Driving Philosophy Volume 1: The Basics of Not Driving
So I am not the ultimate preacher of driving or anything, but I have spent a damn-near-unhealthy amount of time pondering the topic of performance driving and racing. It’s the pursuit of comprehending things that can never be fully comprehended. I am writing this because I like to think outside of the box and expand the circulating brainstorm of driving suggestions. While you might perceive this piece as something that is adding ideas into your mind, it’s really just about throwing out all of the garbage that we carry around as drivers (living beings with a passion)… and revealing some abstract ideas that we may have intuitively known. You know a lot about driving because your mind can’t help but munch on all of the experiences and knowledge you have acquired. Don’t think that all of the textbook concepts are false or irrelevant. I’m just suggesting that there is a whole nother world that is just waiting for you. You can progress faster and you can actually enjoy it more.
I believe that everyone has “the natural driving ability”, but some people are just better than others at accessing higher levels of it, getting closer to their potential. Every now and then you get a glimpse of your driving potential. For a split second, something really magical happens. It’s almost like you’re getting teased. Let’s just say that some of the stuff happening in your mind is probably working against you, working against your inner-driver, the part of your being that can drive in perfect flow!
What am I getting at here? Driving enlightenment. Pretty cool? This simply means to embody our own (inborn) essence, while we drive the car. No, you don’t need to control every fine detail of your driving at every moment. There isn’t anything you have to do to become enlightened, but only to NOT DO anything. Right now, you probably do a million different things when you drive. It’s like an acrobatics performance happening in your mind. It’s simply not necessary, a waste of your mental liveliness.
We are so often blocking ourselves from this state that can allow us to drive like gods. A driving god doesn’t try to drive, he doesn’t need to think about anything, it is just a part of him on the deepest level, so he just lets his unfiltered, higher-self take the reigns. Yes, it’s actually easier to drive faster than it is to drive slower (in a state of blockage). We just need to unlearn the slower way.
The problem is that we have conditioned our minds to always work at some task in our heads. There are so many advantages to logic and rationalization, but that is best saved for outside of the car, or at the very least in practice sessions. Some say that racing is like a chess game, but it's still about conservation of thinking. When it's time to drive at your absolute 100%, rationalization should be absolutely minimal. You might be thinking that you must forcefully shut off your thinking. Wrong.
Your brain can often think better than you can…
If you just exist as you are right now… and don’t do anything with your body, with your mind, or with your emotions, then you are now an enlightened being. Nothing else really to say. Now do the same thing in your racecar.
Notice how your mind is still active and you still take in your conscious experience, including how you feel. It’s the exact opposite of putting your life on pause.
When you get out of your car after the race, you’ll be asking yourself, “What in the actual $h!+ just happened back there. Wait, I think I won.”
You probably still have some questions. Let me make things unbearably simple now. DRIVING HAS NO POINT. You can ask all sorts of questions about driving but the answers are limited by our thoughts and words.
Accepting this is true liberation; driving may now take place.
At the same time, you must ask questions and play with these riddles in your head, knowing our human limitations of “understanding.” It’s called a kōan.
*I am not a slip-angle denier. However, I do have my own related questions.*
When you stop thinking through your own existence, you can actually function again. This is NON-DOING, not DOING. On the same line of logic, you want to be NON-DRIVING, not DRIVING. If it doesn’t make sense then just sit there for a second and allow yourself to get all confused about it. You will keep struggling to understand this concept and after long enough, you will simply run out of might and give up. This is when you realize how the greats drove during their best performances.
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
— Lao Tzu.
The idea of non-doing is a Taoist concept, also known as Wu Wei. I have only adapted it to driving. That’s one of my favorite things to do. This idea of “adapting” concepts is the premise of Volume 2…
If this article ever blows up, I am going to have some real explaining to do. *Large exhale*
