Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Addicted to the Signs

My new driving obsession is gasoline -- prices, that is. My eyes now automatically snap to the sign of any station or convenience store that sells this nectar of our addiction. My interest is not abstraction; it's financial, plain and simple. Accustomed now to merchants climbing ladders to change those numbers sometimes multiple times in a day, my gaze flits between sign and dashboard guage, weighing any drop or increase against my needle's indication of need. When to stop? When to drive on? Generally speaking, all the attention is wasted effort. I stop when the car is empty. If it happens to occur at an hour of price decline, the benefit is holy grace or coincidence or luck -- depending on one's belief -- but rarely calculation. As often as not, I've filled my tank the day before prices plummet.

I recall hearing, a few years ago, the distinction between "concern" and "influence." My "circle of concern" is wide and includes all kinds of things -- from a loved one's health to the war in Iraq; from the plight of displaced workers to the slow-running drain in my sink. My "circle of influence," however, is much smaller, confined as it is to that upon which I can actually act. I can do something about my drain; my ability to influence another person's health is quite a different thing. The tricky -- but essential -- task is discovering what elements within my circle of concern reside also within my circle of influence, and to expend the best of my energies there. "Concern," after all, can become little more than socially acceptable, but impotent, dissipation. Nothing, with the possible exception of my frustration or self-satisfaction, has changed. Empathy and sympathy are certainly not unimportant, but I suspect that on that Great and Glorious Day I'll not be asked for what, during my lifetime, I felt sorry, but about what did I try to do anything constructive, redemptive, healing, enlivening.

I'll keep watching the gas signs; it has become, at this point, a form of recreation -- of gathering near useless information. Though it may concern me, I have precious little influence on the price my local Quick Trip charges for gas, and when I need it, I need it. I have considerable sway, however, over how much of the stuff I guzzle. I can simply close my eyes and drive (so to speak), or I can slow down -- or better yet, pull over, get out...

...and walk.





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