I was using the other day, with a lot of other people, and thinking about all the money I have blown over the years...how much I could possibly had now, if only I had not accepted the normalcy of it.
It started when I was a teenager and I struggle to break free now.
It's wasting my life's resources.
No! I'm not talking about pot. C'mon. It's not addictive.
I'm talking about cars and gas. And credit.
I blame my parents
But they are victims too.
They were young and poor when automobiles exploded in popularity and ownership came to more and more people.
They grew up in American culture and were ever so proud to come to me one day and tell me they were going to get me a car. It was a measure of success for them.
I was strong and resisted the pressure: "I don't want a car. Cars are responsibility. Besides, gas is nearly 90 cents a gallon - I can't afford that. I can get everywhere in town by bicycle."
This wasn't sufficient. The parental pressure to conform to the norm was strong.
I weakened and said...OK. How about an $800 pickup truck? You know I am going to have wrecks.
No. They bought some expensive used Chrysler piece of crap that never ran right. After a year of trauma dad returned it (Don't cross my dad if he has a receipt). OK I said... $800 pickup?
Nope.
Datsun 510. And the addiction began.
For a couple years I was content with the car. Good mileage, reliable. It was a car: 4 doors, a trunk an automatic transmission - everything a car needed to be.
Then I was married and the wife bought a small Nissan with a 5 speed. I learned to drive that. The car had an engine about the size of a Singer sewing machine and I wondered.....
What would a manual transmission be like with a more potent engine?
I came across a 1979 Datsun 280ZX on a crappy used car lot and it has a bigger engine (2.8 inline 6) and a 5-speed.
It was a blast and I traded the 510 off. It was over 144000 miles anyway and needed a new car to put the engine in. (Rusted out)
I was bit by the bug with the 280. Performance was cool. Smooth and fast, still getting good gas mileage as gas rocketed over a dollar a gallon!
Since then I eliminated the sports car and adopted the pickup truck as the basic vehicle one really needs. Anything beyond the truck is a luxury.
I got a 4wd Toyota truck, new off the lot after my last sports car was totaled by some dummy who ran a red light. That was 1995 and I still have it, 200000 miles and 13 years later.
No vehicle, no work.
After I got laid off from Mental Health in 2002 ALL the jobs I could find required lots of driving.
Lots and Lots. No vehicle, no work.
I elected, against my better judgment, to get a second car as the vast increase in driving will doubtlessly eat up the truck and force me to get one anyway.
I got a car with a nice powerful engine, a 6-speed manual, built heavy and safe for lots of long times languishing in brutal Atlanta traffic.
I am not emotionally attached to the thing although it serves its purpose reasonably well. It's fast, gets fair gas mileage on highway trips but is just better than the truck for delivery work.
I have managed to take the car off my taxes as it has been directly used for employment purposes the vast majority of these past years. It still costs a good deal of money I would prefer to keep at this point, but the Man says I must pay.
This is my point: the several cars I have bought, the gas I have burned, and all the insurance premiums I have paid, had I not had to live this way, or had I not believed this was acceptable and normal, I'd have so much more money now and my living situation would be a lot more efficient.
The absence of proper public transportation is a huge error in this country. It is a profound deficit.
Your car is not really "your freedom"
In its place we are constantly admonished to buy a car, to see it as our "freedom" and on the face value, sure. It's freedom™.
But really, it's slavery.
Car purchases often require credit, especially if one has had some bitter experiences with used cars. The rationalization is very easy. Credit MEANS wasting money on interest.
We all know the issue with gas prices. They are heinous in this country now - heinous if you are a normal commoner not making $15000 a year or better.
This whole consumer society was built on the chimera of endless cheap energy and like that Dell laptop you once had, once the battery is dead, it's a large paperweight.
Big Oil and Big Cars sold the American people a shiny idea and got them hooked on cheap energy and now that the supply is critical and running out we have to deal with reality.
They built their lives around it and now it's coming back to bite them.
Petroleum Sobriety: We have to clean up.
Fossil Fuels are a dead end. They are going to run out.
They are polluting the environment from top to bottom and inside out.
We have to stop using them.
If we cannot create a viable electric vehicle we will have to re-tool much of this society away from the addiction to cheap, easy, personal long-distance transportation.
I'd ditch my car today if I could and make something off it, but I am just not sure how I can give up my truck. I can't imagine a life without a personal vehicle.
Mostly because I have no idea what a functional mass transit system is like.
I am certain the current idea of the personal car will remain indispensable even with a proper mass transit system, but I am eager to see America kick it's needless petroleum habit, to clean up and to start saving the mountain of money we waste on cars, credit, and the required insurance.
There just HAS to be a better way.