A love letter to my car

A man once said, "I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride."

Another man once said, "Sometimes I sit up at night and wonder how I ever got this far, but I guess I'll always pull out from under 'long as I got a car and guitar."

Okay, I was the second guy, but take a good look at your car. It's metal and rubber and plastic and glass. It's perfect, except for the human factor. That's why we make agreements amongst ourselves. We all stay on the same side of the road. We all stop and go at the same colored light.

There are also agreements we make within ourselves. Those are the agreements we break the most, because we don't think there's anybody to call us on them. 'Character is who you are in the dark'  are the immortal words uttered by Dr. Emilio Lizardo in the motion picture The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension. It is the only movie of which I own a copy and the only movie I've ever tried to fashion my life after.
 

Character being what you are in the dark is probably one of the most significant self-awareness tools I have ever come across. Every affect you have worked so hard to perfect is useless in the dark. There is no room for poseurs and wannabes. There's no coat tails to grab and no rear ends to kiss. It's just you, baby, and the door out could be eight miles away or two inches behind you. That's why getting there is half the fun.

That's why a car is more than just metal and rubber and plastic and glass. It's a means to get somewhere or a means to get away. A car is a container for our hopes and dreams or a trash can for our failures. A car is a conveyance to a better place, a Promised Land. A car is a church… and traffic is a Holy War.