The headlights, they mesmerize me
There's something comforting about highways in the middle of the night. The bright lights artificial stars on earth, illuminating celestial pathways to the unknown. I listen to the smooth static crescendo and diminuendo of the passing cars, within the immediate reach of my perception one moment and, for all significant purposes, gone forever the next. The asphalt and concrete construct, conceptually overwhelming, rules supreme over both the three dimensions by overcoming every obstacle in its path and the fourth as it flows into a man-made eternity. The highway stands a silent testament to the violent and insane grip that post-modern humanity holds over the earth.
Highways remind me that the world keeps on going around even when I sleep. And when I, alone, am awake in the middle of the night, the highway alleviates my anxiety of... something unknown. Even as people come and go, the highway will always be there. A human being pushing and pulling and turning levers and pedals and wheels, always going onward. Can anything stop the highway?
I think: ‘No one can stop on the highway.’
The emotions highways evoke in me are...well, they simply are. I haven't wanted to examine or analyze them, for fear that the enchantment that they fill me with, break. I can see how easily they can be explained, how clearly they reveal glimpses of my inner world, my hopes, thoughts and fears. I know I must sound like a early 20th century futurist exalting in the sheer power and speed of machines and technology.
But there's more. The highway symbolizes the desperation I hold in my heart that there is really nowhere to go. That all journeys end where they left off. That it doesn't matter whether you stay in one place or travel to another, because the perceived journey is of the wrong kind. We're going so fast that we can't see the scenery as it flies past. All meaning is lost—if there even is any.
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