Oddbean new post about | logout
 I woke up in the dark, got dressed, and drove to a doctor’s appointment in San Mateo. The clinic is a mile from my former office so this drive is one I’ve done hundreds of times.  

but today it felt... odd.  anachronistic.

it’s not that the drive itself is bad: there are way worse places to be than 280 at dawn, inside a warm masterpiece of German engineering. 

there’s hardly any traffic.  no billboards from enterprise software startups shouting at each other about the superiority of their product offerings.

when I did this commute daily (because there isn’t public transit where I’m going), I treated it like moving meditation. 

notice nostr:npub1wnr9lewx3j2vughqfs2qre78rad0p0n06f9cec7lc4zkj5raunlsx0w499 still asleep in the folds of the hills.  admire how the sun paints the trees a golden yellow.

in isolation, it’s not a bad diversion. 

but when we *had to* do it daily? each of us inside a small metal box, suffocating the very view we feel privileged to admire? 

that’s barbarian. 

will we ever do it again?

https://files.sfba.social/media_attachments/files/111/167/967/224/020/576/original/bd02caddb3594ec9.jpeg