The immeasurable hidden cost of high gas prices

I hadn’t written a blog post in a few days, almost a week actually. I was fresh out of ideas and inspiration. Granted, I had blogged for a good four or five days in a row, but still. Sitting at my desk at work, my eyes had glazed over in computer screen hypnosis. I skipped lunch and needed to get out, empty gas tank be damned.

As I drove, they started coming to me – ideas for blog posts. By the time I got to the café, I’d thought of and developed four solid articles in my head. I realized as I grabbed my coffee and settled at a table that I’d been completely lost the entire drive over. It came together – I hadn’t been driving as much as I normally do because gas prices were (are) ridiculously high. I stayed at Date #4’s place all week, which is 5 minutes from work as opposed to the 25 minutes it takes from my place. Sure, I saved a bundle on gas, but at what cost?

In my life, I don’t get a lot of alone time. Nothing compared to people with kids, but in comparison to being single, alone time is scarce these days. As I was telling Date #4 just yesterday, there are some things I’ll only do when I’m bored. Mainly, cleaning and tidying up in general, but I would lump “getting blog ideas” in there as well.

The high cost of gas has me thinking about a scene in “Singles” (one of my all-time favorite movies… I still heart you, Cameron Crowe, even though you made “Elizabethtown”). The main character is telling his love interest about a light rail transit project he’s proposing to his city. As he’s explaining all of the benefits, she says, “Yeah, but I love my car.” 

Perhaps we love our cars because it’s the one place where we don’t have to deal with people. Or maybe it's because it can become our one-man karaoke machine. Or perhaps it’s just the place were we get our best ideas.

Either way, our dependence on oil might make the long car trip a thing of the past. Instead of thoughtfully losing ourselves in the highway, we’re watching our odometers and our gas gauges, calculating times between stop lights on our daily routes so that we don’t have to brake or come to a full stop (hey, it saves gas).

I’m not saying we shouldn’t save on gas, I’m just saying that unless we get some sort of alternative fuel, our old ways will die. And with them goes an untold number of little streams of creativity and peace.

Photo from Flickr Creative Commons user freeparking.