I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it; maybe you’ve done it, maybe you do it. Hanging out in the car, outside your house or apartment, outside work, chowing down in a parking lot. And I mean hanging out, spending long periods of time just sitting in the car, usually on the phone. When I first moved to Queens, New York about six years ago, I repeatedly found myself walking past one of my neighbors as he played games on his phone in the car outside his house at all hours of the day or night. There was nothing shocking about it, in fact it was so normal that I initially didn’t think twice. But over time, going by him again and again, I started to wonder, why?
Lovely article here! I think one thing I feel missing is the idea that the cars we are sitting in are the very things that rip us away from community (car centric infrastructure I mean)
Oh great point! Damn yeah the way the car industry itself has facilitated the decimation of public space and community, and furthered isolation is huge. Thank you for mentioning that
I appreciate the distinction between positive and negative liberty (and the source you linked to). I'm considering it in the context of working in schools. I benefitted from working as part of a union for my entire career, and the things we achieved for ourselves collectively did reduce my need to sit in my car after work. I did a stint in a charter school, where some of us had protections from a union contract and others did not--which cemented for me that I never wanted to work without one. The non-union teachers had the "freedom" to negotiate their own salaries, and a very few got paid at a higher rate than the union salary scale, but most got paid significantly less. They also had less control over their working conditions, and fewer protections from admin's personal feelings, whims, and personality quirks. I experienced much more meaningful freedom from being part of a collective than did those who were not part of one.
I used to be one of these people when I couldn’t afford an apartment by myself.
I would make phone calls from my car so nobody would overhear my conversations.
Also when I worked full-time most of my personal phone calls during the day were made from my car at lunch because I couldn’t make them while I was in work and they had to be done during the business day because they were to other businesses like my doctors office or whatever.
But also one of my favorite things to do when I hear old people complaining about how kids don’t play outside these days, is to remind them that they paved over all the places where we used to play outside. That’s why kids don’t play outside as much these days. We used all the grassy spaces for parking lots, Rite Aid, and Starbucks.
And so many of the places where kids live are car-dependent. There've been some studies on the whole "kids these days on their phones!" and a lot of the reality is that the kids *want* to be with their friends, but they can't do so without getting a ride somewhere. So online together is the next best thing ...
Yep we don’t have public transportation where I live. I’m in between two cities and each of those cities have a bus that goes around their city. And they each have a bus depot that will take you to other cities with bus depots. But it would cost me a $30 cab ride to get to either one of those cities. One way.
It's nuts. I live in a rural area. We had extremely limited bus service between 3 towns, but it shut down completely during Covid and our county commissioners are hostile to anything with the word "public" in it.
Even in places in the U.S. with transportation, the bus systems are underfunded and rarely supported by many people whom I wish cared a lot more about them.
I work from home now, but I used to work 12-hour shifts at office. Many times, I would park in driveway and not get out. I was too tired to go inside. Sometimes I actually fell asleep for couple hours. Then I would go in house and actually to bed!
One of my favorites of yours. All of this really resonates with me. I wrote a fair bit about how car-centric infrastructure and the illusion of freedom have broken our communities and neighborhoods and denied us true connections. I think a LOT about how much we rely on cars and attendant media echo-chamber ecosystems to help us hold together scraps of a sense of self and freedom. It's never enough, and it can't be because it's an illusion.
Car-centric infrastructure is my jam (large sections of my book "A Walking Life" are about how we got here and what the consequences are), so it's also my "I see car-centrism everywhere . . ." 🫠
But I like that you focused on work and autonomy because it's not really a perspective I've read before and it fits right in with the rest of the illusory freedom of cars.
i have been sitting in my car for HOURS ever since i got one for various reasons. (and yes, I know that can hurt my gas/battery but soo la voo). lately it’s because I have a dog and as much as I love him, I want to eat in peace. 😭
When I worked at an Amazon FC I spent every single break sitting in my car. Most alienating workplace experience I’ve ever had. And the worst part was that I was fully aware I was furthering my own isolation, but it was so hard to break from that habit.
And it was precisely because of how little autonomy workers have at Amazon. I needed to feel in control of some part of my life, when the majority of my time was spent as a drone busting my ass for one of the richest companies on the planet.
I’m a teacher now and trying my best to foster community amongst my coworkers. It’s so easy to submit yourself to isolation, especially when most of your workday you’re the only adult in the room full of kids. But if we are committed to building a better world, it’s essential we continue to build relationships in our workplaces.
