A Well-Lived Traffic Jam

I. A Well-Lived Traffic Jam

When you find yourself in a situation that you can’t change, you’re supposed to accept it and let go. The first thing you learn at Alcoholics Anonymous (I haven’t been to a meeting myself, but several friends have told me about it) is that you shouldn’t worry about things you can’t change, that you should accept them with serenity and composure. This should apply not only to alcoholics but also to drivers who honk their horns incessantly when they’re stuck in traffic. In fact, it should apply to all of us all the time. We should all embrace this little nugget of wisdom, as most of our lives consist of situations that we can’t change. We grow older and can’t stop this process, whether we honk our horns or not. We get weaker and fall ill, and we never really get any wiser. Despite all the experiences and lessons we have learned in the course of our lives, wisdom fails to catch up with us. No matter how fast it flies after us, we’re always a bit faster. In the long line of situations that can’t be changed, traffic jams are actually among the least unpleasant.

Of course, it is annoying and nerve-wracking to be stuck in traffic, like a fish at the bottom of a dried-up sea. Your journey has been interrupted, your plans have been thwarted, you’re late and surrounded by irascible contemporaries nurturing false hopes, pointlessly changing lanes, spewing huge clouds of smoke out of the window with their e-cigarettes and getting angrier and angrier by the minute. An army of cars not going anywhere isn’t an encouraging sight either.

Usually, the happy ending comes suddenly and unexpectedly, our confinement comes to an end, the congestion dissolves, we move forward, and no one understands what might have caused the snarl-up in the first place. There should always be a reason. Nothing on this earth just happens by chance, and maybe the purpose of this traffic jam was divine providence, so that one or the other driver has time to thoroughly rethink his or her life. The well-lived traffic jam is an idea that Michael, the editor-in-chief of ramp, came up with for our latest super super comparison test, as an open-minded, light-hearted take on the matter. According to the latest studies, after all, we spend almost forty-three hours a year stuck in traffic. On average, that is. So why not do it together? Michael and me. In Berlin. Behind Düsseldorf and ahead of Stuttgart, the strong number two in Germany’s traffic jam ranking. With two perfect cars, of course. Or with two cars that could unexpectedly prove to be perfect in a traffic jam. Let’s just see what happens, Michael said cheerfully to get himself and me in the mood.

I’m not mystically inclined, so when it comes to the cause of a traffic jam, I’ll usually chalk it up to a broken-down truck rather than divine providence. As to a well-lived traffic jam, however, there’s plenty to philosophize about. “Ah, linger on, thou art so fair!” Goethe might have written these words in a traffic jam. Although the idea that you can write or read when stuck in traffic is wrong. The situation is not conducive to such activities. In any case, I’ve only had bad experiences reading in a traffic jam. As a present, my daughter once gave me a book of jokes that she had probably fished out of the paper recycling bin somewhere. “If you’re ever stuck in traffic, you can have a good laugh,” she said. But the book made me cry. I had never read anything so stupid in my entire life.

Here’s an example (it’s even worse in translation): Mr. Nobody backs into Mr. Stupid’s car. Mr. Stupid calls the police: “Nobody put a dent in my car.” “Sorry, but are you stupid?” the policeman asks. “Yes,” says Mr. Stupid, “how did you know my name?”

II. Friends with Benefits

In this issue of ramp, we wanted to philosophize about how cars still benefit us, apart from taking us from A to B. What features do they have that go beyond the basic promises? Okay, heated seats, a radio and GPS are all part of the standard equipment these days, but modern cars actually have a lot more to offer. “Friends with benefits” is Michael’s theme for this issue, the car as a friend you gladly share experiences with in your daily life and possibly beyond. And just like with real friends, you stick together through thick and thin. Even when stuck in traffic, your car can be your friend. So our plan was to come to Berlin with two truly beautiful cars, a Mercedes S-Class and a To­yota Land Cruiser, and look for traffic jams. The cars, each unassailably perfect and ingenious in its own way – two automotive icons setting standards in their respective segment. The S-Class, for fifty years an international synonym for luxury cars and the world’s best-selling luxury sedan. Maximum convenience and driving comfort, plus an endless array of innovative technologies that have always been standard. And the Toyota Land Cruiser, the off-road classic. Robust, reliable, ready for any mission. A car for adventurers and explorers that will take you anywhere and through any terrain. And how! Maximum mobility guaranteed. Nothing is impossible. But what about when it’s stuck in traffic, not getting anywhere at all?

What a great concept, I thought and took a chess set and a book with me, my own book, not the book of stupid jokes. Although these jokes do have an amazing property: once read, they stay in your head forever. We set off from Prenzlauer Berg and headed towards the city center. In Berlin you don’t have to look far for traffic jams. The whole city is one big traffic jam, at least that’s how we had imagined it. But as the saying goes: “Man proposes, God disposes.” We were wrong. When we got to Berlin, there were no traffic jams anywhere to be found. Our beautiful cars arrived on a weekend, the school holidays had just begun, and Berlin seemed unnaturally empty, as if an eco-wizard had magically made all the polluters disappear from the city streets. There were no cars or pedestrians to be seen, hardly anyone at all, only sparrows and pigeons flitting about here and there. We had never experienced Berlin so quiet and so free of traffic. We spent a whole day driving around the city in our cars, chasing after traffic jams that didn’t exist. It was a stupid situation that we couldn’t change, so we followed the advice for drivers stuck in traffic jams, which works even when there are no traffic jams: “Live life well, focus on what you can do now to improve your well-being, and don’t let worry rule you.”

But what exactly does “live life well” mean here? Of course, we have to distinguish between those things that we have the power to change and those that are beyond our control. But some questions remain unanswered. We all want ( ... )

→ Read the entire story in ramp #67.