How a dweeby riddle reminds us of one of life’s simple facts.
I heard this joke when I was a kid:
It starts by finding an unsuspecting victim and asking them if they want to hear a riddle. Whether it was met with general curiosity or an eye-roll didn’t matter, if they said sure,you’d start.
“Okay, so you are the bus driver.”
They nod and say okay. Then you go on:
“At the first stop, you pick up 5 passengers. Three are wearing blue jeans, one slacks, another a skirt. They spread themselves around the bus. At the next stop, one of the blue jeans gets off, four more get on and two of them sit together, the two others are wearing green and red and stand. At the next stop…”
As the narrator, you continue until your victim’s gears are visibly turning. Are you going to ask about the outfits? The number of passengers? Who’s sitting next to who?
And then finally, you say “okay, got it?”
They nod and say okay with little to no confidence.
That’s when you say:
“Alright. Now, what were the color of the bus driver’s eyes?”
If you’ve told this riddle with enough charisma, they’ll stand perplexed. Out of all the things you could’ve asked, this is your question? You’ll get a blank look, told they need more information, or they’ll offer a hail mary guess.
You shake your head in disappointment and say, “No. Okay, let’s try this again – YOU are the bus driver.”
You keep going on until they finally “get it” and respond with, of course, their own eye color.
So what’s the point?
After reading this, you may walk with a bit more confidence in this world knowing that you’ll never fall for this. You will forever be the wiser. You very may well be invincible to any 10-year-old freckly kid with glasses and a Red Sox jersey looking to boggle your mind with useless transportation-themed information.
But even now that we’re “in” on the joke, it’s still so easy to forget that we are the bus driver.
“We are the masters of our fate, we are the captains of our soul, *because* we have the power to control our *thoughts*.”
Napolean Hill, Think and Grow Rich
We are the ones sitting in the driver’s seat, setting the sails, mapping the trajectory of our own lives. But even being equipped with this knowledge, we still can find ourselves floating aimlessly in the deep blue sea, leaving our vessels captainless, and keeping tabs on “who, what, and why” on our ships.
“Did I leave the stove on? Who’s winning the election? What time was my appointment? What does that person think of me?” Modern life is full of these kinds of distractions.
None of these distractions is bad. It may well be useful to be an informed citizen, to turn off your kitchen appliances when not in use, to be timely for your predetermined meetings, and to consider others’ thoughts.
But, if you start to believe that they REALLY matter, that they are ABSOLUTES, that THEY ARE WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT – you may find yourself driving distracted. Maybe even to the point that you forget who the bus driver is.
Never forget who the bus driver is.
You are the bus driver.
Your ability to control your thoughts—treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions—false to your nature, and that of all rational beings. It’s what makes thoughtfulness possible, and affection for other people, and submission to the divine.
