Right.
So, listen. At this point you are probably catching on to the fact that I like to state the obvious.
Captain Obvious. That’s me.
Ha. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was so aptly named? Like, Commander Klepto. Professor Halitosis. Captain Vulnerable to Peanuts.
At the very least, comic books would be different. But it sure would be useful in dating. Captain Hammered McDrunken, or Princess Cottage Cheese Bum.
Ok, so, it’s probably better not to do that with our names. We would make too many assumptions too quickly. Because, really, nothing is ever how it appears to be at face value anyway.
It’s funny. As people, we think we know all about something just by its name. But there can be so many variations on an object or concept. Let’s talk about cars.
Why? Mostly because I like cars and, darn it, this is my book.
=) (There is that emoticon again. Persistent little bugger…)
You know how people say a person knows too little to be useful and just enough to be dangerous? Did you know that saying was coined because of me? Ok, so, that’s probably a lie. Ok, I’m sure it’s a lie. But that doesn’t make it apply any less. Here is what I mean.
I grew up on muscle cars. My dad was, and still is, really into old school hotrods and old cars in general. Therefore, so was I. I love them. I wanted to own one. (still do…) I grew up in the garage with my dad turning the wrench on one project or another, dreaming about the day when I would get to be the guy behind the wheel of a car way to powerful for me to be driving.
The possibilities of trouble that lay before me were endless.
And then finally, the day came. I got my driver’s license. Oh the joy! Oh the bliss! Oh the horror!
Yes, horror. If you were my parents, it was most definitely horror. I mean, think about it. Handing the keys to any car, especially a powerful one, to me, the kid who had dreamed about driving something fast and awesome all his life… it was sort of like taking a shiny new grenade, pulling the pin, and handing it to a toddler.
Well, the first car that I was allowed to drive on a regular basis as “my own”, was a 1978 Dodge Aspen ex-police car. It had the whole squad car package. Beefed up suspension, 360 cubic inch v8 with more power than I needed. (admittedly, by today’s standards, it wasn’t that much power. But still…)
I thought I was invincible. I thought I knew everything about cars and driving. And in my defense, I was quite knowledgeable for someone my age. I knew all the facts and figures and how to work on them, and I wasn’t even a half bad driver. Pretty good, even.
The problem wasn’t my driving skill, however.
I used to go out on to barren roads and empty parking lots just to “test out” the car and “get used to its handling” and “do stupid crap.”
I suppose we didn’t need to use code on that last one.
Well, there was this one road that I drove all the time. It was a frontage road to the main highway that went past where I grew up. It had a 55mph speed limit, but it had a tight curve near the end of it that was rated at 25mph. But as every teenager knows, speed limits are merely suggestions (cough cough), and are meant to be ignored (please don’t take me to jail nice mister police man.)
I had practiced enough that I could toss that old squad car into fish tail turns and four wheel drifts. I had learned how it handled and was pretty confident. So, to test that out, I figured I could straighten that curve Dukes of Hazard style and live to brag about it.
Long story short, I hit that curve going close to 70mph. And you know what happened?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing, except total and complete awesomeness.
I drifted that bad boy all the way through the curve like some sort of road racing demon of, um… road racing.
I didn’t crash, I didn’t get a ticket… it wasn’t even close. In my mind, I had proven to myself that I was in fact the superior driver and that my superior understanding of cars and driving had won the day.
Fast forward a few months.
My mom had a fun little car. It was a 1989 Dodge Shadow ES Turbo. It really was a pretty fun little car. Five speed, 150hp, and it handled like a go-kart. Well, at least it did compared to that old heavy squad car I was driving. It was lighter, peppier, and just more fun to drive.
One day while dropping off a friend at his home after school, I was going down that same road. I decided I was going to show him how amazing my mom’s car was and, more importantly, how amazing my driving skills were.
We hit 120mph on the highway, got off, hit the frontage road, and where nearing triple digit speeds again. However, I had the good sense to slow down for that curve. I figured it like this. That squad car made the curve at 70, and this car handled better. Therefore, if I wanted, I should be able to take the curve faster. However, I decided to slow it down to 55mph instead. It was still crazy fast for that curve, but slower than before. It should be a cake walk.
I threw that car into the curve and the next thing I knew was that we were upside down in a ditch hanging from our seat belts. The car slid off the road (can we say I blew a tire? For my ego? Please?), hit the dirt embankment, and basically flipped corner to corner in some part barrel-roll, part end over end style of flipping. Honestly, I’ll probably never know for sure what it looked like. All I know is that car no longer exists. It didn’t have a straight piece left on it. Every window was broken. Except for one, which my friend kicked out getting out of the car. (that’s another story…) Fortunately, though, we were fine.
Now, besides the fact that I’m stupid, what went wrong? Was my analysis wrong? Well, the Dodge Shadow was indeed the better handling car. So if you are doing straight-forward logic, it should have worked.
What I didn’t account for was the fact that the Shadow was a front wheel drive car, and the Aspen a rear wheel drive car. Anyone who knows anything about cars, knows that a front wheel drive car handles very differently than a rear wheel drive car. That is where the flaw in my logic was. I didn’t anticipate that fact. I did not even know that fact. For all my knowledge and “experience”, it had never occurred to me that it would matter. It didn’t occur to me that which tires were providing the motion and struggling for traction would matter. It never occurred to me that having the same tires steering AND driving the car, would cause grip to be different. It never occurred to me that the car wouldn’t want to tail slide just like my other car.
Any truly experienced driver would know this. I however, was not a truly experienced driver. I just thought I was.
Unfortunately, reality and truth were sort of scaled and relative.
My facts were correct, but it didn’t occur to me that they were only correct within a certain context. Fast for one car was even faster for another in certain situations. Not that the speed was different, but the limits were. The techniques for handling the limits were different.
As I’ve gotten older and driven other cars and faster cars, I’ve come to learn that fast and slow are relative to the vehicle. If you are driving a Corvette, fast is pretty fast before it becomes too fast for the cars ability. But if you are driving a boat like Buick slow can still be pretty fast when it comes to the cars ability.
It’s all about the context.
So is our world view.
Remember that from last chapter? Our view is based on “facts.” But the facts are sometimes relative. They can be contextual. A thing can be true, but not always true.
In America, giving someone the “thumbs up” gesture means “good job” or something similar. But in some countries, the “thumbs up” is a very offensive gesture that definitely does not mean “good job.”
In one context it’s good, in another it’s very bad.
What facts do we use to shape our view of things? What truths make up our perception of reality? And, more importantly, how many of those truths are actually true? And even more importantly, would we ever be willing to admit that any of those truths aren’t so true?
Without that flexibility, our world view will always be stunted, and therefore incomplete. The only way to have that flexibility is through personal honesty. The recognition that I don’t know what I’m talking about, or that I’m full of poo.
That recognition is super important. It’s that recognition that teaches me that my car accident had nothing to do with the Shadow handling different than the Aspen. It wasn’t that the car was incapable. It was that I was incapable. A professional driver would have been just fine. I was the problem. I was the one who didn’t know better, but more importantly I was the one who would never admit that he didn’t know better.
If I had, I would have been able to alter my view and therefore my actions. I would have been able to recognize the fallacy in my mind before it was too late.
I would have understood that fast cars can feel slow, and that sometimes slow is still way too fast.
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