how the west won the war (or why waiting for the bus runs contrary to the innate human desire to self-actualize)

so i'm waiting for the bus this morning on my way to work and then i realize that i've been standing at the bus stop for about fifteen minutes even though the schedule posted on the bus shelter clearly states that the bus is supposed to arrive every 8-10 minutes during rush hour. and then i begin to imagine that i'm a passenger in one of the thousands of shiny new cars that pass by the stop while i'm standing there. and then i imagine myself arriving at my destination of choice in one of those shiny new cars well ahead of my actual arrival in the not-so-shiny bus that has yet to make an appearance. and then abraham maslow's 1943 psychological theory on the hierarchy of needs begins to take shape inside my head. the pyramid, that is. and then i begin to focus on maslow's final stage, the need for self-actualization, and how that stage relates to my own predicament. and then it occurs to me that city officials responsible for public transportation in this g-dforsaken town have probably never studied maslow's theory. because if they had, they would have certainly understood that every human being possesses a fundamental desire to become the best that one is capable of becoming. to fulfill one's true potential any way one so chooses. just like maslow wrote. and maslow was right. which is rare in social science circles. but for once, maslow hit the nail on the head. the human head.

and as i just stood there waiting and waiting and waiting for the not-so-shiny bus that eventually arrived about twenty minutes after i first pulled up to the bus stop, i thought about some of the reasons that folks own vehicles in the first place. and it soon became obvious to me that the two primary reasons to own one's own personal mode of transportation are freedom and independence. the independence to make decisions for the betterment of one's own life. and the freedom to come and go as one sees fit. as opposed to being held hostage to the vagaries of the public transportation system. and how the desire to come and go as one sees fit is really just a practical application of the final stage of maslow's theory. because if one desires to be the best that one can be, one must be able to come and go as one sees fit. whether it is to school or work or home or the airport or the train station or the library or the park or the mall or the korean restaurant at the corner of bathurst and bloor.

"take most people, they're crazy about cars. they worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. i don't even like old cars. i mean they don't even interest me. i'd rather have a g-ddam horse. a horse is at least human, for g-d's sake." - j.d. salinger (catcher in the rye)

i reckon that jon has already satisfied his higher-order needs: