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White-knuckle daydreaming.

Some people think I take driving too seriously, I think. And it's not that I don't, it's just not what they think is going on. I actually love driving. I love driving around and going places. Partly because of the very mild sense of travel and adventure, mostly because it affords a very unique opportunity to multitask. I like driving because it's a mental challenge. And so people comment that I'm too intense when I drive because, even when I'm with friends and there's good music on the radio, I'm still holding the steering wheel and looking forward.

And it's not that, exactly.

I'm keeping tabs on everything. I'm watching the guy three cars ahead of me in the other lane getting ready to recklessly weave between lanes to merge blindly on the freeway, I'm watching the woman in my blind spot who is about to cut sharply into my lane, I'm watching the car speeding nervously through the intersection ahead. I'm observing and registering all of these warning flags of other drivers to avoid and assigning priority levels based on the immediacy of danger. And, of course, listening intently to the music. And listening to the passengers. And keeping an ear out for my phone. And thinking about where I'm going and how best to get there. And, finally, dealing with whatever memories get triggered by the plethora of stimuli I assault myself with. And, so, I zone out when I'm actually driving. It happens a lot, actually. I go into a sort of auto-pilot. Some subsection of my consciousness deals with the actual navigating and reacting while the rest deals with everything else. It's like a driving intuition; I just trust myself to manage the driving.

There's also an amount of brain power--and this should go without saying--devoted to worrying that my auto-pilot is going to get me into a car accident. Again.

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