Sunday Driving Pod

Tag: podcasts

  • What’s the Point of Road Rage?

    What’s the Point of Road Rage?

    Ooh boy, Spencer has another think piece. This is a cool driving style perspective on an internal debate/conversation I have almost every day. I will start with my very literal perspective on road rage; legit the entire first section will be exactly what the title says. Then, I’ll move over to the think piece segment, the philosophical view into what road rage represents in me and other people.

    WHAT IS THE POINT OF USELESS ROAD RAGE?! Ok, sorry. It’s a weird high horse but I never understood what road rage accomplishes. I would rather hit the brakes or turn the wheel or a million other things that actually keep me safe and on track than yell and be annoyed at a random person. Also, I stay away from this situations by staying conscious of my surroundings enough to see them before they really happen. Like the guy creeping up to turn on a red light and is basically in my lane, or the person merging who doesn’t understand it’s their job to speed up and merge over. I don’t know, this isn’t the main point of this blog so maybe I’m overreacting, but road rage is always so weird to me.

    Now for the think piece, it’s always a metaphor for anxiety. In all honesty, I feel like this mindset for road rage applies to me in all aspects of my life. I don’t like feeling angry or sad or any negative emotions if I don’t feel like they’re solving a problem. Honking the horn is yelling into the void of the world, turning the wheel is actually solving the problem at hand. I don’t cry that often, and not from a manly “I don’t feel emotions” kind of perspective, but I don’t feel a sense of relief or any weight off my chest so it feels pointless. I don’t yell at people when I think they did something wrong, I don’t argue with someone I disagree with, I don’t use negative emotions when they won’t go anywhere. If someone did something wrong I’ll explain that and find a solution, if I disagree with someone I’ll calmly explain my side of things and look to a resolution, I look for a calm and level headed (if not happy) emotion instead of negative ones whenever possible. That being said, I think sometimes my hesitancy to honk the horn bites me in the butt. I don’t deal with things how most people do/should so they stay with me and stay on the top of my mind for much longer than if I’d just let it out once early on. I personally don’t think the lack of “negative” emotions, as I’ve called it, is why things brood with me for so long, but it’s also the one consistent difference in myself to other people, so it’s the logical reason I feel that way. Who knows, maybe I need to have a little bit of road rage every once in awhile just to see what it feels like. 

    Sincerely,

    Just a guy talking to himself

  • I Am Always My Own Passenger

    I Am Always My Own Passenger

    Well what the heck does that mean Spencer? Aren’t passengers the people who aren’t driving the car? How can you be driving your life and also be a passenger? Well, I feel like the different parts of my body are sort of all the passengers of the car that is Spencer. More than anything else, my internal monologue is like a different person watching and learning and critiquing myself. My anxiety, my happiness, my fear, my humor, it is all just a little inner-me telling my body how to react and what to do. That is what makes my anxiety so scary. It isn’t some omnipotent creature telling me I suck, it is myself. It isn’t someone or something else I can point a finger at, it feels so internally motivated that it makes it that much worse.

    I can take this one of two ways, and I want to take it in a positive route. My anxiety is my inner monologue talking, but so are my good traits. When someone gives me a compliment or says something nice, my inner monologue repeats it to myself in my own voice too, so for just a short moment I feel at peace with myself. It feels like I spend 90% of the time I am awake being self critical, so that 10% of time feels wonderful. It makes me strive to make that percentage just a little bit bigger everyday. It is essentially a healthy version of an addiction. In this version the high is good for me and the rest is not. I am chasing the high of self confidence to avoid the low of crippling anxiety. I maintain a workout routine because I feel good about burning off calories and feel self loathing when I see my gut in the mirror. I call my friends and family because they sound so happy to hear me and so disappointed when it’s been too long. I aim for the highest of standards because it is elation or frustration. It’s an obsession for progression to avoid depression. It is trying to be happy so I don’t fall on my face, or at the very least make a sick rhyme like “obsession for progression to avoid depression”. 

    This is one of my shorter blogs, and I think that is fitting. There is no reason to write “I am anxious and have zero self confidence and my inner monologue is mostly me picking on myself” a million different ways, and the fix is something I am still very much working on. For once, I don’t have a million words to describe something. I have about half as much to say about why I like myself as I do most other topics. But I have more to say today than I did yesterday, and yesterday I had more than the day before that, and so on and so forth. I would never be able to climb out of the pit that was my self loathing in a short time, but I can at least always work towards making it better. That’s all for now.

    Sincerely,

    Just a guy talking to himself

  • Behind the Wheel

    Behind the Wheel

    A peak behind the wheel of Sunday Driving

    Welcome. This is the first of what will hopefully be a lot of blogs, most of which will compliment/go along with Sunday Driving. How they link will be more or less obvious depending on the post, some will pretty much only be linked through wordplay in the title making it driving themed, others will be directly tied to a thought/story/moment from an episode. Regardless, it gives me another medium in which to share my thoughts to whoever cares to listen and even a chance to explore new topics that I can’t/wouldn’t share in a vocal medium. They won’t be hyper official or professional, even though I have a small level of instruction in formal writing, I don’t want to depart far from the informal and personal style I have established in the podcast. In theory, this will have a similar charm and interpersonal connection that the podcast does.

    Now for this post’s topic specifically. Other podcasts probably have really cool or really insightful details as to how they are produced, mine is less glamorous. I would assume at some point I will become a little more advanced or highly produced, but for now I am extremely elementary in my podcast production. All I do is pull out my phone when I get in the car after work, open the Voice Memos app, set my phone on my leg, hit record, and drive. I say whatever comes to my mind at the moment. Even when I have friends or family tell me things they want to hear me talk about, I only do if I think about it in that moment. I don’t spend a ton of time at work or at home thinking about what to talk about, I feel as though the more off the dome it is, the more genuine it is. This podcast (my fourth podcast by the way) was started not with the intention of gathering a following, making money, or really any purpose other than giving me an outlet for my thoughts. I chose to make it the way I did because it doesn’t take time away from anything else I would be doing other than listening to a podcast while driving home, and this level of production makes it exactly that. No high-tech microphones, no video portion, nothing fancy.

    All that being said, I would be remiss if I said I didn’t have goals or thoughts as to how I could grow/change it as I see fit. One thing I did try for one episode was a clipped on lav mic to my seatbelt, and I liked it, but the hassle of remembering the mic (I use them at work so I couldn’t just leave them in the car) and checking it was working properly was not worth the slight improvement in sound quality. For now I will just say “it makes it more real to sound worse” and move on. Maybe one day I will decide it’s worth it to use a mic everyday. Another change I’ve thought about is somehow incorporating video, but between the storage space on my phone (which is a constant battle considering I also use it for work purposes) and the lack of interesting video material (it would just be me driving) I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

    Like I said, nothing too interesting. Make me famous and maybe I can upgrade, but for now I got Voice Memos, 10 listeners, and a dream. My plan for these blogs is to write for a month or so and then tell people about them, so future anyone who reads this (if anyone does) thank you, and I will see you next time.