We now assume it’s normal, but time wasted commuting is nuts

By David McElroy · January 10, 2019

As soon as I can find a way, I’m going to start working from home again — and this is part of the reason why.

This could have been almost any evening rush hour on I-459 south of Birmingham, but it happens to have been Wednesday just after 5 p.m. We were at a dead stop for awhile and then we inched along for awhile. There were two wrecks between I-65 and U.S. 280.

All of those highways are clogged in the evening even when there are no wrecks. But when there are accidents, the place can be a parking lot.

I spend about an hour and a half each day driving to and from work. By the standards of some — especially in larger cities — it’s not bad to drive 45 minutes each way. But I find myself wondering how we ever came to accept this as normal.

I used to work from home. I kept my own hours. I dressed as I wanted — unless I had to meet with clients or visit vendors. I controlled my time. Nobody dictated when I had to be where.

When I started driving again to a job with set hours — about five years ago — I swore it was temporary. Then I picked up another job and that turned into my full-time gig, but it still required me being in the office half the day each weekday.

I’m not sure how I came to accept that this was necessary. Honestly, I’m not sure how our entire culture was conned into thinking this is a reasonable use of our time.

We used to live close to wherever we worked. That was out of necessity in the days before cars. Then cars made it possible for suburbs to sprawl farther and farther out. People started accepting spending ridiculous amounts of time in cars every day, rarely stopping to think how much time it was taking us from the people we say we love.

I know everybody accepts it as normal now, but it’s not the way I want to live.

The way my work is structured right now, I have to show up at the office Thursday — and Friday and next Monday and so on. If I don’t, I don’t get paid. But it’s a mistake for me to think I have no choice in the matter.

I don’t want to keep wasting this much time in my car. I don’t want to blow this much gas driving to an office. I don’t want to be at an office certain hours — even if it’s only half the day — because someone expects me to be.

I want to work from home again. I want to work for myself again. I want to take back the control I used to have.

Ironically, there’s more money to be made in doing things which allow you to be in control of your time. They just require — at least for me — going back to the mindset I once had that I was going to work on my own terms and accept only the work I wanted.

In politics, that was easy. It can be easy in other things.

I have a specific list of things in my life which I’m changing. It’s a written list and I read over that list fairly often. This is one of those things on the list.

I’m going to be working from home again — or nearby, as I choose — before long. I’m going to take back the control I’ve given up.

I’m not going to sit with the rest of the suckers in the rat race on I-459. I’m going to do things my way once again.

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Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

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