Highway Hypnosis is a phenomenon experienced by drivers navigating the American Highway System. When this occurs, drivers are lulled into a dreamlike state by a homogeneous American landscape. This causes a driver to lose track of his/her surroundings while driving. This could simply cause the driver to arrive at his or her destination without realizing it or it could lead to a devastating accident. It’s a coin flip. C’est La Vie, no?…
Now, have you ever felt like a personality neuter, meaning you just felt devoid of any creativity, opinions, zest, pain, or even joy? Good, me too. As a result, I haven’t written anything in a few days. I just haven’t had the inspiration or energy, and I would rather not ramble for the sake of rambling, despite HTML evidence to the contrary. The colloquial term for this is called “a rut.” It was the same thing every morning: Wake, Smoke, Shower, Iron, Commute, Smoke, Arrive, Work, Eat, Smoke, Work, Commute, Smoke, Arrive, Dine, Be a Boyfriend (couldn’t quite find the verb for that one), Sleep.
This was accompanied, or you could say facilitated, by four days of moist overcast in Stamford, CT. It was as if the Earth were crying and I was empathetic. In other words, I was in a rut. That was until sunlight broke the overcast like happy memories slicing through grief. On that day (yesterday actually) I saw a sunset. Call me a hippie, but there is nothing quite as beautiful, as humbling, as miraculous as a sunset.
Let me to help you visualize: A rock weighing trillions of tons in mass revolved around a sphere of pure energy in a formless void. The subsequent effect that day as with every before it was the movement of said ball of energy across our sky. Atmospheric Gases and Refracted beams of white light blend into one. Purple, Red, and Indigo all swimming around a yellow nucleus. It was beautiful. All that was missing was Bob Ross and his “happy little trees”. Upon viewing, I was instantly struck by a joke to write. Rut broken.
A rut is highway hypnosis on the trip from our first dream to our eternal one. A sustained rut may simply take you to your deathbed without realizing it or it may cause a devastating accident: your children become adults but are strangers to you, your significant other leaves for lack of the love he/she needs/deserves, you just don’t enjoy life anymore, etc. There is so much pain and suffering in this world that we have drifted into our own dream-like states, medians to separate ourselves from the hideous highway of life. Life is hard, as is anything worth having, but there is so much beauty and joy in life to let it just zoom by.
Find your own sunset, be it a college basketball game(if that Mario Chalmers shot in the national championship game last night didn’t snap you out of a funk…I don’t know what to tell ya), the laughter of your children, the love of a significant other. Find something to help you pay attention to life before it passes you by because when its gone...well you know the rest. As for me: nothing but sunny skies the rest of the week. That should hold me for awhile. Bruce Eagle the Full Metal. Happy Driving!!!(By the way, be on the look out for “Obscure countdown week” starting Monday)
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