The horn of a car is an important piece of kit.

It’s purpose is to warn other road users of imminent danger – to get out of the way etc.

When I hear the sound of a car horn, I don’t immediately associate it with danger, on the contrary I associate it with impatience.

For me , the car horn, when used as a result of impatience,  is a great example of a person reacting to life as opposed to living their life in the present.

In Spain recently as I sat at a roadside cafe enjoying lunch with my wife, a sudden outburst of multiple car horns drew my attention to a queue of traffic on the road.

I could not see ahead to the source of the obstruction, and I suspect too that neither could the drivers of the vehicles who were honking their horns.

Perhaps it was a delivery, or a bump between two vehicles, or a frail person crossing the road or simply sheer volume of traffic.

The honking of the horn is a reaction to the world, and in a sense a judgement on it too which seems to be saying that my needs are more important than yours, my needs are being delayed, my needs are having to wait.

I have never been a driver who has honked my horn but before I get too smug, I am a driver who has reacted in the past by moaning and complaining and feeling stressed at the delays I have experienced of the road.

These too are a quasi-honking of the horn moments because they are my reactions to events that do not allow for life, community, otherness and peace.

I have tried very hard, through my journey to find self love, to be patient, to be expansive, to make the delays in my journey by road, an opportunity, (whilst I wait for the traffic to move again) for my inward journey of self love, to deepen that little bit more in that precious, present moment.

My next blog will be: Emotional Wellbeing

William Defoe