Man, let me tell you something. Walkin’ on air ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, I’ve been high, y’know, like, really high, and I just want to hep you to the fact that no matter how high you get, you can’t stay up there forever. Maybe one day, I don’t know, I suppose it’s possible. But for now, sooner or later you gotta come down to earth. Even birds gotta come down once and a while. You know, there’s been many a time that I’ve wished that I’d been born a bird.... Yeah, but what’s wishin’ but a waste o’ time, eh? Still, there’s always the next life, there’s always a chance.Hey, don’t get me wrong. I take a climb whenever I get the yen, and you can take a climb on me anytime, I mean that. It’s that, y’know, it’s not like it used to be. I guess it’s that what I used to think was freedom, I don’t anymore. It’s different. Not more complicated exactly, just different. I... I don’t know if I can explain it.
I understand now that freedom is different for each and every one of us, that freedom has an infinite number of definitions. But I’ve also learned that all of these freedoms have a common requirement, and that is that they all need-- each and every one of them-- a vehicle to carry them into being.
Right, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I spend a lot of time thinking, as you might guess. For me, driving, especially when I don’t have a fare or any prospect of getting one, is a bit like meditating. I switch to auto-pilot and zone out. When I’m driving around like that, there’s no knowing where my thoughts will take me.... Anyway, before I zip off into space here, what I’ve thought about all these years has led me to believe that our primary duty in this life is to find or build or create exactly that vehicle which will carry our own particular freedom into being, and thereby deliver us from evil, or whatever you want to call it.
And for me, I think that my personal vehicle of deliverance, is none other than the very taxi cab you’re riding in now.
That’s right-- HAW HAW-- my vehicle is a vehicle in more ways than one. I kind of like that, y’know, as you might have guessed.
OK, here we are. That’ll be five-fifty. Thanks. Yeah, you bet.