Slice of Life Day 1: Mysteries of the Universe

I hate taking Lyft rides. Whenever I enter one there's this obnoxious part of my brain that is convinced I'm about to be whisked away into a nightmarish vision of forced intravenous drugs and sex-trade slavery. I'd like to think that at age 29 I'm less appealing as a target but worry that my slight stature might confuse an unobservant kidnapper. And that once they finally do realize their mistake, it's highly unlikely that they would enact a "catch and release" kind of scenario. Because of this, I always enter a Lyft ride through a heady fog of existential dread.

Since I'm a human, I have all sorts of prejudices that either ease or heighten my dread based on attributes that the driver possesses. A female driver will almost always put me at ease. A man with a Russian-sounding accent or a mini-van will always terrify me. Today's driver put me at a medium state of terror; his name was Augustus and he drove a silver Toyota Prius. I know what you must be thinking; that guy sounds like as impotent a man as I've ever heard  but maybe that's what they want you to think, you know? A wolf hiding in sheep's clothing and all that. So I decided to keep my wits about me.

I generally like a silent Lyft driver. As long as they aren't one of the scary ones. My medium-risk driver started off pretty quiet. Someone had the brilliant idea to bring up the weather. I think that was me. I got an alert on my phone about the second wave of Polar Vortex about to hit the U.S. But of course, I can't actually talk about the weather without talking about the doom of the planet. The two go hand in hand for me.

These kinds of conversations (which I have often) usually go one of two ways; either we both sit in agony as we ruminate on the destruction of the planet or the other person tells me I'm crazy and that the planet is going to be just fine. This morning's interaction was a refreshing deviation from that. He acknowledged the impending doom but changed the chorus from "we're all fucked" to "let's focus on what we can do about it". I thought that was a nice change.

The conversation then turned to the recent solar eclipse and the beauty that can still be found in this world on the precipice of disaster. Which brought the conversation to; if we weren't alive during this period in time, which period would have been better? A world without vaccines? One in the midst of a war? Or with a plague? Or governed by religious rule? We decided that maybe living right now isn't so bad after all. That maybe there is still beauty and wonder to be found in a world that is crumbling around us. That the mysteries of the universe don't cease during the death rattles of a single planet. It was nice. It turned into a rather lovely commute. Thanks, Augustus; I'm glad you didn't murder me.