A few mornings ago as I was driving, I felt unusually calm. It was during the morning commute, and although I was not in a rush, I had the impression that everyone else was.
Often, when there is a lot of frantic activity around me, I tend to get caught up in it. If I feel that people are being inconsiderate or rude (and driving seems to bring these things out in many people, including myself), the feelings that I have about the world can quickly change from those of relative satisfaction into agitation. Sometimes at these moments, I feel like I don't want to be part of it at all any more.
As the traffic flow accelerated and the drivers appeared more aggressive, I began to feel constricted. I could sense those familiar feelings of despondency arising, but on this occasion I could see them as a thought, without their immediate metamorphosis into something like an undeniable reality.
Many, many times, I have attempted to think myself down from this kind of escalation by trying to amend my very emotional response with a rational thought, reminding myself that the deep hurts I have felt were not necessarily what were happening in the current moment. Unfortunately for me, this technique has been a mostly losing proposition. Although I have been so terribly frustrated at times in these endeavors, it makes what happened this particular morning that much more remarkable, as my thoughts at that moment seemed to happen independently of my attempts at intervention.
I have tended to think about this experience in a kind of moralistic way (i.e.-I reacted in a 'better' or more 'appropriate' manner on this occasion), but believe now that I really don't know why I experienced this change at that particular moment. I've thought a lot about the possible explanations, written them here, edited them, then rewritten them, but I think I'm just going to leave it as a question.
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