The Thoughts You End Up Driving Into

 I think a lot in cars lately.

It helps that most of the time I’m in the car, it’ll be moving at a pace of 5 meters per quarter hour. That would be the time my car will join other cars and we turn into a single, collective mass. We would be known as The Gorram Jam, or other variations like Effing Jam or WTF Jam(!). As a collective mass, we are also collectively noisy.

The thought parts, I think, are individual.

And while I think most when I was part of The Gorram Jam, I inevitably also end up thinking a lot when driving normally. It’s quite unhealthy, because I run the risk of careening off flyovers before I can say “Oh Hell No”, but it’s as easy to fall into as daydreams in the day.

I’d think of many things – things I forget, things that aren’t important, and the same things all over again.

There was that day when I had to drive to Sepang for an event. The way there was aided efficiently by well-placed signboards, but the roads to it went on and on and on, all the while changing gracefully from highways to streets to winding roads that only grow narrower. It was like driving into different realms, and I found that I couldn’t spare the time to think when I had to constantly wonder (aloud, and sometimes rather panicky) if I’m still on the right track.

Driving back from it, though, and already knowing the way, it felt like driving into roads of Thought that went all the way to my front porch.  

The skies that day were a brilliant blue, decked with serene clouds that were either magnificently huge, or humbly scattered and introverted. They had shapes that represented nothing; for all I know, they were Shapes.

Like my thoughts, they were clear, certain and blue, and filled with shaped things that remain mysteries.

It doesn’t make sense, as usual.

But I thought a lot. And I thought until the roads ran out.

I thought more than I ever did.

****

Tonight, Thinking as I drive, I came to a Decision.

It was as simple as just Thinking it. And deciding as it materialised. And while I gave it more Thought to make sure I was certain, it seemed set and unmoving. It seemed determined.

When decisions happen like this, I guess I’ll have to go through with it.

And I think I will.