Every day, I drive along a winding road. The pavement meanders away from a river, over rolling hills and in between many small lakes, curving and coiling dramatically, edged by steel-and-concrete barriers to avoid the spectacle of car-in-water. The road continues like this for many kilometers before eventually leading to the ocean.
This road is so unlike the flat geometric gridwork of the country roads where I grew up and spent the bulk of the first 30 years of my life. Those farm roads were so predictable: reliable like the crosshatching pattern on a window screen. If you'd seen one industrial farm, you'd seen them all. The familiar expanse of the grid felt liberating at times.
Nothing new to see. No obstacles. The roads were conducive to zoning out, listening to loud music, and holding down animated conversations.
Intersecting parallel lines for hours.
Every day, I spend an hour on this hilly, winding road. I know there's water and animals and the occasional person nearby, so I watch and listen. I'm careful. The hour a day I spend driving hills and curves is making me an expert at steering, changing gears, moderating my speed. Unexpected obstacles await me not a kilometer ahead where I can see them with minutes to spare, but as I round a sharp bend. I cannot see things coming, which keeps me vigilant.
Every day, like everyone reading this, I spend time on the internet. I surround myself with words, voices, and faces that don't look or sound like my own.
My social media feed isn't a relaxing mood board of fashion or pop culture ideals. It is a heterogeneous reference book. It's a series of public access news channels. It's an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and a thesaurus. It’s a lively, intelligent debate overheard at a University library or a conversation held over the counter at a co-operative cafe. It teaches me something new every time I look at it.
When I cruise the ether, I go looking for voices of dissent, acknowledgement, confidence, and determination.
I spent more than enough of my life in an echo chamber. Then a wall of mirrors. I heard and saw nothing but my own experiences reflected back at me at odd angles, but still always recognizable as my own.
I listen carefully. I never know what's ahead. I'm constantly surprised by how little I know, because I spent so many years driving along the grid work. The topography here and now is so varied, compared to those long, straight stretches of road, that I’m constantly on my toes.
I love learning, and I’m quite comfortable with being made to feel uncomfortable about my long-held beliefs, whether they be truths or misconceptions. There’s always something slightly new and ever-so-askew about my world.
I listen carefully.
I never really know what lies ahead.
I love your view on the world around you. I often comment that the roads are so winding and views so different here. I did not think to compare to where we are from but it makes one realize just how it is so.