Traffic Koans [Day 3]
This is Day 3 of my 30-day writing challenge. For contest details, please check it out here. Every koan is my original work.
A young man gritted his teeth while waiting in line for what seemed like forever. He had grown impatient at the snail's pace he had been making, and deducted that some of the people ahead of him wouldn't mind if he cut in front of them. It was all an assumption, or an educated guess. He didn't bother asking them to confirm. The only tell, as far as he was concerned, was that they didn't seem to complain about their slow progress. 'What's one more man in front of them?', he thought to himself.
So, he stepped out of his line and sneakily tried to overtake a handful of people.
He was stopped in his tracks by older fellow who looked eerily familiar. As much as the young man tried to evade the older man, the older man just kept blocking his path, forbidding his passage.
"Excuse me," the younger man said politely.
"Is this where you should be walking?" the old man asked. "From where I'm coming from, you're the one blocking my path."
"There is plenty of space," the young man pointed out. "Let me through and we could both be on our way."
The line behind the old man grew longer with every second they spent talking.
"Where should I go?" the old man inquired. "The line behind me is already quite long."
"Step aside."
"There is no more space."
"If you would've just let me pass earlier, we would've both been in a better state than where we are now."
"Am I to be blamed for the state that we are in now?" the old man asked the younger one.
"Yes. Yes, you are."
"Perhaps I should ask everyone else who has suffered, so you could all determine the punishment that I deserve."
The young man tried to squeeze himself back into his line, but no one gave him room. He walked back to the spot where he came from, but the space had already been occupied by the person who was behind him. The young man pleaded for his old position back, but his request fell on deaf ears. He looked back behind him now, only to see the old man and a rather long line behind them.
At that moment, the young man became enlightened.
I noticed that a lot of people had trouble with yesterday's koan. This is my fault, as I was rushing when I wrote that. I failed to account for the different interpretations for it. For that, I apologize. Look to my clues and my replies in the comments section to figure out what I tried to say with it. I have since tried to make the other koans easier to interpret.
Just a reminder for everyone, these daily koans are part of a contest. A daily winner would be picked, and each daily winners stand to win SBD by the end of the month. While it's not a lot, it's still free money, so don't be shy and participate. If you know anyone who would benefit from winning SBD please share this contest with them. To enter, read the contest details above. TLDR: Solve the koan/riddle (usually a traffic infraction), and if you have experienced something similar in your life, share your tale in the comments section. Most interaction and votes would win the day. I am not restricting anyone here, so you can promote your comment any way you please.
Always remember, there are no shortcuts in life ;)
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Sometimes on the interstate highway, the road construction forces all vehicles to merge to one side, and one lane will be closed far ahead. Now everyone waits as the traffic slows to a crawl, yet a car zooms by in the vacant lane, and then another-- they presume that somebody will let them in when they get far ahead to the traffic cones, and they usually do break in way ahead of the others who had merged already. The traffic crawls a little more, and now we are squeezing in tight with the car ahead; no way I'm letting them in. Now I'm yelling ahead, "don't let them in!"
Once, a big tractor-trailer rig, or what may be called a big lorry, began straddling the line in front of us, holding his place, and yet blocking the open lane, so that no more cheaters could swish past in their little cars with that little stupid rear tail light assembly frowning smugly back at us-- all of us who were stuck in traffic cheered the big truck's move, and when the rig finally got back fully in line, we saw the cones, and the traffic whippersnappers were soon forgotten.
This is exactly what came to my mind too :)
You know what they say about great minds :D
ENLIGHTENED!!!
Hahaha! You know, one of my inspirations for doing this contest was something quite similar that happened to me recently. The other lane just poured out even though there was already a build up in my lane. The incoming vehicles were being signaled to stop and give way, but they paid no mind. When the others on the opposite lane finally stopped, there was just one errant car that sought to defy the odds. Thankfully, an SUV charged towards him, much like how the big truck in your story stood for, and the others followed him amidst the harsh rain. The errant car had no choice but to reverse. I would like to think that everyone in my lane cheered.
Oh, and that SUV, that was driven by none other than... yours truly :D
It takes the bulk of an SUV to really make a difference, and to thoroughly block the lane-- I'm sure the crowds were cheering! There are still heroes in the world after all.
At the very least, I'm just happy that justice was served that night. We met at the middle, so there really wasn't a clear cut winner, except that my lane followed my charge while his knew to stay behind and let us pass.
This makes me think of one of our routes to go and visit my in-laws.
There is a point where the 2 lanes of traffic are specifically for those going straight on (left) and those who want to turn right (right lane).
Most people at this point want to go straight on, and there is a bit of a bottle neck and the left hand lane is always full of traffic crawling forwards.
The right hand lane remains mostly empty.
Many cars try to use the right hand lane to skip a portion of the line in the left hand lane. But in this particular stretch of road, most people will not let you cut back in, and these cars then end up holding up anyone who wants to turn right.
We would always stick to the rules and just sit and wait in the left hand lane, apart from one time where we were late for a lunch with my other half's grandmother.
