Singing the traffic jam blues

JAKARTA (JP): Getting trapped in traffic is no different from passing a kidney stone. It's painful but it's something you can't get out of.

Blast the radio with music by Soundgarden or Nine Inch Nails in a vain effort to psyche you up, but the mellow tune of REM's Everybody Hurts creeps slowly beneath the core of your heart.

Rain starts to pour. What to do next? You can survey the intense frustration ahead, not to mention the fat guy in the next car who has his finger halfway up his nose. Is there a meaning to all this, the chaos, mayhem and repetitive emptiness of everyday in your Jakarta life? Is there a way out is the follow-on question (the answer is trying moving to a galaxy far, far away, and collect the frequent flier miles).

Looked at from a different angle, being stuck in traffic can be quite interesting. Not as interesting as watching an Ingmar Bergman movie on a rainy day or staring at Cezanne's apples and pears, but still, well, interesting.

Minds tend to wander far and wide during the agonizing ordeal of traffic jams. Heady flashbacks of idyllic past romances or sexually perverted fantasies to be acted out once home may be conjured up.

But most drivers in Indonesia seem to swallow the boredom by staring rigidly at the bumper of the car in front, that same one mocking them for hours as it grudgingly moves an inch every half hour. These are touchy times, when all the frustration and anger bottled up inside threatens to explode, but with no release outlet whatsoever.

No scientific term may exist for it, but let's call it the Traffic Jam Blues.

As vehicles nudge along steaming asphalt at tortoise pace, the blues rear their ugly head in gradual stages.

Denial. The first stage involves telling yourself the traffic is not worse than yesterday's traffic, when in actual fact it's increased exponentially. You just don't realize because you're bloody well used to a sea of cars by now.

Anger. The second stage builds up after nearly an hour stuck amid looming orange buses that look like huge papayas. The bus drivers appear to be at a total loss in understanding the terms "right of way" or "other people's lane". So you begin to swear, verbally bash the car in front of you for being inconsiderate and raise your middle finger in the direction of the enemy.

Wish. Something each and every individual grasps onto as a release after being stuck in heavy traffic for more than an hour. You stare accusingly at the car in front of you as it commits the ultimate sin in the tacitly understood rules of traffic jams by doing a U-turn in the jammed street. And then you wish for some terrible fate to befall that selfish road hog.

Silence. Silence is golden, isn't it? But silence is also when you have no more energy left to express anger and begin to resign yourself to the traffic and your plight. Eventually, come what may, you will emerge as a brilliant rationalizer. "So what if I miss the X-Files this week, I can watch next week's episode" may seem an mature way to deal with the frustration, until you realize it is the same mental compromise you made last week, and the week before.

After going through the stages of the blues, you reach the point where you bombard yourself with questions: Why do I have to get so upset about this? I have enough problems of my own! Is there a point to all this anger? I'm going to have to go through this again tomorrow, so why bother! Live with it! It's just traffic. It's not the end of the world.

Look at the bright side. We love our lives for 20 hours a day, with only four hours spent inching down the streets of Jakarta. Let's just go through it gracefully without having to bitch about it or lose our tempers.

Let's just try to understand why there is traffic and what is causing it (is it the people or the system?). Or why do most people pick their nose when stuck in traffic (don't these people realize that it annoys other drivers...hey, I can see you pal!).

So in short, the world is an intensely interesting place to live in. And traffic jams are one of the many colorful aspects of living in this mudball called earth. If there were no traffic jams in this world, we wouldn't be able to come up with an excuse for being late to work or appointments.

Make the best of it as this is just the rehearsal for a later life. Remember that your traffic despair is no worse than anybody else, and follow the great Van Morrison's instructions to "let's enjoy it while we can".

-- Teddy R. Soeriaatmadja