# 38: Death By Freeway

As I am cautiously driving home, staying within my lane, the thought occurs to me, as it often does that I might very well die. In my minds eye I can picture the truck in front of me jack knifing, or the motorcycles darting in and out of traffic colliding with any number of cars that are doing the same. I see the various scenarios play out and I see my self reacting to them, swerving to the right, or breaking hard trying to avoid certain death. Now I am sure that at one time or another everyone experiences these thoughts while driving next to an eitghteen wheeler or a speeding car.

However the problem becomes that I have these thoughts everytime I get into my car. Evertime, not just sometimes, or a few times, but evertime I am in my car on the freeway or driving the 4 miles to my house from the freeway. I can see the traffic light on the road back to my place suddenly changing from green to red . I see myself unable to stop, as the speed limit is 50, running through the sudden red light and being hit by the opposing traffic that has the green. This is what I think about when I drive. I do not think about the act of driving, as so much as the act of dying while I am driving. This is not normal I know. At first I did not notice it, merely passsing the whole thing off as being a cautious driver, but now I see it as a completely irrational fear. Well not completely, as statistics show that someone gets into an accident every few minutes. Yet the fact reamins that no one needs to be spending more time thinking about how they could die on the road then spending time driving the road. My main focus should be on driving and not contiplating what I will do if a wild deer runs across the interstate causing a 20 car pile up. Incidentily no deer have ever been seen crossing the interstae by where I live, it would be instant suiside for the deer. So what I am or anyone else to do, I can't not worry as then I would become reckless like all the other idiots on the road.

I could turn up my music really loud to drown out the voices in my head. Or I guess that I could move to a place where tourist and idiots do not rule the road. A place where the locals, are not so fed up by the tourist and idiots on the roads , that they to drive like the mad people they despise. Yeah, moving may be the only way, that or walking which I beleive may be even more dangerous still. Lastly, I could resort to flying everywhere as one is less likely to be in a plane crash then in an automobile accident. I think we have found the anwser, flying. But alas I am not superman or John Travoilta with my own private fleet of planes. So, I guess I will have to resort to strapping on a helmet and praying to god that death does not find me while I am driving on the freeway.

--Sleep Well

Hoping not to Hope

Life is a strange thing and as I will always point out, not of my own design. I mean yeah sure, it was I who decided to have two helping of dessert and I who decided to move to the most touristy place on the earth, but still, life is just never how we think or hope it will be. Now I am an eternal optimist though it may not seem so by my ramblings. I always look for the positive and believe that there is a reason for everything. That, if you try to be the best person you can, life will take you where you are supposed to go. Whether that means that you will live to be 104 or that you will die in a car crash at 22 makes no difference. Call it destiny or just random chance but there is something that is out of our control, and not always in a bad way. Therefore life is not of our own design for if it were, I am sure that most of us would choose to live to be 104 . But that is not the reason I am writings this time, though it does playing into it, greatly. The reason I write this time is to talk about hope, how it can be the best thing and the worst thing all in one.

Hope can give us strength to see a tough time through or give us a reason and focus to our lives. A hope can come and go quickly like a summer shower or it can evolve and change like the seasons. A hope can also be engrossing like the air we breath, all around us, with us every moment, though we may not always notice it. Hope is more often than not a good thing; a hope for a better life (seasons), the hope that the cute person across the room will look at you (summer shower), or the hope that a parent will beat cancer (engrossing). Yet hope can be bad because when we get caught up in hoping, whether for a moment, season or lifetime, we may start to rely only in hope, or we may loose hope in hoping. In certain case we may even hope not to hope, to spare ourselves from what may never come. At one time or another we all have hope, loose hope and hope not to hope. It is just how life is. For myself I hope only in moderation, just enough to help me get through the rough patches but not enough to affect my life. Sure I have engrossing hopes, but I try to let them just be there, floating around not interfering with my life. This of course being but a feeble attempt to control my own life. Yet whether we hope fully, in moderation or not at all, no one can deny that hope does not shape our lives. Especially when we hope not to hope.

The Very First...That why they call it THE FIRST

Why the title, simple, this is the very first posting on my very first blog. Once I thought blogs to be for merely those with entirely to much time on their hands. A place where people go to spill their guts and thoughts to people they don't even know. Yet, after many a night awake in my bed, pondering the meaning of my existence I thought...what the hay, it sure beats talking to myself. Truly the starring from other people has gotten out of control. I mean I realize that talking to myself in the bathroom or in the movie theatre is kind of strange but that's why I am now part of the blogging community. But I jest, I do not in fact speak to myself in public places, but I have always possessed a love of writing. Therefore I make it my mission to not just write about what I had for lunch or how I had a bad hair day, as those are rare. I will write about both those things and observations on life and while each of us makes our own choices in life, if you really stop sometimes and look around there is much that is not of your or my own design.

-I hope you enjoy-If not then get back to work