I once told my therapist I feel most like myself when I’m driving. And yet, there I was, living a lie as a carless New Yorker. Soon after that breakthrough moment, I broke up with my therapist, bought a car, and now I’m healed. Haha, just kidding! Unless…
I know what you’re thinking: Men will literally buy a car instead of going to therapy. But what if driving could be seen as a form of therapy, helping us reconnect with our thoughts, heighten our awareness, and reclaim our concentration?
I would certainly not be the first to recommend the healing powers of transit. Responding to criticism of the 182-foot-deep escalator ride at the new, $11.6 billion Grand Central Madison LIRR terminal, Governor Kathy Hochul recommended using it as “meditation time,” to “let your mind wander.”
One thing public and private transit users can all agree on is podcasts. Driving back from a recent trip to Montreal, I tuned in to an episode of Monocle’s The Urbanist, as a cosmopolitan thirtysomething traveling from one city to another is wont to do. They were reporting on an initiative b…