Unforgettable car ride
Don't judge a book by its cover
(3 min read)
“Every time I encounter another human, I remember why I’m a hermit,” he said.
It was one of the weirdest car rides I’ve ever been in.
Actually it wasn’t a car ride; I was in the passenger seat of a big tow truck.
We were getting our Prius towed, as I wrote about in:
But let’s rewind a second.
The tow truck arrived, and the driver stepped out.
He was enormous.
6’8” (>2 meters, since I loathe the imperial system 😉). Large body.
And his hair was red dreads.
Red. As in fire hydrant red.
My mind:
This is Shaquille O'Neal × Bob Marley × Ronald McDonald!
I approached the passenger door, and he said:
Wait! You can’t get in yet. I need to move my gun.
What?!
He explained that he is a part-time bounty hunter for his cousin’s business to help him out.
Uhhh, okay.
I couldn’t imagine this huge clown-haired guy hunting me down if I were on the run.
Intimidating. But also confusing.
Thank goodness I wasn’t on the run.
I was just a passenger in his tow truck.
My partner encouraged me to be polite and careful on the trip as she waved goodbye. 😉
The driver enters the cab and rearranges and then announces that it’s ready for me.
I hop in.
He starts talking, but I feel like he’s not talking to me.
Is he on the phone?
Turns out his fancy truck has internet access on the big touchscreen on the dashboard.
He’s using the Discord app to participate in a voice chat room.
What I witnessed over the next hour blew my mind.
The person who’d explained feeling validated as a hermit was one of the tow truck driver’s friends.
On Discord.
It was a gathering of folks from Alaska, Florida, Georgia, and many other states.
I doubt they’d ever met in person.
(It seems that most of them didn’t like meeting anyone in person.)
But somehow they’d found each other online while playing video games.
They apparently spend ~8 hours / day talking with each other in a group voice chat on Discord.
The tow truck driver said:
“Even though I don’t look like it, I’m in my 50s, and I have grown kids, but I still love playing video games all the time.”
So much that even while he was driving a tow truck or pursuing someone as a bounty hunter, he’d continue collaborating with and managing his online gaming squad via this voice chat group.
(I was just a bystander hearing their conversation.)
Then after work, his full attention would be back on his video games and gaming friends.
It’s no secret that I am wary about social media.
But clearly there are advantages.
(Anything designed to be addictive has advantages, or else it wouldn’t be addictive.)
I recently got into a conversation about the pros and cons of social media.
The people I spoke with felt defensive. Offended that I’d be skeptical and ask whether the benefits were worth the risks.
So, to say it again:
Of course there are benefits to social media.
In fact, now that I’m not on social media, my career is far more likely to stall.
I also may feel disconnected from past acquaintances and even friends.
I’ll certainly be missing opportunities both personally and professionally.
Currently those risks are more acceptable to me than the risks of what my life might feel like if I spend too much of my day unconsciously doomscrolling, as most people aged 14-65 do.
But I wanted to write this post because I’m still in awe and so appreciative of the power of the internet in general.
Here was this sensitive, kind, warm, expressive bounty hunter / tow truck driver / gaming squad manager who seemed happy.
And I feel like it was because he felt unrestricted by the physical world.
He was creative and flexible enough to have virtual relationships that were satisfying to him.
The world will trend in that direction, I think.
Ready Player One and Ready Player Two are fantastic books, and I expect many of their predictions to be accurate.
Virtual reality will be incredible.
Personally, even after technology reaches a point where reality is indistinguishable from simulation (in the unlikely event that we’re not already in a simulation), I think I’ll enjoy “taking off the headset” occasionally to experience what “real” basketball or sex or pickleball is like.
For some of the folks on that Discord call who said “If I never see another human again, I won’t miss them,” I think it’s super cool that they’ve been able to meet their own needs just by connecting with each other online.
A world where people feel more able to be themselves and explore their own preferences is one I’m excited about.
🕙 What we learned in recent posts:
🟢 Quick tip that increased my IQ and made me more compassionate
🟢 The 9 best diets (2 are so weird!)
👀 Caught my eye this week:
Haha, Nate Bargatze is so funny, and he makes me laugh out loud, especially 1 minute in:
(2 min clip)
I hope you have a great weekend! ❤️