On Traffic and Its Purpose

In my world, everything exists for a reason.  Sometimes, with things we don't like - such as mosquitoes, or bullies, or war - it's hard to see the reason.  I was in traffic this morning and started to wonder WHY us humans have chosen to bring traffic into our collective reality.  This is what I came up with:

1. It slows you down - literally.  However, literal slow-downs usually foster mental slow-downs as well.  In traffic, I find myself looking around.  The same stretch of freeway I've driven pretty much every day for the last decade looked odd to me this morning....why? Well, it's a part that is usually traffic-free, so I race past it at 65 miles per hour.  Today, at 20, I looked around and for a second I thought I was lost, it was so unfamiliar.  Now, nothing I've been seeing for 10 years should be that unfamiliar, so this was the universe's way of saying: Look at that.  Pay attention to where you are.

2. It brings you into the here & now.  Similar to point #1, traffic makes you BE where you are.  On the section I drive, there's lots of merges and exit-only lanes in a rather short space, so I have to be very aware of all the other drivers.  What are they doing?  What are they about to do?  I can't really zone out in the same way I do when I usually drive to work, arriving with that freaky feeling of "ghost driving" (can't remember really how I got there because I was disconnected and in my head).  Traffic stops unconscious driving.  It's got a "be here now" quality we probably all need more of.

3. It offers you a chance to show your quality.  Someone else acts like a jerk (for it's always the other guy, not you, driving idiotically, right?) and you have a moral choice: get angry (i.e. pass the blows) or get compassionate (i.e. absorb the blows and transform them into love).  I used to swear at other drivers, until I heard Caroline Casey (on her Visionary Activist Show) suggest to bless them instead.  I started doing that, and what a difference. 

Basically, I think - they are behaving jerkishly because they are either unaware, or don't care.  Either way, they need the support and lovingkidness of their fellow human beings to become aware or considerate.  If someone cuts me off, I lay a little blessing on them: "May your day improve, and may you feel loved today."  If someone is really dangerous, I give them a little positive "curse": "May you find out today in some way the importance of being careful and considerate with your fellow humans, so you may change your dangerous ways."  These actions allow me to spend my commute on the moral highground.  (Full disclosure: occasionally, I still feel a bit annoyed, but usually can still manage a quick "bless you" instead of a "fuck you.")

4. It's a great equalizer.  Traffic is democratic.  VERY few people take private planes or helicopters to work, which means the rich, the famous, the powerful - they all get stuck in the same traffic as the unwashed masses.  The Porsche is going the same lousy 15mph as the beat up Chevy.  The Tea Party member is going the same speed as the illegal immigrant next to him.  The really underprivileged take public transportation, of course, but still, there's plenty of variety of class, race, age, ability, etc in traffic.

5. It makes you happy - when it's over.  When my commute is 65 the whole way, I'm not especially happy about it; it just is.  However, when it's 20 and then lightens up, that 65 can seem like a great gift, a boon, a reason to say "yay!"  You don't know what you've got until it's gone, and that is why things come & go.  We have troubles so we can have triumphs, we have pain so we can have pleasure.  We have traffic so we can appreciate our speedy freedom and the miracle of high-speed travel (which I define as anything faster than the traditional human mode of travel, walking).