You Should Really Try Smelling Some Roses

Photo: Photo by Adam Coppola., CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cars, when in motion, usually have at least one person inside them [citation needed].That person is, more often than not, going from point A to point B as directly as possible — isolated from the goings-on around them by all that metal, glass, and rubber.

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That isolation, though, can have some unexpected effects. If you’re just going from home to work and back, who knows what you’re missing out the sides of your car? What neat little shop you’re just driving right by? Baloo Uriza put it succinctly.

This is, to be clear, not just a car issue. Here in New York, it happens on the subway too, and I can give an example from just this past weekend to show how nice it is once you get out of that point-A-to-point-B mindset.

This Saturday, I had exactly two things on my agenda: Visit the dentist, and finally swap a new clutch lever onto my F800GS. Each chore was located mere feet away from a subway stop, but given that it was warm(ish) and not raining too hard I decided to make the half-ish-hour walk from one to the other instead. This meant that, rather than just doing one thing and then the other, I instead:

Stopped at my local Ace Hardware and grabbed a spare set of flush cutters to leave in the garage for zip tie duty, so my bike is no longer covered in zip ties with uncut ends. Grabbed two slices of meatball parm pizza for lunch from a place I’d seen before but never tried. They were so good, and I will be returning.Stopped in a bodega for a water bottle, after realizing that two huge slices of meatball parm pizza without a drink was not going to be good for my body or soul. Saw at least three very good dogs.

None of these would have happened had I just hopped on the train — or hopped in a car — to go straight from point A to point B. Sometimes, life is a little better when you can take the time to enjoy it.

Congratulations, Baloo Uriza, on your Comment Of The Day win. Herer’s a track about what life is like when you’re free to wander in and out of stores at your own pace.

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