Anatomy of a Tesla

I’m not sure why some of my favorite thoughts have been finding me during my walks home from school or work in the early evenings this semester, but they’ve managed to find me nonetheless. They may hold similar elements to the more widely known notion of “shower thoughts,” or the idea that when you find yourself in the middle of a mindless task, your mind digs a little deeper to come up with things to think about.

Regardless of how it got there, the idea of bitterness has been on my mind all day.

And somehow, while waiting to cross the widest street on my route, watching that monotonous red hand flash as it counted down the moments to safe passage across the pavement, I was struck by yet another random life analogy as a Tesla car slipped quietly down the avenue amid the traffic and gas-powered engine roars.

Here’s what I saw: the light turned red and all vehicular movement on University Avenue came to a mere 30-second standstill. I took my moment and began crossing the road, while a sleek blue Model S approached from the intersecting side street and made a silent right so that its silver T-shaped nose was headed southbound. I continuing crossing, watching in admiration as the Tesla grew smaller and smaller (I, like MANY other people, have an abnormal liking for Teslas), and I marveled at how the electric engine tucked so neatly into the hood of the car was indistinguishable from the sound of mere air moving past the car itself. 

It felt like watching an arrow glide through the air, with wind currents whistling around it. 

My boot hit the opposite sidewalk as the traffic, now behind me, began moving again. All of a sudden this blaring noise of engines and horns and music felt a little offensive. It disrupted the quiet. I think back on it when writing it down and it all feels as though it were in slow motion. 

Bitterness is like a demon, of sorts, and it is something that I have always wrestled with. The willingness to serve others and to be kind has always come more easily to me than forgiveness. In circumstances of others putting hardship, offense, or cruelty on me or my loved ones, I struggle to let things go.

I could give you a running list of things people have done to me, words people have spoken to me, or ways people have treated me that hurt me in the moment and continue to hurt me now, but all that would do is both publish and perpetuate these difficult feelings. It’s even harder when these things seem to hang without closure. So how did I see an analogy for bitterness in a Tesla?

Like the Tesla’s engine, bitterness is silent. It fuels and drives anger which can produce hurtful words or actions. As a passive-aggressive little human, I dodge around the problem and spit negative behaviors left and right. It’s made my friends and family fidget with frustration over time as I instinctively dance around any need for direct confrontation.

And, like the air swirling past the Tesla’s shiny outer shell, those behaviors have a volume that drown out the quiet rumblings of bitterness tucked beneath our hoods. It can be hard to know if bitterness is really there at all – all others see are the actions, all they hear are the words that result from it.

As in most other areas of my life, I have a lot of work and growing to do before I can overcome the demon of bitterness.

My stubborn desire to hold on to what should be released is continual.

The first steps towards easier forgiveness involves my willingness to pop the hood.