I’m in a different environment (stay at home mom) but I also feel that pull to self-isolate in order to protect my autonomy and care for my nervous system, and I have to actively resist treating isolation as the only, or even primary, solution. It’s really good to zoom out from these individual habits and see what we’re up against that makes communal caretaking so hard. I’m really glad we are having these conversations.
Really true. I did find a lot of community as a member of a Unitartian Universalist church. What you describe is very close to how UU's act in their communities. Not trying to talk anyone into that. Just learned to like the company and doing things for the community I lived in.
I've never had a habit of just sitting in my car, but I did used to actually look forward to my long-ass commute (> 1 hour each way). I looked forward to the alone time. I think you have a great point about autonomy, and I have no doubt that was part of it for me. The other part, though, was a need for an excuse not to respond immediately to texts and phone calls (on second thought, that might be related to autonomy). The architects of our society seem to increasingly demand immediate response from us. This is especially hard on me, because I am autistic, and I am not hard-wired for immediate response to most demands. I have to think about most things. I have a feeling that, while this is often especially hard on Autistics, it puts a lot of pressure on pretty much everyone, and it just is not sustainable. We need to be allowed to feel into how we want to respond a lot of times, but an immediate reply is so often expected.
This is a fantastic piece. I don't have a car anymore, and I commute to work on the bus. Small communities get built there that make a huge difference to my day. The man who says "good morning" to me every day. It's the only English he knows. The grandfather who takes his disabled grandson to school somewhere near where I work. We look out for each other. He holds my knapsack on his lap if I have to stand (which is usually), and I'll block high school kids from grabbing a seat so he can have it. I never experienced this in 20 years of southern California car culture. I'm moving back to the US in July (but not CA), so I'm hoping to build more community there, now that I've exercised these "muscles" again. Even small moments of connection and care make a difference.
This piece really resonated with me, I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I retreat into my phone even on the couch, in the same room as my husband, to have some small autonomy after work. It’s a vicious cycle, and isolating. I think we both need t put down our phones. 😐
I was just writing/thinking this week about how economies are essentially ways we, as social animals, organize our interdependency, and the irony (falsehood) of an economy (capitalism) that aims at the illusion of self-sufficiency. And how this illusion can only be upheld through the exploitation of labor and the theft of our autonomy. I really think naming autonomy as a necessity, and distinguishing it from the lie of self-sufficiency, is so helpful. This piece is so insightful and thought-provoking on so many levels.
Lovely article here! I think one thing I feel missing is the idea that the cars we are sitting in are the very things that rip us away from community (car centric infrastructure I mean)
Oh great point! Damn yeah the way the car industry itself has facilitated the decimation of public space and community, and furthered isolation is huge. Thank you for mentioning that
I appreciate the distinction between positive and negative liberty (and the source you linked to). I'm considering it in the context of working in schools. I benefitted from working as part of a union for my entire career, and the things we achieved for ourselves collectively did reduce my need to sit in my car after work. I did a stint in a charter school, where some of us had protections from a union contract and others did not--which cemented for me that I never wanted to work without one. The non-union teachers had the "freedom" to negotiate their own salaries, and a very few got paid at a higher rate than the union salary scale, but most got paid significantly less. They also had less control over their working conditions, and fewer protections from admin's personal feelings, whims, and personality quirks. I experienced much more meaningful freedom from being part of a collective than did those who were not part of one.
I used to be one of these people when I couldn’t afford an apartment by myself.
I would make phone calls from my car so nobody would overhear my conversations.
Also when I worked full-time most of my personal phone calls during the day were made from my car at lunch because I couldn’t make them while I was in work and they had to be done during the business day because they were to other businesses like my doctors office or whatever.
But also one of my favorite things to do when I hear old people complaining about how kids don’t play outside these days, is to remind them that they paved over all the places where we used to play outside. That’s why kids don’t play outside as much these days. We used all the grassy spaces for parking lots, Rite Aid, and Starbucks.
And so many of the places where kids live are car-dependent. There've been some studies on the whole "kids these days on their phones!" and a lot of the reality is that the kids *want* to be with their friends, but they can't do so without getting a ride somewhere. So online together is the next best thing ...
Yep we don’t have public transportation where I live. I’m in between two cities and each of those cities have a bus that goes around their city. And they each have a bus depot that will take you to other cities with bus depots. But it would cost me a $30 cab ride to get to either one of those cities. One way.
It's nuts. I live in a rural area. We had extremely limited bus service between 3 towns, but it shut down completely during Covid and our county commissioners are hostile to anything with the word "public" in it.
Even in places in the U.S. with transportation, the bus systems are underfunded and rarely supported by many people whom I wish cared a lot more about them.
