"Those of us who move will die. Those who don't are already dead." - Jean Behra
Two of the running clichés in this particular episode of history so far are that we have all forgotten what day of the week it is and we all now have all the time we supposedly haven't had before to do all those things that have always been put off or labeled as secondary priorities. Life for me defies both of these small-talk topics; I've spent the last month remotely managing department stuff and my two math classes, which are all still very locked into their particular schedules, and I've devoted a ridiculous amount of time to producing an increasingly intricate series of instructional videos on trig and statistics to the point where one of my students ratted me out to the dean for not grading tests from a few weeks ago. (Completely copped to it and am now getting caught up on that.) The semester ends in two weeks so at that point I'll apparently have more time to do all that stuff, along with getting settled into the new apartment here in Midtown East and trying to prepare for the baby, expected in mid-June.
Past school stuff and a running series of anxiety attacks (and it is one of the great cosmic jokes of this time that the symptoms of a decent anxiety attack closely echo the symptoms of The Thing, maybe minus the fever) I have had some time to think about all of this, although it's entirely too early to draw any conclusions about great societal shifts and so on. I'd like to think that more people will start to have some respect for the folks in what are too often called menial jobs who have kept life going through all of this; maybe we'll see some renewed understanding of the importance of adept government agencies and informed expertise in the midst of complex developing issues. That said, I have no idea what will change or how those things will change. Societies are unpredictable and fractious, and humans are strange creatures. Everyone thought at first that 9/11 was going to bring us back to some sort of noble core ideals about community and what it means to be an American, and instead we ended up with several years of Paris Hilton.
Que sera, sera. It's more important to focus on the now, on getting through, on managing the mild dissonance of knowing that this will eventually end and knowing that we have no idea when (or how) it will end. And, maybe, also managing the many other mild dissonances that are accompanying this moment.
I have started my car maybe four times since the last trip home from Bridgeport. It sat for so long that when I had it double-parked with the blinkers on during the move, the battery died. (Jumper cables, folks. Best $20 or so you'll spend for your car.) On a certain level I miss regular driving, in the engagement and gratification that speed and control provides; I also find it to be tremendously irrelevant right now. Looking through what classified listings are being posted recently feels almost inappropriate in light of the reality of near-random death outside. Discussion and debate about the future directions of the industry is now secondary to worrying about just who will be able to be there in that future.
That is clearly not the case for racing, though, as discussion and debate are now heading into some truly new territory. I'm wondering if the sudden popularity of esports and simulator racing is simply a result of us all being shut-ins right now, or if this is a sort of pull-the-curtain-back moment for the motorsports industry. Maybe all the pageantry and expense and excess of it all can be binned since we now see how racing can essentially be construed - and sold - as pure operator manipulation of an algorithm, which deep down it always has been anyway (if in a very non-virtual, non-digital environment). Given preexisting attention to environmental issues and questions about the relevance of race-car development to consumer products, I would not be surprised if a season of big names playing iRacing at home does serious damage to the systems of real-life professional-level competition.
Fast cars and fast driving are probably in for a beating in the next few months anyway, given not just the media exposure granted to amoral assholes in white Audis and blue Gemballas but increasingly direct and day-to-day questions about the purpose and usefulness and significance of cars and driving in general. That's not to say that driving is going away; once this is over we will have places to go again, and it's starting to become evident to everyone that autonomous rideshare services will not be covering 50% (or 0.05%) of total vehicle miles anytime soon. But I wonder if more people will more seriously question whether high-performance cars, especially ones with limits well outside the bounds of the normal driving environment and costs that may be increasingly difficult to justify, make a whole lot of sense in this world.
I suppose this is just another of those grand sociocultural what-comes-nexts that I said I would avoid. But if we supposedly have all this time to consider things, isn't this something worth considering? What roles does a car play in a person's life, and how are those roles best filled?
I dunno. Maybe it's the creeping dad-to-be thing. Maybe it's how part of me continues to be unhappy that I went with a perfectly normal modern hatchback instead of something more alluring and idealistic like an Alfa Spider or an MGB even as the 3's innate capability and practicality has been used to great effect over and over, and I'm trying to come to terms with that same idea of purpose and use. What really matters, what is merely desirable or enjoyable, and how does one answer those different priorities?
I'm not even sure I know anymore. Or maybe I actually do know and the truth is far more pedestrian and banal and uninspiring than I care to completely admit to myself, at least as far the current situation goes.
What really matters right now is surviving, managing the risks and the fear, doing what I can to make sure that Anna and the baby are both okay, keeping up with work with the hope and expectation that work will somehow keep going.
Driving will happen again. I'm still left wondering what it means, though.