.
Think of the detectives in films. They always use a car to observe the world (or the suspect). They "hide" in the car, but they don't just do that. In fact, the car is the place to unite the team, let the partnership progress. So, the car has to be designed in a way to at least enable the observation.
Unfortunately the car favors the destination not the journey. (The heater or the air-condition, the ABS, the EPS, the stabilizing systems, the lights, everything is designed to eliminate all the specific properties of the place/weather for safety and speed).
Even if your criticism on Zen Driving seems eloquent, there is the danger of underestimating the real values of car traveling, which you probably have already discovered.
Maybe it is more correct to say that the car alters the observation, by interfering between the observer and the observed. A mediated, indirect observation is not necessarily a bad or useless one, it is just different.
But there is something more to it: the car makes the observation. Before the car (or the train) you would see a landscape, a street or a building. Now you see/experience a moving landscape, street or building. The observed is animated and merged with other observed objects into a larger observation.
The view from a speeding car or train is moving experience, rich in information. Maybe we have to stop from time to time to admire the still view, but we can find true values to an animated world too.
Even with your gear on neutral on small slope, you can't feel the breeze of the air, the taste of the asphalt, the background sounds. It is on the right path to enjoy the journey, but it is just a start.
I agree with that, but I have to add something: even you can't feel any of that stuff, your car can! So, you can feel everything through your car! In some level, the car projects such information by design, but in some other level it acts as a more natural medium. For example, you feel the asphalt quality changing from road to road or when it starts raining. In urban environments, it is not unusual to feel the emotional state of most other drivers as you drive your own car. I bet there are more examples to that.
What's more, as a driver you can empathize your car, e.g. feel how the weight is balanced, how hard your machine is working right now, if it's tired, etc (the most extreme example is how you can tell you have a flat tire without seeing it).
Cycling is far more Zen than Driving. Sailing is a Zen sport compared to motor boats or being in a cruise. Free diving compared to scuba diving, and so on...
Agree.
Finally, I can imagine that as someone comes closer to the absolute Zen transportation, he makes a journey into himself rather a journey between physical places!
Yourself = yourcar (at some level), so maybe there might still be something to explore in "zen car driving"...
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