Haibun: Uber Ride

Riding in an Uber to get my car, Ron (the driver) and I talked technology. We both had memories of staying home for phone calls and now he ran his Uber business from his phone. But I started drifting the conversation towards what we were missing.

Pointing out all the road signs, all the demands to use the road in a specific way. This lane moves this way, this lane moves that. I asked him if that changes much when we get off the road and walk on a sidewalk? Does it change when we go into a store? Does it change when we pick up our phones and use an app?

I then posed this idea: What if we are losing ourselves in this over designed life and the only way to feel alive in this world is to be angry or afraid? What if the political divisions aren’t being orchestrated by powerful people but instead, are a response to what we all want and need? What if our humanity is so far removed from our own selves that most of us need to hate, be afraid of the other, or resent our opponents just to be alive? What if all these choice given to us by others have pulled us away from knowing who we really are... because we aren’t the choices of the menu, the app, or the podcast store?

I often wonder if the powerful get too much credit for being crafty, for shaping and manipulating us as much as they are opportunists to our desperate, craving selves... selves craving to feel the flames of our younger years but not able to access it through the rules or choices given to us by app designers?

Oh to lose ourselves, again and again, in the burned or aged trees or in the wild parts of our own hearts! 

trees stripped by hard times

maybe flames in their primes, but now

fall starts new lifetimes