Bummin' a Ride; or, Decidedly Inconvenient

Twice now in the last five days I have accepted an offer to borrow a car. While driving I was reminded both of a car’s convenience and just how much I enjoy the act of driving (or at least in a non-existent bubble where there would be no bad drivers). And, admittedly, over the last couple of weeks I’ve even a few times considered the possibility of buying a cheap clunker in order to open up my job options.

I would love to say that I never even think of buying a motorized vehicle, that I am one-hundred percent bound to the idea that I do not want a car. But I can never fully overcome reverting to the ingrained instincts of convenience that I have acquired my whole life—to suggest that I could fully overcome them is to suggest that I am not human (and a stinking good one of those I happen to be).

But ultimately I know that I won’t buy a car because I don’t need one; because of the very fact that not having a car is decidedly inconvenient and too much of our way of life is based on convenience. Too often we describe luxuries as necessities—the necessities, at their furthest reduction, being only food, water and toilet paper (especially toilet paper). From the conveniences of technology we can now be reached anywhere at anytime, barely lift a finger to cook (or nearly any act for that matter), and can be entertained the entire day without ever having to attend to our annoying little minds (to cut a very long list offensively short). But from these inconveniences we have grown impatient at the slightest delays, ushered in the 24 hour/7 day work week, 52 weeks a year in the customer service industry and are unable to entertain ourselves for the slightest moment should we be deprived one of these pieces of technology for the slightest moment (repeating the offense of the previous statement). Even quitting a demeaning job is commonly avoided should it prove to be even the slightest bit inconvenient for the short interval of time of the near future.

(For me, late night infomercials act as the comedic epitome for the vast library of the products on the market that are offered—for a fee—that one may “need” a convenient and specific tool that serve nothing more than an absurdly minute and infrequent moment. And rather than improvising a solution on their own with tools they might already have, some people actually buy these products. The humor!)

But in committing acts of inconvenience one can often times find unknown benefits. I don’t own a car because the slowness of the bike gives me access to the outdoors cars don’t; I don’t go back to school to get more education to make more money because I can learn everyday on my own if I am so inclined (and trust that I am able to learn on my own); hell, I don’t even try to make more money because of the benefits of free time and being able to go more at my own pace. I understand exactly why cars were invented and became, and remain, overwhelmingly popular: the convenience of the acquired mobility from them. And in occasionally using cars, for instance (by continuously using cars as an example does not mean to imply a condemnation of them and those who use them), I recognize those conveniences. It’s just that, in a collective mindset so obsessed with convenience, it is thought nearly impossible that the scales can be balanced away from such conveniences so constantly and instinctively. It would not be my wish that everyone share the exact same definition of such balance, but only that people would be more willing to approach the so-called inconvenient a little more freely, a little more frequently. Should a man require to be like water and always find the easiest way to the sea he will only find himself a meaningless drop washed along by a torrid current he is unable to steer.