Modern Analogy
... just cruising along...
We've all been there.... Traffic. Lately there are individuals, who drive 38 in a 45. They stop 5 car lengths before the white line at a light. They slow down on the accelerating entrance to a highway. They make it impossible for the vehicle behind to get into the turning lane, although there's plenty of space ahead of them. They drive eternally in the fast lane, just because. They turn without indicating; they drive through yield signs, don't drive when it's their turn at a four way stop, and speed up when someone tries to enter the lane, a street, or the open space in front of them. Traffic. Traffic flow. Think about how it works. Oh, and my favorite: stand still on a highway. All lanes. Stand still. And naiveté assumes there's an accident, construction, an obstacle, but no, when you get there - absolutely, and positively nothing! Face it, we've been doing this now for over 100 years, and we still suck at it! Traffic!
Why?
Simple. We refuse to think, accept, and adapt.
THINK. Think where you're at. Are you alone on the road? Somewhere on the plains in North Dakota, or driving through the Sierra in Arizona, moving 100 miles an hour, or 40? It doesn't matter, you're alone. Turning donuts, breaking, accelerating, driving in the center, right on top of the midline - it doesn't matter. You exercise your total, individual, egotistic freedom, and full expansion of rights. You're on your own. Fantastic! Congratulations! The complete and utter expression of the American understanding of liberty.
ACCEPT. Accept that when you enter traffic, because that's what driving with other people means, something changes. As there is no traffic when you're alone, and we can all agree on this definition and terminology, one can do as one deems fit. Truck, Smart, sedan, sports car, whatever. When you're alone, you can park perpendicular to the lines on the ground. But when you do that on a parking lot in town, at Target, on Black Friday, accept that your car will be subject to expressions of more or less creative acts from your fellow humans. Accept that everyone around you has the same rights, feelings, thoughts, impulses, reactions, and tolerance as you. No matter how big, small, fast, sleek, powerful or old your car is, you share the same space, in the same place, or on the same road. Are you less free? Hell no! But do you feel restricted in your liberties? Hell yeah! That's when we touch upon the difference of freedom, and liberty.
Your liberties in crowded rooms become part of something else entirely. This requires understanding. That's why a baby, or child can throw a tantrum in circumstances as these, and a mature person does not. A mature person understands the difference. A mature person; not merely an adult. The same in traffic. Simple. Especially in traffic flow. It can only flow, like any form of liquid, when all particles flow at the same/similar speed. It becomes congested, when some particles do not move accordingly. Now, particles cannot be idiots, but people can.
Accept that you're an idiot, when you're not accepting the simple, underlying difference between driving alone, or driving in traffic. That goes for the big, selfish SUV or truck, bullying their way through, or the sticker-clad, meager, tiny car, which drives extra slow to save the planet. Both act as if alone; both do not accept that traffic is not about exercising personal rights, but is about flow. Simple. And one can also see clearly that both extremes display a degree of like-minded "idiotness," as if twins, even attached at times. That's how extremes work. That's how extremism works. It doesn't matter if you're a capitalist or a communist when you're alone, but when in traffic, and you don't adapt to driving, instead of expressing your individuality, you're simply an idiot. Putin or Trump, different testicle, same scrotum. There is a reason for 13.8 deaths on American roads per 100,000 people, and for 2.6 deaths on Japan's roads per 100,000 people, both for the year 2022.
ADAPT. Adapt to your situation, your position in your situation, and understand that you're a part of a whole, unless you want to become the part that creates the hole. Simple. You're a particle within the flow, the stream, when you are with others. Unless of course you insist that you're special, and you need to bully, cheat, or steal in your need to expand your role, to bloat. That’s congestion. In traffic.... And usually where the bloating finally escapes, there is the asshole. Especially in traffic....