Driving on the motorway is like a deadly dance where one must instinctively know all the possible steps. There is no choreography - only intuition and reactions. The focus it takes to move confidently and safely in fast traffic creates an odd sense of serenity. A layer of my brain; perhaps the one that's normally occupied by irrelevant distractions and damaging over-thinking, gets sucked into keeping me alive instead. (My macabre side now expects that saying this out loud means I will one day get seriously injured or die in a road traffic accident. Let's hope not).
I'm not talking about over-confidence. Far from it. The resources demanded seem to free something up; like removing all the background interference. And that's where the thoughts start flowing. The landscape, cars, noise (and the music I'm listening to) all merge into a symphony of focus and clarity. I can't be the only one this happens to: I seem to get some of my best ideas and best thoughts - and do some of my best problem solving when I'm driving at breakneck speed. (This certainly does not apply to juddering in an endless queue on the M25).
Given that at 70 mph my Smart starts to rattle a bit and at 80 mph (which of course I wouldn't actually admit to reaching because that'd be over the speed limit, so let's say, theoretically, at 80 mph) you get a real sense of driving a toy car mounted on a turbo engine, it's a little crazy that this is when I feel the least anxious, worried or jittery. Only when there are bad cross-winds do I snap fully into "oh crap, better slow down and keep this thing on the road", and out blows the meditative state.
The way I've come to call this meditative state in my head is "singing". It feels as if there is a release from the mundane; as if at all other times, the world and I are out of sync, but when everything is whooshing past, suddenly my thought waves and surroundings are aligned. And the road and everything around me is light; and my mind is singing.
