The Quiet Ride

I like it when taxi drivers don’t speak to me.

Right now, on my way to the airport, I’m grateful for the silence. My mind is full—ideas swirling, thoughts forming, half-finished melodies looping in the background. When a driver starts chatting, asking where I’m from or what I do, it pulls me out of that space.

I’ve never been good at small talk. It feels like stepping out of a dream only to comment on the weather.

But, I get it.

That need to fill the silence, to acknowledge another human being in the simplest way possible—it’s real.

A few words might be uncomfortable to me but hold significance to someone else.

Maybe a taxi driver spends his day in a car full of strangers and those brief exchanges are tiny anchors of connection. Maybe the same impulse that makes me want to withdraw into my own thoughts is what makes others reach out for conversation.

In my daily life, I´m constantly switching between feeling disturbed by others´ behavior, and feeling guilty for feeling disturbed by others´ behavior…

Living is hard.

Or maybe, it´s easy…

and I just haven´t figured it out yet.

Have a nice day,

Claudio.