Driving on the Freeway as a Transcendental Metaphor

The above title may indeed appear at first a fatuous attempt at finding some sort of silver lining in what most Angelinos likely consider a brutally mindless and de-humanizing chore..and I actually do agree..but spending as much time as I have punching the clock on The Great Asphault Snake..eventually I have come to realize the poetics embedded within this common experience. Mostly it has to do with the ritual participation in what appears to be an infinite mass of anonymous humanity flowing endlessly from nowhere to nowhere at a great speed and ferocity that would lead most to the impression that there actually was anywhere that needed to be gotten to at such a velocity. The individual must shed all pretense of difference and engage in a spontaneously choreographed river of movement which is simultaneously authored by everyone..and therefore no one. Although the vehicle is a shell of sorts..you realize that in the end, the only thing more impressive about an SUV or other fancy car is really just that your dead and mangled body would be draped and crushed within a more expensive and shiny coffin. This is why I find this particular method of transportation so compelling as a spiritual metaphor: because as a liminal process..being neither here nor there..not only are all markers of identity and illusions of self effectively erased..we can see a deeper question of existence cast into sharp relief. The road is time..and one day we will come to the end of this linear path. Those who were driving so fast will wish they had slowed down a bit. But inevitably even the slowpokes will pull into that last driveway and pull the keys from the ignition that one last time. There is no good reason why our lives have ended up this way..why we must endure the specific hardships of contemporary life instead of more ancient woes such as Bubonic Plague or ritual flagellations..but then again there's no good reason for anything. Better to watch the endless play and movement of this formidable beast with a reverent wonder and realize that like all else..one day the freeways will run dry and pull into their own Last Stop.