Free and Flying

Sitting in traffic may be one of the most irritating experiences ever. There is nothing more frustrating than knowing that a journey of 10 minutes is taking 30 to traverse. For two hours every morning and two hours every evening, the Highway 8 junction between Kitchener and Cambridge bogs down and vehicles of all kinds get trapped in the corridors of congestion. There is no other way for me to get from school to home and home to school. It kills me.

King Street out of Kitchener slides right into this express-way, a third lane that eventually merges into two. Every afternoon, I fly right past the two plugged up left lanes and take the clear one all the way to it's very end before I slip into that mobile mess. Each time, I wonder, "Why aren't more people popping into this lane to loosen up the stand-still?" In fact some drivers will come to a complete stop in that empty lane and signal their way into that sluggish pace long before they have to. Why?

Perhaps people are afraid that they will get to the end of the lane and no one will let them in. Or, maybe they think that other drivers will get ticked off when they see them by-passing the traffic jam. All I know is that when I sit in that stew, I feel frustrated and trapped. I could choose to merge prematurely and blend into the bane of the majority, but why would I when I still have a kilometre of highway that lets me fly?

Strangely, I feel the same way in class at times. Many of my peers are traveling along a lane of thought that states, "There is no truth. Everyone has their own truth; who is anyone to say that their truth is better than another's truth?" These were the words of one of my group presentation members the other morning. Hearing it, I just sat there, merging into her train of thought by my silence, signalling with my non-response that somehow I was in agreement with her conclusion. A little bit of death entered my soul in that moment. It's fingers cupped over my integrity and I felt trapped by my own lack of tenacity. I had come to a complete halt in the middle of an open line of discussion and joined the teaming masses of truth nay-sayers.

Five minutes after the discussion had moved on, I realized that I had to say what I really believed. Gently, I pulled myself back into the right lane and explained that I did believe in absolute truth. There is one truth that can be practiced in multiple ways, but there can not be multiple truths. Maybe it ticks people off. Maybe they won't let you in, but it's better than sitting at a stand-still when you could be free and flying.