{"id":107,"date":"2004-03-12T09:53:32","date_gmt":"2004-03-12T13:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/03\/12\/serenity-thy-calling-futile\/"},"modified":"2004-03-12T09:53:32","modified_gmt":"2004-03-12T13:53:32","slug":"serenity-thy-calling-futile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/2004\/03\/serenity-thy-calling-futile\/","title":{"rendered":"Serenity: Thy calling, futile"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

A car cut me off this morning while I was biking to work down
\nArlington Street next to the Commons. I saw it coming, and although
\nshouting at the car didn’t seem to make it aware of me, I probably was
\nnot in great peril.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, my adrenline is pumping when I get to the red light
\nwhere the car is stopped. I don’t have my happy face on when I shout to
\nthe driver, “You have to look before you merge!” The car’s occupants
\nare a young couple, about my age, and the woman in the passenger
\nseat, after the driver rolls down his windows, shouts back, “Isn’t
\nthere a bike lane?” — to which I reply, as coherently as possible,
\nthat bikes have a right to occupy the road.<\/p>\n

By this point, though, the woman has, having said her piece, settled
\nback into her seat and isn’t listening. Whatever rational part of my
\nmind that was keeping me under control flees, and I descend to
\nname-calling, various obscene hand motions, and at one, point, when the
\ndriver revs his car at me, the “Bring it on” gesture (which the driver,
\nthankfully, did not take me up on).\n <\/p>\n

\n

Almost
\nimmediately I regret what I did, because whatever perverse pleasure I
\ntook from telling this couple off (and just about every external
\nfeature of the two in their late-model Yuppie-mobile, including the
\nfact that the driver looked an awful lot like me, set off half the
\nemotional triggers in my head), I certainly haven’t (1) made the roads
\nsafer for myself or other cyclists; (2) increased the happy quotient of
\nthe planet; or (3) behaved appropriately  \/ compassionately \/
\nrationally.<\/p>\n

I don’t give monks any credit for maintaining serenity when they sit
\nin temples on the mountainside and sip tea. True serenity is keeping
\nyour cool when your reptilian mind is screaming, “Fight!”
\n<\/p>\n

\"Boston<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A car cut me off this morning while I was biking to work down Arlington Street next to the Commons. I saw it coming, and although shouting at the car didn’t seem to make it aware of me, I probably … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44935],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-massachusetts-boston-cambridge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/anderkoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}