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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3244 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 25, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I've been taking driving lessons recently in my late 30s (never bothered to before as I lived in the city) and I'm surprised by how it drains me. It's not anxiety, I'm not nervous about driving. There's nothing different about me before I go to a class. But I feel extremely tired after a 1 hour driving class, almost as if I'm sick, my brain get foggy. My current theory is that driving being an unfamiliar and potentially deadly activity my brain goes in an hyperfocused state that is extremely tiring to maintain for an hour. If that's the case I imagine it will get better as my degree of familiarity improves?

Did anyone else here have that experience of extreme tiredness for an only moderately long driving session? Did it improve? Were you a teen or an adult when you learned? I'm wondering if maybe teen brains get used to it faster.

Might be worth distinguishing between nerves and stress. Driving is stressful in both obvious and surprising ways.

I never understood road rage until I caught myself cussing out my dad in the passenger seat. It was like my conscious brain had stepped back a couple inches into my skull. Rational thought just wasn’t involved. Incredibly unsettling.

Something about the stimuli triggers weird parts of our psychology. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re experiencing an adrenaline crash after a session, even if you’re never consciously framing it that way. The normal patterns don’t apply.

My Japanese wife once was cut off by a woman in another car and I heard my wife scream "CUNT!" This had never happened before and hasn't happened since. Road rage is interesting.

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