Driving at Night

This post begins my chronicle of the Irish adventure. It begins the penultimate night and will most likely be less academic in nature and more personal. Hopefully I don't come off as a sap. At any rate, this is more for my own atrocious memory than for an audience. Although, Sartre would disagree with me, perhaps in an age of over-publishing this blog is simply a sign of the times.

Driving at night has always been one of my favorite things. Going fast, the darkness accentuates the blur of speed. Trees, buildings, fields blend together in a moving yet shapeless darkness. The isolation of the car works in tandem with the darkness to provide a perfect sensation of reflection. Something I read long ago and don't remember where stuck with me. I believe it was something the French philosopher/public intellectual Simone de Beauvoir wrote in Les Belles Images. I don't remember it exactly but it dealt with the car and how it whisks the person along at unnatural speeds that makes it exhilarating and yet extremely isolating. Normally, I view this as a negative thing (especially in terms of the social havoc it has wreaked upon our society when we spend most our time isolated in the car. But driving fast on a dark night listening to loud music (another form of isolation) is such a great experience and perhaps the root of my love for cars and driving.

Anyway, at this particular juncture I have much reason to be in an agitated state. While I haven't found myself particularly torn up about leaving my family, friends and country, I have noticed a peculiar funk. A hazy mood has perhaps kept me from the tumultuous roaring emotions about my departure. Regardless, driving last night even in a car full of people I could travel away to some other place (as indescript as the surrounding darkness). Am I ready to leave, probably not. Am I leaving? Yes. If only I could do so quickly and at night, with the music blaring and the wind on my face.