71 - I didn't really know him, but as a part of my community, I felt obligated...

11.18.06

GASOLINE
So the thought dawned on me when I was stuck in traffic. I was thinking about all the gallons and gallons of gasoline that were being wasted because everybody had to get home in time to watch their favorite television shows. No teamwork, no collaboration. It’s a wonder game theory hasn’t yet been applied to traffic. And these gallons of gasoline, which wouldn’t have to have been wasted, needlessly burned by the stop and go and stop and go. A slow moving stampede of nine to fivers burning away. So that’s where I got the idea.
You know, when you’re stuck in traffic, everything you do has a ripple effect, whether you know it or not. You hit the brake, and so does everyone behind you.
If every car stuck in traffic in a single day lined up end to end, it would stretch from here to the dead sea and back again.
Needless to say, that’s a lot of gasoline.
Talk radio knows when we’re all stuck in traffic. That’s when the human mind is most susceptible to change. Studies have shown that your brain hums itself into a strange meditation where the suggestions of the radio can actually change your opinion for ill or for good. I don’t know where these studies come from, I’ve never read them myself, but you get my point. This is where I got the idea to do it while everyone was suck in traffic. So maybe I could change their minds a bit.
Talk radio has a history of being aligned with those in power. I don’t think I need to say anything more on that topic.
I sort of though of the idea as doing the exact opposite of what talk radio could do.
I also wrote a manifesto…
…
AH! That’s cold! A bit ironic.
It really stings the eyes. Should have brought goggles.
…
When you all go home, after seeing what you’ve seen, you’ll have an opinion. You’ll react and it will affect how you see everything in the world. Or you’ll call me crazy, depressed or lonely.
I don’t care what you call me, really. I just want to change how you see the world. To make you give birth to an opinion. Not only about this, but about everything.
Traffic.
Talk radio.
Gasoline.
We might as well try to make the best of it. I mean the whole world is going to get swallowed up by the sun eventually anyway, right?