you're not just in traffic. you are traffic.

last night, my girlfriend & i were walking my dog, Deeks.

on our usual route, there’s one area with a dark hedge that skunks love, so we did what we always do & moved onto the quiet road to create a buffer.

the timing couldn’t have been much worse.

as soon as we stepped on the road, a car turned onto it ~100ft ahead & basically gunned it directly towards us, before noticing us & steering the car wide ~20ft away.

it wasn’t close enough to really feel scary, but it was still close enough that the ‘oh sh*t’ feeling had just started creeping in.

so as the driver passed by — understandably — she was a bit shaken up.

“move onto the f*cking sidewalk, you’re gonna get your dog killed!!”

me, being a jackass, replied “have a good night (:” & she just kept driving.

so…

you already know i had to journal about it when we got home.

here’s what i wrote:

“things i think i think after almost kinda (but not really) getting flattened tonight:

• i’m proud of myself for (1) staying calm, (2) not responding with anger, & (3) moving on quickly to not let a short bad moment ruin one of the best parts of my day

• i immediately turned to empathy, viewing that lady not as a crazy angry b*tch, but as someone who cares so deeply about a random dog’s wellbeing that the mere thought of hurting it caused her distress.

• i also immediately connected it to the idea that “you’re never just stuck in traffic. you are traffic.” she wasn’t an asshole, she just saw 2 people walking their dog on the road instead of on the sidewalk, which could’ve ended horribly. but at the same time, she basically gunned it in a 50 zone on a somewhat blind corner. she was both a victim & a perpetrator. the same can be said from our perspective. all of us are right.”

it feels weird literally copy/pasting a note straight from my Notes app, but it paints the clearest picture of where my mind was right after it happened.

& truthfully, that last point is what made me write this for you today:

you’re not just in traffic. you are traffic.

applied to last night’s situation, this means that she almost hit us with her car, and we almost got ourselves hit.

does that make sense?

it’s basically just a flowery way of phrasing a question i always ask myself:

in what ways are you contributing to problems you say you don’t want?

should she have gunned it around a blind corner at night? no.

but should we have been on the dark road near that blind corner at night? also no.

both things can be true.

empathy is easy when you make the effort to imagine what things are like from another person’s perspective.

“treat others how you want to be treated” is a cliché for a reason.

like anything else though, empathy isn’t just a perfectly good thing across the board.

Gurwinder Bhogal wrote a fascinating article about it, & psychologist Paul Bloom wrote a book about it, Against Empathy, where he compares empathy to a spotlight. we only shine it on a few chosen people at a time, & whenever we do, we lose sight of everyone else.

because often, empathy for one party can become resentment for another.

let’s imagine that there was an old guy sitting on his front porch who saw last night’s situation unfold.

he might’ve empathized with the driver (those dumb people shouldn’t have been on the road) or with us (she almost hit those poor people).

in either case, there would be a ‘good guy’ & a ‘bad guy’ in the situation, which means that old man would’ve treated us accordingly.

but the thing is, neither side is more valid than the other.

so if both things are true, does that mean the only ‘false’ conclusion would be choosing one thing over the other?

that’s what makes the most sense to me.

i think a big part of emotional maturity is realizing that in many cases, there is no better or worse, good or bad, right or wrong; there’s just one thing & another.

just because 2 conflicting truths exist does not mean that 1 of them has to be wrong.

so is the real skill choosing the right side,

or is it realizing that there might not even be one?

you’re not just in traffic. you are traffic.

some things i learned

1. a study found that online political activism is inversely correlated with IQ
   so if the findings are accurate, it basically means that the more you yap about politics online, the dumber you probably are. checks out, lol.

2. women are 86% more likely to make in-app purchases
   idk how accurate the number is, but this checks out with my experiences. i know multiple women who have bought things directly through ads on social media; i know 0 men (including myself) who have done the same. is this a thing or just confirmation bias?

3. as we experience fewer problems, we don’t become more satisfied. we just lower our threshold for what we consider a problem.
   this is a quote from The Comfort Crisis, which is a book i haven’t read yet but feel like i have due to the 5 million quotes i’ve saved from it.

cool stuff i found

1. this leg workout by certified jacked guy, Jeff Nippard, will torch your legs
   i haven’t mentioned it publicly before, but i got my B.Sc in Kinesiology, worked as a physiotherapy assistant, personal trainer, & soccer coach. all that to say, i love learning about the body & how to take care of it. & all that to say, Jeff is one of a select few people online who i would call ‘the real deal.’

2. famous actor Cole Sprouse has the pettiest IG page i’ve seen
   every time he spots someone trying to secretly take a picture of him in public, he takes a picture of them in the act & posts it. i love it.

3. this interview series, “Can I walk with you?” by Thoraya
   as the name suggests, she just asks strangers in NYC if she can walk with them & chat. i’ve been wanting to do similar videos for a while now, & seeing raw, unscripted conversations like the one i linked inspires me even more.

as always, thanks for tuning in!

i’m excited to say that i’ll be releasing my very first ‘long-ish’ (~30min) video on YouTube this week, along with more of the ~5min journal entries that i also love to make.

this is week 1 of a 12-week season where, for the very first time, i’m ‘going pro’ with YouTube. that means more content for you, & more of a runway for me to experiment with things i’ve been wanting to try for a while now!

i’m pretty open about the fact that this is what i’ve dreamed about doing for a living since i was a kid. by the end of these 12 weeks, if & when i stick to the systems i’ve been building, i think i’ll be in a pretty good place.

see you soon!

~ liam (: