The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
It always leads me here
Leads me to your door
—Paul McCartney
You would have had to be living under a rock lo these last several years not to recognize that we’ve got ourselves a revolution going on. And like so many revolutions, this one is taking to the streets.
That’s right. I’m talking about the future of how we’ll all be getting around. Will the internal combustion engine live to see another generation or will the EV’s relegate it to the dustbin of history, perhaps a quaint diorama of how things used to be once upon a spark plug?
Personally, I’m rooting for the EV. Well, no surprise there. From the standpoint of climate change, sad as it will be to say goodbye to my beloved fire-breathing dragons, their time has come. Better our lungs survive than the throaty grumble of an AC Cobra, the piss-your-pants-crush-your-spine rush of a GT-40, to say nothing of the vintage sewing-machine-whir of the early Beetles.
Either way, one thing about cars will never change for me. Because while some will swear by the idea-generating powers of the shower or listening to Sigur Ros or microdosing psilocybin, for me it’s the road.
As it turns out, science can explain this. Dr. Shelley Carson is the author of Your Creative Brain and a researcher and lecturer at Harvard University. Dr. Carson has studied the connection between psychology, creativity, and neuroscience for over two decades.
“I drive 50 miles from work to my home in South Boston. It probably takes me about 20 minutes to get out of the city, and that’s the time I start calming myself,” said Dr. Carson. She continued, “As soon as I get on the open road, I’m relaxed, and that’s when ideas really start to percolate and make their way through the filters.”
There’s something called the central executive network. It’s the conscious part of the brain that lets us focus on an activity. It also filters out what it considers non-essential thoughts of the subconscious mind, also known as the default mode network, also known as the imagination network. That’s the one that does the creative thinking.
“What happens is that when you’re driving, you go into an automatic state that turns down the volume on the central executive network”. Dr. Carson again. “That frees up a lot of space to let your mind wander. Ideas that ordinarily would be screened out start collide together, bouncing off one another, and they reach conscious awareness.”
But it’s not just your car that can turn the idea spigot on. The road itself is a big deal. Car or no car, you’re not likely to land on the big one if the road is choked with commuters, long-haul truckers and parents driving their kids to T-ball practice. Find yourself a long stretch of uninterrupted road, hopefully devoid of anything that can distract that imagination network from kicking into overdrive. You know. Mountains. Oceans. Forests. Naked hitchhikers.
Also, it helps to stew over your project before you even think about getting behind the wheel. Maybe you’re writing a book. You’ve gotten yourself into a blind alley with no way out. Think about where you left off. Let it carom around in your brain. In a sense, it’s like planting seeds. You plant the seeds, you let them settle in for a bit. Then and only then are you ready to start the engine, head down the driveway and tell that executive network of yours to shut the hell up.
Ah, you are a stickler for staying on topic. Okay: you and I have bantered about this before—I'm a huge believer in the power of background subconscious processing to generate those "got it" moments. And I think your neurobiologist expert's explanation makes intuitive good sense —even to a lay person without her impressive credentials—that getting out of our own way is a big part of the mental magic.
Will that be more or less likely to happen in a Tesla—which tends to deliver a less physically engaging driving experience than, say, a McLaren Mustang—depends on how much you need the distraction of running through the gears, hearing the rumble of the engine, and feeling the whole frame shudder and yaw to get to Zen. Lot of people swear by walking through art galleries, going to a movie, strolling in a park, or simply the old school "in the shower" answer as a way to get there.
Here's a weird one: in the last few assignments, I've found that vamping ideas in a text to my creative partner can be enough of a different stroke to get something good out of the gate.
Not, of course, while driving.
Should we be concerned that Tesla, both the clear EV avatar and “another” property of the person who now owns a certain social platform supported by $4.5 billion in ad revenues, has never bought an ad?