A highly sensitive, intuitive, empath tries a Waymo
My actual Waymo picking me up
You know that feeling when you’re about to do something so far outside of your comfort zone that you have to do a grounding and breathing exercise to continue? That was me before getting into my first self-driving car ride.
On a recent trip to the San Francisco area, I had a chance to do exactly that, by trying an autonomous vehicle, aka, self-driving car. Specifically a Waymo.
I'm sharing this because I think it falls into the realm of living a conscious tech life.
Before I pass judgement or have an opinion on something, I like to try it out if I can, (within reason). That's why I decided to try a Waymo.
We don't have them yet in my part of the country, or any self-driving cars, so it was wild to see one in person for the first time. I had a feeling I would see one, but I didn't think I'd have a chance to try one.
I first saw one while traveling in an uber. Then I saw one from my hotel room's 6th floor vantage point over the parking lot. I watched it get stuck at an awkward spot in the parking lot for a good number of minutes. I have to say it was rather fascinating.
I tried to take one to the airport, but it turns out the airport wasn't in its service area.
As luck would have it my flight got cancelled and I ended up staying an extra day.
I decided to use that opportunity to challenge my known reality by taking one to the center of town near where I was staying, about a 10 - 15 minute drive. I thought that would be a good introduction, and not overload my senses too much.
I purposely picked a drop off spot that I knew would be less busy. (The public library, because you know how I love books.)
Now I’ll be perfectly honest here, I had to psych myself up for this. I had to do a grounding exercise before I got in (a walk, a visualisation, and some breath). I could feel this unknown energy rising in me. I was wondering if I would actually get in the thing once it arrived. I thought it was 50/50 that I cancelled and didn’t get in.
By the time it arrived, I was waiting, slightly excited, slightly anxious, kind of like when you get on a plane to go somewhere really awesome and you can’t wait to get there.
I received the customary text to let me know it had arrived, even though I was standing right in front of it. Someone who worked at the hotel happened to be standing outside, looked at the vehicle and me heading towards it, and said with serious question in his voice, “You ordered this?” I nodded, and proceeded to take pictures of the EV Jaguar SUV with cameras all over it that had pulled up.
It unlocked it from the app, I opened the door, and then the departure from the known reality set in as I shut the door. I can still feel the nervo-cited feeling in my body right now as I write this and relive it.
The first thing I did was try to calibrate my disorientation at there not being another human in the car and me sitting in the backseat. I took a few breaths, said a little prayer, buckled up, and said let’s go in the app.
As I set off, the disorientation did not wane. It was so confusing for my brain. I had so many questions. I mean how does this thing work?! I know how it works generally, but once I was in there and riding in it, I was kind of astounded at how such a thing could be possible. It really challenged everything I know about reality in the first 5 minutes of the drive.
Once “we” left the parking lot, the feeling only got stronger. Driving down the open road I started to get this weird feeling like there was a person driving, even though I could visually see that there was not a person in the car with me.
It felt like there was another being in there with me. The way the wheel moved. The odd way that the seatbelt was buckled even though no human sat there. The specificity of it’s stops, starts, and movements. It was mind-bending.
All through my life I’ve heard people say, I want a Jetsons life, I was promised a flying car, where’s my flying car.
Well, this thing is pretty close as far as being outside of the realm of imagination when I was growing up.
Oddly, if you go back and watch the Jetsons, a surprising amount of things, big and small in that show have come to be a part of our current reality.
I digress.
One of the most curious things to happen during my ride was that on the open road, where traffic was going in each direction and some cars were parked on the other side, the Waymo slowed down to an almost comical speed. I kept looking to see what was causing the slow down. I couldn’t figure it out. Then after 4 or 5 blocks it went back up to normal speed.
About five minutes before the ride ended, I settled into the ride, stopped taking pictures and videos, and just observed the whole thing with wonder.
It’s a weird thing being highly sensitive, I felt like I could feel the weight of the cameras on top of the car and all around it. And at the same time the drive was smooth, and light, like you would expect from a luxury EV SUV. I felt like I could feel the time, effort, and intelligence that went into creating this thing. My brain almost tried to give it a biological feel so that I could understand it. Like anthropomorphizing it but with an extra boost. It remains confusing to the present moment.
My take away was this, nice as a novelty, but I don’t know if I’d take one everyday if I had the opportunity. Something about it was a little bit too “uncanny valley” for me. That could change of course as things progress, but lately as we get more technologically advanced there is a part of me that is looking for more “biological resonance “ (as Lee Harris calls it) to balance all the rapid changes out. I feel called to more time in nature too.
I’m glad I tried it. I might do it again if I was in an area that had one, but I would probably not make a habit of it.
If you want to challenge your own known reality with me, check out the Input Fast Workshop which teaches you how to have a different relationship with your phone and informational input. If you think you can’t have a different relationship with your phone, that is the reality I invite you to challenge with an Input fast.
