Uncategorized 29 Dec 2006 06:07 pm
New Years Irresolutions
One of these days soon I’ll write a New Years Resolutions post. But first, a resolution I won’t be making. This year, I will not learn to drive.
Driving was on my resolution list for years, and I took some mighty hard cracks at it, each one more vomit-inducing than the last. Eventually I recognized that my fear was unusually strong and that cranking down on myself was making it worse, so I started to deal with it more appropriately as a phobia. That made me a much less anxious passenger. (A problem I didn’t even realize I had! Man, I must have been a pain.) But progress on the driving end of things was slow while I recognized my car-related freakouts and retrained myself to knock them off.
“You don’t have to learn to drive,” said Josh, but I didn’t believe him. Everybody has to learn to drive, right? That’s why, when I say I don’t drive, most people look at me like I’m a freak of nature. That’s why that librarian said of Octavia Butler, “I hear she’s some kind of recluse. She doesn’t even drive.” Everybody’s gotta drive! All sane people drive! If you don’t drive, somebody might give you a ride somewhere, and then you’d be a needy loser! Ew! And I keep hearing that driving is freedom. What kind of a person doesn’t want freedom, right?
So I didn’t believe him. And yet, it started me questioning, just a little. Josh generally has his head on straight, after all. I reprioritized the driving thing and started to concentrate instead on improving my health. That took up all my spare time for a while, and I got hugely good results. It took several months, but eventually my wobbly lumbar spine was stable enough for me to take the bus and walk more easily, even with packages. My sacrum and pelvis started to come back into alignment. My energy improved. As I saw that my physical functioning was getting better, I thought, “Hmm.”
All I’d really wanted from driving was freedom and social acceptance; freedom was coming back on its own, and social acceptance can go hang. (Well, that, and being able to lug around large heavy things and get way the hell out to West Seattle to see some friends more regularly. But these things are workable.) And I didn’t want fear to beat me, dammit.
And then I met Sarah’s husband James. Sarah, if you’re reading this, I hope you will thank James for me. He readjusted my head in a big way. There was a moment in conversation when I hung my head and had to admit to James that I don’t drive and have never had a license. James looked at me and exclaimed, “That’s so cool!” I was totally confounded. It is? Are you sure? That can’t be right. It is? It took a while to sink in, a good long while.
But, you know, he’s got a point. Phobias aren’t cool, but maybe a car-free/car-light lifestyle is. I don’t want to come over all sanctimonious, but car culture is obviously problematic, and Josh and I have lives that allow us to ditch the car and step back a wee bit from the general fossil-foolishness. And not only can I live with this, I recognize that I like it. Fear gave me the motivation to gain the skills required to organize my life in a way that wasn’t structured around having a car, but it isn’t just a fear thing. It’s a good way to be; I’m aligning my actions with my intentions. And I’m meeting more and more people who agree with James.
The work I did on not freaking out about cars still comes in handy as cars and SUVs whoosh past the bike. I’d feared I might just freak out and toss myself at the sidewalk when a car came by from behind, but I’ve gotten quite sanguine about it all. Rain or shine, I love that tandem. There’s nothing like zooming down a long gentle hill in the open air.
on 29 Dec 2006 at 6:25 pm 1.Amy said …
Interestingly enough, I believe that this will be the year I learn to drive. I’d be happy enough to go on without learning (for some reason, the social pressure doesn’t bother me), but for my internship in pediatric physical therapy we will make home visits, and they require that I be able to drive.
I think my fear is on the borderline for phobia, so we’ll see how it goes. My current plan is to shell out the cash for professional lessons and force myself to practice at least some with family in between lessons. (Because I cannot afford to do all my practicing in lessons.)
Congrats on your largely car-free lifestyle and the improvements in health you’ve made!
on 29 Dec 2006 at 6:35 pm 2.Cam Sculpin said …
Thanks, Amy!
Have you talked to Desolina about professional lessons? There’s an instructor she liked who has a lot of experience with fearful clients and adult learners. I can’t remember his name, but he sounded good.
on 29 Dec 2006 at 6:52 pm 3.Amare said …
I also think that the way the two of you have structured your lives around bikes and public transit and occasionally a flex car if you really need a car is a really great thing. I’m trying to do that myself, it’s one of the big reasons I’m being so picky about where I want to live.
You’re right, having a phobia is terrible, but you aren’t letting it hamper your life, you’re still getting out there and doing the things you need to do and that is extremely admirable.
on 29 Dec 2006 at 8:54 pm 4.Maggie said …
Living in NYC, I know a lot of people who don’t drive and don’t know how to drive. A bunch of them grew up in the NY metro area and as such, they don’t drive because nobody who’s sane owns a car if you live close enough to the subway (parking, traffic, etc. are a nightmare).
