The gravestone at the end of your keyboard

Have you ever…? Yes, you did. You got someone next to you just starting to speak about his/her problems with no end of the monologue in sight. You’re the listener. And if you listen carefully, you notice the pattern: things are not great, is everybody else’s fault, and most of the lost time is spent in generous acts of misdirected self-sacrifice for others benefits.

Today’s passenger: “I should have left the company and took the other job but I couldn’t do it because they invested in me.”

My silent answer: “No. They didn’t. You got paid for your work. You didn’t leave because you’re scared of change.”

“I had to listen to her talking about her problems for an hour! I mean, we’re colleagues and everything, but it was too much!”

My silent answer: “Like I do now?”

Sometimes I feel the simple “I don’t care” could be the right answer and closure for a lot of conversations. It’s not right. Looking at my laptop’s keyboard now, I imagine what will be written on my, probably digital, gravestone. Something like “Here lies, nameless (I hope who’s going to bury me will have the decency to not use my name) the one who followed his dreams relentlessly”. Sounds good.

We die a little with every keystroke. It’s all about what remains on the screen in a document or in social media posting. The daily gravestone.

Short disclaimer: The Journal of an Uber Driver is a work of fiction.
Long disclaimer: The literary exercise to define a nowadays character for a novel led me to create these 25 blog posts. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any opinion expressed about Uber should not be interpreted as having a negative connotation. I admire the company as an incumbent of the platform economy and I am a registered Uber driver for research purposes.