The Weight of the Machine

The smell of stale Marlboro Reds and artificial pine hangs in the 1999 sedan like a heavy shroud, the kind that sticks to the back of your throat and refuses to leave. Paul V. is leaning over from the passenger side, his hand hovering dangerously close to the steering wheel, his knuckles white. I can see the pulse in his neck. It is 4:09 PM. I know the exact time because I started a juice cleanse at 4:00 PM sharp, and nine minutes in, I am already contemplating the moral implications of eating the leather upholstery. Paul doesn’t care about my blood sugar. He cares about the curb. He cares about the fact that I am currently failing to navigate a three-point turn in a cul-de-sac that hasn’t seen a paving crew since 1989.

“You’re overthinking the physics,” Paul barks, his voice a gravelly texture that matches the road. “You’re trying to calculate the angle like a damn NASA engineer. Just feel the weight of the machine. The machine knows where it wants to go. You’re just the one keeping it from dying.”

The Inevitability of the Skid

I’m staring at the gear shift, my stomach growling a protest against the kale-infused water I forced down nine minutes ago. I feel weak, irritable, and strangely lucid. The contrarian angle here-the one Paul V. embodies without knowing it-is that the more you seek precision, the more you invite disaster. In our quest for absolute control, we strip away the very ‘feel’ that allows us to navigate the world. We want data. We want metrics. We want to know that if we put in 109 units of effort, we get 109 units of reward.

Paul V. adjusts his glasses, which are held together by a tiny piece of scotch tape that has survived at least 19 seasons of fluctuating humidity. He’s lived through 59 car crashes-most of them minor, he claims-and yet he’s the most confident man I’ve ever met. Why? Because he has embraced the inevitability of the error. He doesn’t expect me to drive perfectly; he expects me to react correctly when I inevitably drive poorly.

This is the deeper meaning we often miss in our pursuit of excellence. Excellence isn’t the absence of mistakes; it’s the refined ability to recover from them. We are so terrified of the curb that we never actually learn how to steer away from it once the impact begins.

When the Tracks End

I remember a time when I thought I had everything figured out. I was 29, working a job that paid exactly $979 a week after taxes, and I had a spreadsheet for everything. My caloric intake, my sleep cycles, my social interactions. I was a closed system. And I was miserable. I was trying to drive my life the way a computer drives a train-on tracks, predictable, sterile.

Then the tracks ended. The job vanished, the relationship crumbled, and suddenly I was in the driver’s seat of a car with no brakes and Paul V. screaming in my ear. It took me 19 months to realize that the spreadsheet wasn’t a tool; it was an anchor. It kept me from seeing the road because I was too busy checking the coordinates.

There is a certain violence in the way we try to force our lives into neat boxes. We see it in the corporate world, where ‘efficiency’ is the god of the month, and we see it in our personal lives, where we curate our failures out of the narrative. But Paul V. loves the failures. He points at the scratches on the bumper with a sense of pride. “That one’s from a kid who thought he could outrun a stop sign. That one’s from a lady who forgot which pedal was which.” These are the scars of experience. Without them, the car is just a piece of metal; with them, it’s a story.

The Secret of the Truly Successful

We talk a lot about ‘energy’ in the modern sense-positive energy, sustainable energy, the energy of the room. But we rarely talk about the energy of the mistake. If you’re feeling drained by the constant need to be ‘on track,’ maybe you need to look into rickg energy to understand how to sustain yourself, rather than just burning out.

I think about the people I know who are truly successful-not the ones with the biggest bank accounts, but the ones who seem the most at peace. They all have a little bit of Paul V. in them. They have this reckless disregard for the ‘proper’ way to do things. They aren’t afraid of the 49% chance of failure because they know the 51% chance of success is where the growth happens. They don’t wait for the light to turn green; they watch the cross-traffic and anticipate the change.

My stomach does a somersault. The diet was a mistake. By pretending to be the idealized version of myself (the green juice drinker), I am making myself a worse driver, a worse student, and a generally unpleasant human being. I am fighting the ‘machine’ instead of feeling its weight.

The Next 19 Feet

There was a moment, about 79 minutes into the lesson, where something clicked. I stopped thinking about the ‘nine degrees’ of rotation. I stopped thinking about the juice cleanse. I just looked at the gap between the two parked cars and let the sedan drift. The wheel felt light. The engine hummed in a way it hadn’t before. For a brief, shimmering second, the car and I were the same thing. I slid into the spot with three inches to spare on either side.

Paul V. didn’t clap. He just checked his watch-it was 5:19 PM-and said, “Good. Now do it again, but this time, don’t hold your breath.” That’s the secret, isn’t it? We wait for the ‘right’ moment to exhale. But there is no ‘destination’ where you suddenly know how to drive perfectly. There is only the next 19 feet of road.

Unlearning A Lifetime

I’ve spent 109 minutes unlearning a lifetime of bad habits-not driving habits, but thinking habits. I realize that the contrarian view isn’t just about being different for the sake of it. It’s about recognizing when the ‘standard’ way of doing things is actually a barrier to understanding. Paul V. is a master because he is a disaster. He is messy, he is loud, he is inconsistent, and he is the only person who could have taught me how to actually move through the world.

I look back at the car, and Paul V. is already resetting the mirrors for his next student. I want to tell him that the map is a lie, but the road is real. He has to find his own Paul V. He has to realize, in his own time, that the machine knows where it wants to go, and he’s just the one keeping it from dying.

I walk away, 199% more aware of my surroundings than I was two hours ago. The world is loud, chaotic, and completely unpredictable. And for the first time in a long time, I’m not trying to fix it. I’m just driving through it.