driving

A conversation i had once with HM. We must have been in a car, one of us must have been driving. Which probably means that i was probably the driver, because if i remember correctly, HM had sworn off driving at that time -- it was bad for the environment, he said, and also, it was expensive. True on both counts. But then i happen to like driving, and i must have told him so, because we then got into a conversation on what it is that people like about driving.
.
Being in control, he said. Or rather, he reported other people as telling him. i guess that if you drive because you like the sense it gives you that you're actually in control of something (the car, presumably, because obviously we can't control traffic conditions, or other drivers ... ), that must mean that you're feeling pretty disempowered and not-in-control in your non-driving real life.
.
For me, driving is about physical movement. i just love that sense that i'm going somewhere, that i'm moving and getting closer and closer to a destination -- and the faster i'm moving the better (though i am a very law-abiding chicken-hearted driver and i don't break the speed limit very often). i especially love driving along those long, broad, unusually empty stretches of road up in the northern parts of Singapore -- Yio Chu Kang, Sembawang. It's something about open vistas and wide horizons (this is becoming a theme on this blog, it seems ... ). Someday i must go road-tripping in the UK. i think that might be really nice.
.
.