We decided to give the lane cutting a go, thinking that every other time we always sat and waited, so perhaps this one time it was 'ok' to cut in.
Nope.
No one else knows or cares that you have always followed the rules before, or that just this one time it's important for you to get somewhere faster.
Everyone wants to be on time!
I feel like the old man is a representation of someone who travels this road a lot and understands that actually the quickest way to get where you're going is to stay on the right path!
Haha! I like how you're sharing stories about you doing the infraction :) I had wanted to force this on people--to share these stories specifically--but I think not many people would like to admit to the violations. I want people to embrace their faults and learn. Way to set an example, my friend!
You know what, this actually fits into a different koan. Day 11, specifically, but you're on point about the old man! The violation you mentioned peeves me so much, I had to make a separate day for it haha! It's awesome that you said this ahead of it though, I would consider this when that koan comes. This koan however pertains more to those who blatantly counterflow.
I appreciate you taking the time to recount these stories! They're all so wonderful, even if violations are being made. The important thing is that lessons are learned as well :D
You know it didn't even occur to me that I was sharing a bunch of personal infractions as opposed to any done by someone else. Ha! Apparently I have no shame!!
I have been thoroughly enjoying your daily koans! I had a fair amount of work to do today, but hopefully I will catch up with your latest ones later or tomorrow. :)
And that's great! Just let loose! I'm glad that Steemit is giving you an avenue to do so. Leave the shame for the real world :D
Awww that's so nice of you to say! :') It's nice to be appreciated. Coming from the wildfire of interaction of my previously published novel though, I would have to say that the overall reception to this is quite dismal. But, I can't complain. I'm just so thankful to people like you, my friend!! :D
And I'm very happy to have discovered you and your writing!!
Ooh I'm going to have to go and dig through some of your earlier work and have a read it sounds like. :)
I'm happy you discovered it too!!! If anything, it led me to discover your writing as well. Always great to stumble upon Steemians you get along with! I won't ever get those massive whale votes, so at least I get to spend my time interacting with awesome people while I'm here haha!
If you ever find the time to read a 24-chapter novel, let me know. I have a compilation post that has a link to all of the chapters, so that you wouldn't have to rummage through all of my other posts haha!
Oh yes, do send over the link. I'd love to read it, although there are a few other things that are top of the list at the moment.
Wowsers though, you've written a whole book!! That's so impressive! Did you finish it recently?
No worries! Being in the queue is already a privilege :D You can find the table of contents here: https://steemit.com/fiction/@jedau/a-day-in-the-clouds-1498532817-1375682
I finished it last June. It was a 6-month passion project where I posted weekly updates. So, this daily update is quite new to me haha!
Yup, I'm with @therealpaul, people driving up the closing lane to get further ahead, only to find no one will let them it and they end up much further behind then they would had they just moved over.
As fora personal anecdote. This seems to happen to me every time I go down to Long Island to visit my cousins. You would think I'd learn my lesson, but there is something about a mostly empty lane when traffic is congested that is too tempting to ignore, haha!!
This was actually about people who blatantly counterflow :D I have been tempted by that many times as well, but I have resisted the urge haha! Perhaps the thought of being the cause of clogging is a powerful reminder to not do it haha! It's easy to risk it because the reward is great, but yeah haha!
It is tempting to dart out into the other lane and jet by the line that was ahead of you. Blocking the path of would be lane jumpers is definitely one way of handling those who let temptation get the better of them. Some places have genuinely shitty daily traffic, while other places have occasionally horrific accidents. I've seen enough of what "falling asleep at the wheel" and drunk driving can do to know that merging traffic means one of two things: 1) an accident, or 2) construction. Either way, three cars ahead is no better than three cars behind.
Right!? I usually do that, and most of the time people get the hint that they're on the wrong side of things. But, there are times that people are too stubborn and argue that they're completely within their rights to counterflow. There was one time, I stopped a car dead on its tracks. It wouldn't budge, refused to go back to its lane. I didn't fold because of its honking. After a few minutes, traffic cops came to resolve the issue. They let me pass and they gave him a ticket. Suffice to say, we gave each other the middle finger salute as we parted ways.
Some times that's the only right answer. To stop a traffic idiot with an immovable force, erhem, vehicle. lol. You gotta be careful confronting people on the roads, though. Road rage is a very real thing. And, there's lots of crazy people out there on the roads raging.
Haha yeah.. That's what my fiancee keeps
scoldingreminding me about. Even though I'm confident defending myself in a melee, an umbrella is no match for a loaded gun. So yeah, I really need to learn how to read a room and just admit defeat sometimes..even though I'm on the right side of things.Unless your umbrella can deflect bullets, I'd say listen to her and don't engage. It's always better to walk a way with your life!
Always important to keep a cool head, after all. Really trying to be more zen about everything, but it's way harder than I thought haha!
Tell me about it! Man! The moment I think I've got zen figured out, bam. Reality sets in. Turtle power!