Sonorous Steps

There's something about being stuck in traffic that is overwhelmingly ineffable.  Some aimlessly crack their knuckles, others awkwardly stretch their arms over an empty seat, and the people with tinted windows go searching through a nasal cavity or two.  If you're really lucky, you get some road side entertainment from the bus full of middle schoolers who just learned how to curse with their fingers.  Unequivocally, everyone busies themselves in their own unique way but there's one game that everyone plays.


Every driver on the highway plays this game and no one quite knows why.  Choosing not to play is akin to subjecting yourself to seething scowls and seas of stentorian honking.  And, you don't learn this game in Drivers Ed or take lessons about it from an instructor.  Its not in any text book or any DMV guide.  This is just one of those that you just gotta know; actually, I think its just one of those you are born with it.  Despite its compulsive nature and legendary following, this game is quite simple: if you look up and upon looking over the hood of your car you happen to see any hint of the dark, weathered pavement characteristic of a highway, you must accelerate as fast as mechanically possible to fill in this gap, regardless of the gap being twenty feet or twenty inches.  As fast as you can, you accelerate and fill the gap before coming to a complete stop as you patiently wait until your next turn.  No questions asked, no second thoughts.  Obviously, there are subtle nuances of this game that take into account the tiny little ladies who drive huge SUVs and struggle to see over the steering wheel—let alone the hood of their cars—but without the proper funding and the necessary dietary supplements, it would be rash to delve into such matters.


I've found this game to transcend gender roles, socioeconomic status, or even political agenda—I'm going off of bumper stickers for the last one.  They play it as passionately in Islamabad, Pakistan as they do in Woodland, California.  But to be honest, that's not what makes traffic so special, so idiosyncratic.  The true beauty comes right at the dawn of traffic, just as the sea of cars arises from the unchartered horizon.  As you come to the top of a concave patch of highway and look down into the treacherous valley that awaits you, you see maybe a handful of white, shiny California license plates staring back at you like a set of dentures that seem to sign just a little too brightly to be real as they rest snugly on the back of a diverse array of cars who each shield the license plate of the those they themselves stand behind, as faithful friends guarding one from the lure of the mythical sirens.  Needless to say, at this point, you've realize those sirens they are guarding you from are just a bunch of beat up cars that are also well past their primes.  Upon further inspection, you realize that behind those aged veterans are another row of automobiles who manage to hide the license plates of cars as far as the eye can see.  You, sir, are entering a traffic zone.


*cue The Twilight Zone music*


This is the point "where amazing happens."  Suddenly, every decision you make becomes of the utmost important.  Do you continue to blaze through the fast lane or would a quick V cut into the lane to your right get you a few feet ahead?  Is it worth going on surface streets and school zones or are you better off waiting it out on the freeway?  Is that boring AM radio station that my Dad listens to going to give a traffic report soon or is that possibility not worth missing the chance to butcher the second verse of this T-Swizzle song—T-Swizzle is Taylor Swift's new rap nickname, see youtube for details—that I always sing along to?  The manner in which we analyze each choice is staggering.  And, inevitably, we make the wrong decision.  We fail.  After watching the car you were tailgating just a minute ago slide past you after you had made the devision to switch lanes, nothing can stop that stinging feeling of failure.  The calculated risk taken by switching lanes ended up being a problem that earned you a big fat zero in luscious red ink with no hope for partial credit.  No points were awarded.  No land was conquered; this battle was lost.  In spite of being but a matter of no more than fifty yards or twenty seconds, we become relentless in our pursuit for perfection.  We enter into a state of such deep self reflection and self analysis, purely in hopes of bettering our choices and beautifying our futures.  It is nothing less than inspiring.  Now imagine if we were able to take that sudden manifestation of deep deliberation over whether or not I can accelerate fast enough to get in front of the guy on his cell phone in the Honda next to me and apply that to more important decisions.  What if we showed that level of care and concern for some of the choices that dictate the course of our lives rather those that dictate the course of our odometers?


Taking a step away from the normal course of their lives, over a billion Muslims woke up this morning over a week deep into the month of Ramadan.  We have denied our physical selfs of those things that it desires the most.  Every morning we actively choose to make choices that will result in our own physical weakness and fatigue.  In spite of feeling the effects of hunger and thirst, these thirty days out of the a year of over three hundred day are days that we hold close to our hearts.  We do this in the hope of reaping some benefit from it.  We do it in hopes of being able to walk away as better people.  We do this in hopes of reaching a unique state where we are able to look at things with a new perspective.


This perspective we seek is such that you hope to be able to reach a level of understanding of self that moves beyond, "Should I go get some lunch right now or should I wait until after class?"  It moves onto a plane where one must search deep and come to face a reality that is often tough to face.  We have to face ourselves.  Its now or never.  Ramadan is not simply a month of fasting; it is an opportunity to fast, to grow, and to change—an opportunity but at the same time a commitment.  It is a time to stop focusing on the world around us and instead turning the focus inward as we ask questions of our selves, our faith, and our character.  We seek to better understand the path we have chosen for our lives and examine ourselves in how steadfast we have been in staying true to this path over the last year.  We analyze the choices we have made and those that we have been failing to make.  We are at that point where we have to face some of the questions that we've conveniently avoided for so long, the ones that no else can ask of us.  As we wrestle with the answers we may find during this journey, we have to decide where we are going.


I can only speak of what I have done during this Ramadan.  I have tried my best to engage in this act of reflection, of meditation, of rumination that is as necessary to my Ramadan as my parched lips.  I have identified the errs in some of my actions and set goals in hopes of righting these wrongs.  I have tried to train myself to avoid such errs and be a person who learns from his mistakes rather than repeats them.  I have tried to banish some wrongs from my life and replace them those things that will undoubtedly be better for me.  And in each one of these pursuits, I have failed.  At one level or another, I have came up short.  I have made the same mistakes.  I have not succeeded.


In spite of these failures, it brings me back to what I learned as a child.  Its just like fingerpainting, "you never really succeed at getting that image to appear on your paper."  What I had hoped for myself has yet to miraculously find its way from my utopian hopes to my existent life.  But again, "That's just life. Its okay."  I find myself failing over and over again but with every failure comes renewed hope.  Everyone has seen good in our lives from those around us and, undoubtedly, every single one of us has that same good somewhere within them.  Its up to us to slow down and look for it.


We are one third of the way through Ramadan.  With twenty days left, we have to slow down and yet again attempt to reach a mountain peak that may be more hopeful than realistic, more passionate than businesslike.  It may be based more ideals than history, but it is still worth it—each and every pre dawn meal, each and every prayer, each and every moment.  After spending the rest of our year not giving a second thought to any of our decisions as we speed by billboards that attract us to things we never needed in the first place and exit ramps that send us flying in all sorts of directions, its time to slow down and give things a second thought.  Its time to step out and make our next few moves at a slightly slower pace.  We might lose a few precious minutes and maybe even a few pounds as we change the pace of our lives, but what we lose now we will make up in so many ways.  For the next twenty days, lets step out of the box, step out of out of our comfort zones.  Let's make sure that every action we commit to is one that we can proudly say is in the shade of Ramadan and that every step we take leaves a lasting imprint on who we are.


And, if all else goes wrong, we'll still have some somasas to look forward to.