Why Do Cars Become Like Humans?

This is going to feel weird writing and I want to clarify I have no interest in pursuing romantic relationships with automobiles. Over the last few weeks since my car wrecked and I was placed in a rental, I've started to slowly realize and understand the weirdly human attachment people can sometimes feel towards their personal chunks of metal.

The first car I ever had was a banged up Prius with oh so many problems. My right side rearview mirror was amputated in an attempted murder by a hunk of wood from the back of an eighteen wheeler. Its entire right rib cage was stripped of its painted skin from some invisible man. Well, not actually invisible, but the writer's way of explaining a hit-and-run. The amount of money spent in repairs possibly ended up doubling the amount we bought it for, but I was alone in Los Angeles living paycheck to paycheck so there weren't a lot of other options. The Los Angeles heat was even more spicy with the lack of AC.

I don't say any of that to complain, it was my first car, most first car experiences are the same. I say that because to be honest, I was sad and mourned its loss when it finally died. It felt like losing a pet. I don't know, we had conquered so much together, and he had stuck with me through the hardest experiences of my life.

My next and current car is the wonderful Giovio, named after my character from the play I'd been working on when he entered my life. That was a huge thing for me, because it was the play that stopped me from giving the artist thing up. I was so close to being unhappy, and I think it's interesting when those whispers show up in your life and what happens when you don't ignore them.

Anyway, last month I got in my first ever wreck in my three and a half years of driving. I was hit from behind on the highway, and the semi-traffic stopped it from being too severe, but a lot of damage was done. I remember when it happened feeling this chaotic energy, realizing I had no idea what to do in a situation like that. I called my mom and my step-dad in this hectic daze trying to figure out everything I needed to do. Take a picture of the insurance, driver's license, license plate, damages done on the scene, but most importantly--get somewhere safe to do it. Not the side of the highway.

I list all of that, but I only successfully did half. Less than half, really. It was part of a three-car pileup and I should've also taken pictures of the car I was slammed into as well, but in the heat of everything forgot. I also did not move to a safe place, and am extremely lucky there was traffic. Because otherwise the potentiality for something much worse would have been high. I know a specific situation that's not my story to tell, but it went incredibly south for that same reason.

Anyway the insurance hoopla was organized, they accepted liability, and at Enterprise the next day I had a love at first sight experience with Selena. I name all of the cars in my life. Selena was this beautiful, polished, cherry red Jeep that only had about 8,000 miles on it. The interesting thing--we actually had to fight for her. To the death.

Okay, not to the death, and we didn't really fight. Essentially, the insurance company had a policy where they could only approve economy cars. Those rinky dinky tiny ones like the--honestly I don't know an economy car off the top of my head. I'm lucky I went with my mother, because if I went alone, I would've accepted it. And even the guy at Enterprise thought it was weird, because my car was a sedan, and he thought it should be equal to or greater in terms of size, not half.

We called up the insurance guy, who said that was the policy, but then we said we had a valid reason. I'm a film student and I needed the extra room to carry my film equipment. And just like that, it was accepted and I was upgraded to a sedan. A beautiful cherry red sedan. That's when I learned how powerful knowledge was. If we hadn't known the actual policy, I never would've been able to get the Jeep, and my music video never would have been made. I find it so interesting how steadfast and iron-clad policies suddenly become immediately changeable because you had the right information.

The majority of my time with the Jeep was straight out of a honeymoon phase. Which makes sense, this car was literally twice the price of my car with the specs to show for it. I remember I thought the coolest thing was how you could separately control the temperature for both the driver and passenger seats. It was also a bit odd because like the window controls are in the middle under the dash cam. And to enter my complex, you need a gate code, and it took a lot longer than I'm proud to admit to finally roll my window down to punch it in. Could I have just opened my door and stepped out? Yes. But I was committed to solving those windows! That's such a lame problem to have.

Over the weeks, the attachment steadily grew. It started with that thing where you park to enter a place and you backpedal into the place to look at your beautiful car. It's dangerous and I should try to not be hit by cars, but the coronavirus makes that task easier. Then more serious commitments started popping up. We were these star-crossed lovers that knew how limited our time together was, so there's not a lot of serious commitment that could be made. But, I decided that five years from now when my car's warranty runs out, I'm getting a Jeep Sahara. It's like knowing you have to breakup with your girlfriend and promise to marry her sister five years in the future.

Then that weird thing happened that only happens with long term relationships. That thing where you start to notice those little things that annoy you about the other person. My Jeep would not connect to my phone bluetooth in less than three tries and it automatically started up on the radio media input instead of Bluetooth. A tiny little thing that doesn't matter at all and is the most first world problem--but something my Juke did perfectly. In fact my Juke would automatically connect and start playing my last Spotify song as soon as I started the car. Like my soulmate knowing exactly what I wanted to hear in that given moment, reading my mind.

Giovio's repairs took a lot longer than expected. The damage had been extensive, so there were a lot of insurance consultations to verify and approve those damages. We were less than a thousand away from being completely totaled when it was all said and done. I was in the rental for almost three weeks. And considering I was upgrade for the sake of carrying film gear...I didn't want to disappoint. I came up with this idea about a man falling in romantic love with his rental car and decided to make an entire music video about it, as this last project together to remember our time. People have pictures to remember loved ones by, I made a music video. You can actually watch the music video right here.

I've done a lot of thinking about materialism. We're taught philosophically that it's wrong and spiritually we don't get to take it when we die. But I think it kind of neglects the meaning behind materials. I find it fascinating because I've never had an obsession with cars, just my cars. It says a lot about how desperately humans need connection because we search for it in things that can't even feel that.

One of my mentors has talked about the power behind treating all objects as though they were our loved ones, and it's interesting what happens when you do take inanimate objects and attach humanity to them. And it makes me think that materialism is a bit of a red herring. I'm not talking about hoarding things you don't need, but there's a value in the story behind objects and things. There's real history just like there's real history with the people in your life. We have VCR tapes without a VCR because they remind us of the hard times we conquered that at the time had flashes of relief through those tapes.

I moved out to live on my own in California immediately after High School and lived paycheck to paycheck. I didn't know anybody and spent most nights completely alone without a lot of money for food. My mom remembered the time she came to visit me in my apartment and how gaunt I had become, having lost twenty pounds. My car was beaten and battered, but I felt a kinship because I was just as beaten and battered as it was and we were finding our way together.

It's the story. The story honestly dictates everything. Our entire lives are organized through the lens of a story. That's what makes people so close to their cars, in both the superficial and profound ways. The people with the Lamborghinis and the sea of exotic cars--that's the story. The fact they're finally in a place to be able to afford it all is what gives that appeal. It tells the story of who you want to be both privately and publicly.

I think minimalism is a wonderful movement, and often we do get overly distracted by physical things. But I also think that it's our physical things that help develop that life story, like the props in a movie. The absence of them kinda takes away that feeling of nostalgia and remembrance.

It's the same idea of wanting to stay completely in the moment instead of wrapped in our phones trying to document the moment. And I agree, people get overindulged in capturing moments they forget to live in it. But I also regret the moments I never captured.

There just needs to be a balance, as with everything. I'm trying to not feel guilty about my attachment to my physical things and to take more pictures. At the end of the day, we can't take those things with us on our death bed. In that same way though, that means when we die they stay as things to remember us by to the people living without us. I think a word I've fallen in love with is legacy.