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I recently drove from Indianapolis to Chicago. Because of the need for speed and timely arrival I took Interstate 65 up and Interstate 90 over. Each exit I passed shared similar gas stations, restaurants, stores, etc. The signs along the way all looked the same. The other thing was the scenery. For the most part the terrain along any interstate is altered to accommodate the road.
And here is the heart of the problem.
In the interest of making the interstate system easy to navigate we have homogenized large portions of our countryside. Old highways typically follow the flow of the landscape. That combined with the fact that one is typically going 20 miles per hour slower on a highway, allows a motorist to see and experience the land as one navigates through it.
I try to take highways, particularly two-lane, any chance I get. I must regretfully admit that my venture onto winding roads has become less and less the older I get. I have been sucked into the cacophony that is interstate travel. The need to get where ever I am going has trumped just enjoying the ride. In my youth, however, a divided highway was a bit too busy for most of my travels. And a gravel road, well, that was a particularly delightful find.
Another thing that has happened as a result of the popularity of interstate travel is that many small towns are all but forgotten in today's high-speed life. The places in America that are America are bypassed for the sake of speed. Take a two-lane highway just about anywhere in the midwest. What you will find along the way is boarded up stores, long-closed car dealers, dilapidated homes and repurposed independent groceries and lumber companies.
These towns, which once supported themselves and the surrounding rural areas with commerce and jobs, are but bedroom communities. With the advent of box stores and super centers people simply stopped shopping in their communities and decided instead to shop on the way home...while in the city.
And so the landscape, people and communities that made this country great have been replaced by an instant America where fast isn't fast enough and today is so yesterday. True, this blog today is about the interstate versus the highway but that issue is really a symptom of who we have become.
A recent study revealed that the majority of study subjects would commute an hour one way to work. Really? I'm not real fond of driving more than 10 minutes anywhere unless it's a ride of pleasure and relaxation. But, as a society, it's what we are used to. We rush around town to and from work and then complain about the traffic. We rush through processed, pre-boxed dinners and then complain about our nutrition, we rush through our time with the kids and wonder how they grew up so fast. Then at the end of it all we sit down in a chair, put our feet up and race through the 147 channels on the TV so fast we strain the ligaments in our thumbs.
And when we finally drag ourselves upstairs to get into bed we feel empty, lost and alone.
The next day it starts all over again.
This is how we lose touch with friends, children, parents, time and our souls. Everything becomes a quest for that which can't be attained...not the way we search for it. If, at the beginning of my journey to Chicago, I had gone East on I-74 I would not have made it to Chi-town...no matter how hard I wanted there. The road I would have been on in this scenario goes to Cincinnati.
And so it is with our lives. We get up and do the same things every day and wish we were somewhere different. We live the same life over and over and wish it was better. In short, we personify the definition of insanity, we do the same things and expect different results. And at the end what have we gained? We did what everyone said to do in order to find happiness and we found emptiness.
Many will begin their list of excuses here, if they haven't already. Richard Bach once wrote, "Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours." Maybe that's you. It certainly was me for a while. I encourage you today to free yourself from excuses. I encourage you to live the life you were put here to live. To be the friend you used to be, the spouse you want to be and the parent you can be.
In short, I encourage you to take the two lane road, to follow the rise and fall of the landscape around you and enjoy the ride.
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"Giving to Haiti"
I watched part of a benefit last night. It was wonderful to see so many stars come together to raise support for relief efforts in Haiti. Being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, they deserve all the help the world can muster.
But, watching that I couldn’t help but think about the children that would go to bed hungry tonight. The children right here in the richest country in the Western Hemisphere that have no home, no bed, no food and no hope. I thought about the families in Appalachia…the forgotten America as it is often called. I thought about the people we served dinner to in the Inner City; sleeping under bridges on a day like today.
I would be the last person to suggest we legislate giving. I don’t believe in governmental wealth redistribution. But I look at a county where 80 percent of the population claim belief in God and I wonder how we go through most days ignoring God’s work. Only when tragedy strikes do we come together for the benefit of the less fortunate. And even that is short-lived. In a week or two there will be very little coverage of Haiti. The news agencies will be engulfed in the latest celebrity scandal and the people of Haiti will join the poorest among us in America as we add to the numbers of the forgotten.
Most people in this country have no idea what it is like to be hungry. I have had lunch at school with my children and heard a 5′2″, 140 pound kid shout “I’m starving!” as he sat down to eat. Don’t think so kid.
I took my three sons to a buffet last night. I was saddened not only by the quality of food but by what I witnessed being thrown away. Table after table cleared with plates heaping over with food. My guess was that the food thrown out of that place would feed the homeless of Indy on a daily basis.
And so I arose this morning thankful for the giving done by so many around the world for Haiti. I woke up thankful for the food in my pantry and the roof over my head. And yet the air was thick with sorrow for those of our fellow countrymen and women that stand in line waiting for their chance to rise up, for their chance to change circumstance…and for their chance to eat…