{"id":6984,"date":"2014-05-19T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T04:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=6984"},"modified":"2014-06-11T14:11:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T18:11:29","slug":"the-ny-state-of-mind-does-not-brake-for-enlightenment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/the-ny-state-of-mind-does-not-brake-for-enlightenment\/","title":{"rendered":"The NY State of Mind Does Not Brake For Enlightenment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NY_585x585\"<\/a><\/p>\n

George Carlin had this joke. Take a pad and paper with you every day.\u00a0 Count up to ten.\u00a0 That would be the number of assholes that you would encounter in a day, but sometimes, you would even get past ten.\u00a0 I personally lose count every time I\u2019m behind the wheel going to work or coming home because drivers lately have the need for speed, and as another car cuts me off, missing me by an inch, I glance down at the book beside me.\u00a0 It\u2019s \u2018A Simple Path\u2019 by the Dalai Lama.<\/p>\n

Consciousness.\u00a0 It\u2019s an entity in itself.\u00a0 Does it stem from emptiness within?\u00a0 Does Karma factor into its role?\u00a0 If anything, Karma is based on the cause and effect of decisions made through consciousness, but I have to wonder if the drivers playing Frogger before me are aware of their dangerous actions.\u00a0 I was just going to the vet\u2019s office for my furball\u2019s annual shots when Mr. Purple began to erratically flash his headlights.\u00a0 Either he was having a seizure or he really needed to call his proctologist, but he was not the boss of me.\u00a0 And he would not be the first nor last road rager that I would encounter.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the true lying game.\u00a0 We tell ourselves that we are in control, but are we really?\u00a0 One wrong move, and it\u2019s all over.\u00a0 And do you think that they would tell the cops the truth?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 They would lie to cover their ass, and then after everything is said and done, they would do it all over again.\u00a0 It\u2019s a vicious cycle.\u00a0 It\u2019s like my brother, who is incapable of telling the truth.\u00a0 Granted, that might be part of his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but even when cornered after throwing out an important document, he still cannot confess the truth.\u00a0 You know that he did it.\u00a0 He knows that he did it, but that is as far as you go.\u00a0 And drivers play the same game.<\/p>\n

It was a quiet day at work last week.\u00a0 I decided to leave early and have my blood drawn.\u00a0 The parking lot was a zoo, but I finally found a space.\u00a0 The wait was brief, and the labwork was done.\u00a0 I was ready to go home, but as I slowly pulled out of my space, loud honking ensued.\u00a0 I braked, looking over my shoulder to see a woman bent over her steering wheel and going berserk.\u00a0 I waited until she was done spewing curse words muffled by her raised windows.\u00a0 Once done, she merely glared at me, so again, I backed out.\u00a0 And then she went berserk again, screaming curse words that only she could hear, and finally hitting the gas like a bat out of hell, and then she stopped at the STOP sign, waiting for her turn to merge.<\/p>\n

I had a fish once called Louie.\u00a0 He was always mouthing off.\u00a0 He loved to swear just as much as I did, and that fish swore up until the day when the cat ate him.\u00a0 It strikes me funny that no matter how much I like to swear, I rarely do that when I\u2019m driving.\u00a0 Sure, I get those that hunch over their steering wheel, mouthing infamous words that only they could hear, or I get those that make the bird signal.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t faze me.\u00a0 Only in the rarest situation do I let those certain words course through the air.\u00a0 One situation would be when I was merging at the top of Route 6, and this guy with a car full of people drove right alongside my car, trying to force me over into the barrier or opposite lane just to cut me off.\u00a0 He nearly drove himself and those people with him into a ditch, but lucky for him, he was just able to squeeze his ass in front of me to avoid disaster.\u00a0 And the boy in the backseat glared at me like I was the villain, but that\u2019s just the sweet lie that they would believe.<\/p>\n

We are our own worst enemy.\u00a0 We are marionettes, and our puppeteer is that voice inside our head.\u00a0 We tell ourselves that we have the right of way, ignoring that YIELD sign by Exit 15, and then we brake hard when a car flies by, missing us by only an inch.\u00a0 We tell ourselves that yes, we can merge, but that other car stays beside us, blocking the merge, and causing conflict and confusion.\u00a0 Why are they still there?\u00a0 You are in control.\u00a0 You own the road.\u00a0 You tell yourself that, feeling the need for speed, dodging in-between those that would slow you down, and nobody better stand in your way.\u00a0 Or so that voice tells you, pulling those strings, and laughing silently at the thunder of collision.\u00a0 It\u2019s a lie, a lie that we will always believe because that voice shapes our reality, and we see its perfection not its flaws.\u00a0 And then we press the pedal to consciousness, making rash decisions based on what we believe to be true, but we could be dead wrong.\u00a0 Luckily, that is rarely the case, but some come close.\u00a0 And when we need that voice the most to guide us out of harm\u2019s way, it falls silent.\u00a0 You are on your own, and your strings are cut.\u00a0 Et tu Brute?<\/p>\n

Life is far from a simple path.\u00a0 Its jagged turns leave us bleeding, broken, and jagged ourselves.\u00a0 Our mentality is not programmed for peace, love, and understanding, at least not here in our New York State of mind.\u00a0 We are fierce creatures especially on these roadways, some as infamous as Route 6(66).\u00a0 We cannot be courteous when we don\u2019t even observe and obey basic road signs like YIELD or STOP.\u00a0 We\u2019re consumed with thought, one thought in particular that we are in control.\u00a0 Resistance is futile, and we will never change.\u00a0 I see that every day as I scribble down on my mental notepad the assholes that I encounter.\u00a0 George Carlin was right.\u00a0 You could count up to ten in a day, but I seem to lose count after awhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Carlin had this joke. Take a pad and paper with you every day. Count up to ten. That would be the number of assholes that you would encounter in a day, but sometimes, you would even get past ten. I personally lose count every time I\u2019m behind the wheel going to work or coming home because drivers lately have the need for speed, and as another car cuts me off, missing me by an inch, I glance down at the book beside me. It\u2019s \u2018A Simple Path\u2019 by the Dalai Lama.<\/p>\n

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