Recently, I went on a business trip to our office in LA with some of my coworkers. Personally, I like to drive and am kind of an agressive driver (not necessarily dangerous, but not skittish or anything). I was the designated driver for a few of my coworkers. Few of them admitted that their lack of driver’s license was circumstantial (lived in NY all their life, moved to NY when young, etc.), but one girl confessed that she doesn’t drive because it scares the pants off of her. She said that it scares her a lot and instead of trying to overcome her fear, which would be lots of hard work and possibly painful, she decided to live in NYC, where public transportation is awesome and cars are unnecessary. She did mention that sometimes she feels dependent when she goes to visit her family in New Jersey, but that’s the only limitation.
The interesting thing though that as I talk to New Yorkers about this trend/phenomenon of people without licenses nobody finds it extremely weird or anything. You’re probably much much healthier than many of those “free” people with cars.
BTW, whenever I read your stories about the tandem, they make me feel all warm on the inside. Keep it up! I’m installing a solar power solution on my house this year mainly due to being inspired by your solar water heater. Hooray, Earth!
on 29 Dec 2006 at 8:58 pm 5.Maggie said …
Oh, btw, my dad is a professional driver (for UPS) and back in the day, he used to teach people how to drive for a living. He is the person who taught me how to drive. I think if you do decide to learn again (perhaps a resolution for 2024?), it’s important to have someone extremely patient and very competent who you trust absolutely to teach you to drive.
But I do agree with Josh - you don’t need to learn how to drive.
on 30 Dec 2006 at 4:23 am 6.Joy said …
I hear you on the “needy loser” lable - which is why long ago I decided to call asking people for rides guerrilla carpooling. I’m not maladjusted, I’m an eco-warrior! *nods*
on 30 Dec 2006 at 5:13 am 7.Mia said …
Very cool. I want to say something more articulate, but nothing is occuring to me.
on 30 Dec 2006 at 10:49 am 8.Kathleen said …
Cool beans! You are right on to make those kind of decisions for yourself. I just learned to drive 2 years ago, and I’m glad I did, but I applaud the insight that it’s not for everybody, and it’s possible to take conscious action to build a life beyond the car culture.
on 30 Dec 2006 at 4:42 pm 9.Karen said …
I remember coming to an odd epiphany about fifteen years ago. I hadn’t owned a car at that point for years — I never needed one except when I was travelling to an out-of-town convention, at which point it was cheaper to rent — and yet I was virtually the only person in my group of friends who’d ever bothered to learn to drive.
Further inspection of this concept revealed that in fact I did have three or four friends with a driver’s licence, and another three or four friends who even (gasp) owned a car. Invariably it was a broken-down beater, full of litter and mechanical complaints, which neither ran as well nor cost as little as my occasional rentals.
At first I wondered why so many people around me had never bothered to get a driver’s licence, but soon enough I was phrasing the question the other way. Why would somebody like me, growing up in a big city with a well-connected bus system and a growing network of bike paths, ever have thought a driver’s licence some kind of necessity? What bizarre cultural more had possessed me, at the age of eighteen, actually to buy a car?
Really, they’re just not necessary for the vast majority of purposes people use them for. They’re not even necessary for the majority of purposes I use them for, and I’ve been a car sharing activist for more than seven years now.
on 30 Dec 2006 at 5:19 pm 10.mcJulie said …
I drive, in spite of being rather terrified of it. I dislike driving enough that walking a few blocks to the Co-op strikes me as genuinely less work than driving, unless I’m going to buy a lot of heavy stuff. So I really understand your position.
The problem with autophobia is that, with most phobias, you can tell yourself “you know, that spider actually isn’t poisonous.” But driving really is that dangeorus.
on 31 Dec 2006 at 9:47 pm 11.mizducky said …
Right on. Driving should not have to be a mandatory activity. And also right on for getting physically strong enough to make the car-free thing workable. What a wonderful liberating feeling, eh?
My brother is another one who never learned how to drive, for reasons of anxiety. He too has made his home in Manhattan, where it’s downright insane to own a car, even if you have the bucks for garaging it.
I confess I love to drive–but I sure as hell don’t love sharing the road with some of the vehicular jackasses I see down here in Freeway Hell. Not to mention all the issues about pollution and expense and such.
It’s damn difficult to be comepletely car-free in San Diego, but it can be done if you live in one of the more walkable/bikeable neighborhoods with good mass transit service. Plus Flexcar does have a foothold here. As my own strength and stamina continue to improve, I hope to look into all that and see if I can make car-free work again for me.
on 05 Jan 2007 at 6:23 pm 12.Sarah said …
I’ve been running behind on lj, but I just read your post to James. James says, “Wow, I’m impactful!” That, dear sir, is 10 pounds of truth in a 5 pound bag.
Glad to hear that you’re getting what you truly wanted in the first place, which is amazing and fun and, really, the whole point. Go Cam!!
on 21 Jan 2007 at 10:30 pm 13.Ellen said …
I need to get over my driving phobia. Does anyone know of a school or instructor who specializes in this kind of lessons? I drove for 17 years before the phobia took hold, and I have not been on the freeway for many years. I do still drive through the city streets, but that is such a long trip to anywhere. Need one of those driver instructors with the dual controls so I will be safe (and others to be safe) until I feel I am in control. I know I can do it, I just need some help.