I work from home now, but I used to work 12-hour shifts at office. Many times, I would park in driveway and not get out. I was too tired to go inside. Sometimes I actually fell asleep for couple hours. Then I would go in house and actually to bed!
One of my favorites of yours. All of this really resonates with me. I wrote a fair bit about how car-centric infrastructure and the illusion of freedom have broken our communities and neighborhoods and denied us true connections. I think a LOT about how much we rely on cars and attendant media echo-chamber ecosystems to help us hold together scraps of a sense of self and freedom. It's never enough, and it can't be because it's an illusion.
I'm thinking I should write more about cars! For some reason I was so inclined to focus on work
and autonomy that I forgot a bit about the car infrastructure of it all haha
Car-centric infrastructure is my jam (large sections of my book "A Walking Life" are about how we got here and what the consequences are), so it's also my "I see car-centrism everywhere . . ." 🫠
But I like that you focused on work and autonomy because it's not really a perspective I've read before and it fits right in with the rest of the illusory freedom of cars.
i have been sitting in my car for HOURS ever since i got one for various reasons. (and yes, I know that can hurt my gas/battery but soo la voo). lately it’s because I have a dog and as much as I love him, I want to eat in peace. 😭
And I thought it was just me that did this. Thank you for your wonderful article.
Damn yeah I do this
When I worked at an Amazon FC I spent every single break sitting in my car. Most alienating workplace experience I’ve ever had. And the worst part was that I was fully aware I was furthering my own isolation, but it was so hard to break from that habit.
And it was precisely because of how little autonomy workers have at Amazon. I needed to feel in control of some part of my life, when the majority of my time was spent as a drone busting my ass for one of the richest companies on the planet.
I’m a teacher now and trying my best to foster community amongst my coworkers. It’s so easy to submit yourself to isolation, especially when most of your workday you’re the only adult in the room full of kids. But if we are committed to building a better world, it’s essential we continue to build relationships in our workplaces.
I’m in a different environment (stay at home mom) but I also feel that pull to self-isolate in order to protect my autonomy and care for my nervous system, and I have to actively resist treating isolation as the only, or even primary, solution. It’s really good to zoom out from these individual habits and see what we’re up against that makes communal caretaking so hard. I’m really glad we are having these conversations.
Really true. I did find a lot of community as a member of a Unitartian Universalist church. What you describe is very close to how UU's act in their communities. Not trying to talk anyone into that. Just learned to like the company and doing things for the community I lived in.
I'm very drawn to UUs, so maybe this will push me to check them out again! I've been, but many years ago
I've never had a habit of just sitting in my car, but I did used to actually look forward to my long-ass commute (> 1 hour each way). I looked forward to the alone time. I think you have a great point about autonomy, and I have no doubt that was part of it for me. The other part, though, was a need for an excuse not to respond immediately to texts and phone calls (on second thought, that might be related to autonomy). The architects of our society seem to increasingly demand immediate response from us. This is especially hard on me, because I am autistic, and I am not hard-wired for immediate response to most demands. I have to think about most things. I have a feeling that, while this is often especially hard on Autistics, it puts a lot of pressure on pretty much everyone, and it just is not sustainable. We need to be allowed to feel into how we want to respond a lot of times, but an immediate reply is so often expected.
This is a fantastic piece. I don't have a car anymore, and I commute to work on the bus. Small communities get built there that make a huge difference to my day. The man who says "good morning" to me every day. It's the only English he knows. The grandfather who takes his disabled grandson to school somewhere near where I work. We look out for each other. He holds my knapsack on his lap if I have to stand (which is usually), and I'll block high school kids from grabbing a seat so he can have it. I never experienced this in 20 years of southern California car culture. I'm moving back to the US in July (but not CA), so I'm hoping to build more community there, now that I've exercised these "muscles" again. Even small moments of connection and care make a difference.
This piece really resonated with me, I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I retreat into my phone even on the couch, in the same room as my husband, to have some small autonomy after work. It’s a vicious cycle, and isolating. I think we both need t put down our phones. 😐
I was just writing/thinking this week about how economies are essentially ways we, as social animals, organize our interdependency, and the irony (falsehood) of an economy (capitalism) that aims at the illusion of self-sufficiency. And how this illusion can only be upheld through the exploitation of labor and the theft of our autonomy. I really think naming autonomy as a necessity, and distinguishing it from the lie of self-sufficiency, is so helpful. This piece is so insightful and thought-provoking on so many levels.
"We need to hastily reject the idea of social media apps as third spaces"
Hear hear!
And to think that modern cars are privacy nightmares for those concerned with privacy.