Autonomy of motion
April 1st, 2007 | by Brian |Today’s weather was quite nice, so I biked to my office to work out. As I was getting ready to leave, out of my cube window I saw (what I assume to be) a father teaching his son how to drive. I knew it was so immediately - car in an empty lot, not moving very fast, driver turning the wheel very slowly, passenger making steering motions with his hands. He pulled into a parking space, and after more gestures by the father, he pulled out. A few minutes later I was biking out of the lot and saw them again. The car stopped at a stop sign (well, sort of a stop sign…heh), for at least 10 seconds, then
slowly inched forward about 30 yards and stopped again. By this time I’d passed them.
There was something very satisfying about watching them from my window. Perhaps it’s that something that now seems as natural is walking at one time was not. Of course, I’d be humbled trying to drive a manual transmission, though I learned once. More likely I liked the “right of passage” aspect of it.
On the way home I passed two girls, probably about ten years old. One seemed to be teaching the other how to ride a skateboard, or at least how to balance on it. That was nice, too. So surely the autonomy associated with learning how to transport yourself faster than walking or running was satisfying to me, too. I do remember the thrill I had when I first learned to ride a bicycle.
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