Zone38 Presents...
Letters to the World

24-Jun-2001

Take the case of your automobiles…

Filed under: General — codeman38 @ 2:50 pm

Take the case of your automobiles
Greatest invention since man discovered wheels
Hydromatic overdrive, four-on-the-floor
Push-button windows, push-button doors
Double-barrelled carburetors rush you anyplace
But you never can find a parking space
Highly illogical…

— from the song “Highly Illogical” by Leonard Nimoy

Ah, driving. Everyone acts as if it’s as easy as taking the proverbial candy from a baby. But honestly– I beg to differ. (Of course, I never felt that taking candy from a baby was all that easy either, but let’s save that for another rant.)

Now don’t get me wrong; I’ve been getting quite a bit better at driving lately, but I still feel that I’m too incompetent to drive on my own. I still haven’t a driver’s license yet, only a learner’s permit, and honestly I don’t know when I’ll actually get a real, honest-to-goodness license. But does it really matter? After all, even with the legal privilege of driving alone, I’ll still no doubt be very much afraid to do so.

But why? Why does it come so naturally to others, including members of my own family, whereas I’m so bloody incompetent at it that I’ve several times humiliated myself? Why, after several years of practice, do I still forget basic rules of the road and still miss what should be rather obvious observations? Why, in short, am I such a bad driver?

Well, there’s always the theory that I’m actually not an Earthling and am instead an orphaned child from some far-off alien race. It’d explain quite a few of my idiosyncrasies, actually– but hey, let’s stay realistic for right now, shall we? 🙂

Seriously, though, I do think it has a lot to do with my INTP personality type, which was mentioned a while back on this page. Granted, so I often use that as an excuse for nearly everything, but in this case it actually does seem to make quite a bit of sense. Though my primary cognitive faculty is Perceiving, it’s not, as is the case in a majority of the population (most of which, no doubt, are rather observant drivers), a Sensory form of perception. Rather, it’s an Introverted iNtuitive form, which in short means that I don’t pay too much attention to the outside world but instead keep a much closer eye on my own thoughts. Yeah, that sounds about right…I’m often off in my own world of thoughts while driving, sometimes completely oblivious to what’s around me– which, of course, is one of the many reasons that I am such a bad driver. Heh.

But then again, it could just be because I’m a self-proclaimed eccentric…

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