Freeway

Highways have always been special places for me. Most of the time, I wasn't in a hurry, rarely did I have to get from point A to point B by a certain time. Rather, highways are travel routes. I find myself in intermediate states there, a kind of no-man's-land with endless possibilities. This opens up spaces for thought. Often, they are simply empty. The brain is busy with safely navigating the traffic. It's a pleasant form of occupation; consciousness is occupied and alert, and a mistake would be fatal. If I'm understimulated or get tired, I just drive a bit faster, or slower, or take a break. This creates a kind of equilibrium.

In this equilibrium, other thoughts can sort themselves out and spin away unnoticed. Only occasionally does my consciousness hold on to a thought. This allows thoughts to find their way without immediately encountering the usual thought filters. I always get to know myself a little anew on the highway, or remember a former self.

Then there is the physical space. This is either familiar and therefore triggers associations that are triggered from outside, so to speak. Or it is a new space that invites you to dream and arouses curiosity. Personally, I always find this positive. I don't really experience any fear or unpleasant feelings on the highway, although I do sometimes think about unpleasant things, that's for sure.

This space of movement, travel, association, gentle stimulation, and alertness almost always leads me to think about my childhood at some point. After all, I grew up in a country where a lot of driving is done. It would be nice if that changes soon, and I myself am also trying to drive less. It's no longer contemporary, and actually a bit irresponsible.

So this space is a given space. It's not creative, or free. It's a space with strong conditions. I like to dive into this space to see what other spaces I actually want to free myself from. Probably a lot of people are like this, that when we're driving, we let our thoughts wander and want to change our lives somehow.

I like being on the highway. Traveling on the highway is a metaphorical place, a physically metaphorical place - a physical metaphor. I used to think a lot about theories of linguistic metaphors. What do they mean, what is their linguistic reference, how do they work... especially in art and literature. Metaphors are words that mean something different in a certain context than they normally mean. That is exciting!

Traveling on the highway is the opposite of a simulation, and yet these spaces function similarly: simulation spaces and travel routes. Both spaces mean something that they are not actually.