Driving is a very interesting activity. In part,
it is because the behaviour of road users in a country is highly reflective of
the culture, lifestyle, value system and mindset dominant there. By observing
the conditions on the roads, you will be able to get a feel of how life in the
country generally is. When I was in Italy, I had to exercise extra care when I
crossed the roads. Traffic was so chaotic that as someone walking on the
sidewalk, I was conscious of how vulnerable I was as a pedestrian. There was so
much pent-up anger and loud explosive behaviour (indiscriminate blaring of the
horns, lane-cutting, speeding) that I could almost see it hanging like a
stifling fog in the air.
Another point about driving which makes it so interesting is that (as I
mentioned in my earlier post) many aspects mirror our daily living. For
example, in a traffic jam on the expressway, we can only move on helplessly
inch by inch. The best we can do is to hope for the next exit to come up sooner
so that we can take it out of the congestion. This is so similar to what many
of us are feeling in life - about education, about work, about finances, etc.
We feel so constrained, frustrated and helpless because there is no exit
appearing on the horizon yet. We are moving but only inch by inch, day by day.
As a result of this, the behaviour that we exhibit on the roads therefore is an
extension of, albeit perhaps an exaggerated one, our behaviour off the roads.
Combining the above points, driving allows one to gain an insight into human
psychology and also understand more about the limitations of our system and the
effects of such restrictions. It allows us to see in full vibrant color the
evil of Man, of how someone can deliberately knock down another in a fit of
anger, as well as the innate compassion in us e.g. stopping just to help a
fellow motorist change his tyres. It lets us see how the system is a vicious
cycle of cause and effect, of action and reaction. The anger that we inflict on
the motorist next to us gets transferred to the third person through him. It
then moves on to the fourth and fifth, and so on and so forth. Like a ripple on
the surface of a lake, anger gets transmitted from one driver to the next
almost magically. When it reaches a critical mass in the system, we start to
see crazy behaviour emerging on the roads - rash lane-cutting, cutting in front
of another and then e-braking - and correspondingly, multi-car chain collisions
which was quite a rarity many years ago.
Your example of the incident when you were a P-Plater highlights the illusion
of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong. These are labels which we apply to things
that happen to us, people whom we interact with, situations that arise in our
daily living. How we apply them are based on our experiences, our upbringing,
our thought processes. Each and every person has his or her own ideas of the
above. That which is good to one may not be the same to another. Something that
is wrong to you may be totally right to another person. Our definitions are
forged and shaped largely by the society that we grew up and live in.
It is the clinging to the absolute Good and Bad, Right and Wrong that exists in
our minds, coupled with the self-righteous obsession with our human rights,
that many conflicts arise today. We fight for what we think is Good and Right,
oblivious to the fact that others may have differing perspectives. We condemn
that which is Bad and Wrong, unaware that there are those who hold the same
thing in the highest esteem. This thinking, left unchecked in society,
snowballs into intolerance and from that discrimination and disharmony arise.
I will stop here for now but if there is anyone who would like further sharing,
please let me know and I will do so.
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