So I had a great post written on questions of agency and identity as explored through Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men and High Fidelity (I focussed more on the film by Stephen Frears than on the original Nick Hornby book), and it mysteriously disappeared. I, of course, blame the government.
The crux of my post was that letting outside events and relationships with other people shape your life is fundamentally selfish, and that each of us bears responsibility for claiming our own agency. One of my favorite lines from Richard Linklater's Waking Life is an offhanded remark by a passerby, late in the movie, who tells the nameless protagonist (played by Wiley Wiggins) "As the pattern becomes more complex, it is no longer sufficient to be swept along," or something like the same. The patterns are becoming more complex, and we face peril if we are satisfied with passivity. But, like I said, that post got erased, so here's a BMW z3 Coupe, my current dream car.
Of course, like Paul and my housemate Leon, I covet the new Honda Civic SI. Who wouldn't? But the z3 Coupe is like the hybrid love child of a Mini Cooper, my beloved '93 Civic SI Hatchback, and four gorillas. If I were a person like me, that person could be very happy driving a z3 Coupe around. Very happy.
The crux of my post was that letting outside events and relationships with other people shape your life is fundamentally selfish, and that each of us bears responsibility for claiming our own agency. One of my favorite lines from Richard Linklater's Waking Life is an offhanded remark by a passerby, late in the movie, who tells the nameless protagonist (played by Wiley Wiggins) "As the pattern becomes more complex, it is no longer sufficient to be swept along," or something like the same. The patterns are becoming more complex, and we face peril if we are satisfied with passivity. But, like I said, that post got erased, so here's a BMW z3 Coupe, my current dream car.
Of course, like Paul and my housemate Leon, I covet the new Honda Civic SI. Who wouldn't? But the z3 Coupe is like the hybrid love child of a Mini Cooper, my beloved '93 Civic SI Hatchback, and four gorillas. If I were a person like me, that person could be very happy driving a z3 Coupe around. Very happy.
Comments
i considered celebrating my midlife with a Z3 Coupe, But my charming paramour found it claustrophobic, and couldn't shut the door in the showroom, thereby puncturing all roadtrip fantasies.
Now I can't remember if I pushed the publish button or not. Why don't they bring back rotary phones? I could use them.
While his dream car practically oozes awesome, I can't help but wonder if it isn't on some level just a slick, soulless attempt to ape the Jaguar Hearse