The cars that go boom
Unlike sistas Tigra and Bunny, the forty-five-year-old version of me sharing this three-dimensional experience with you does not like cars, especially not the ones that go boom.
Standing outside my crib at bar close the other night, it hit me: humans aren’t done evolving.
Far from it.
We live across the street from the N.E. Palace, the liveliest bar in Northeast Minneapolis. It usually draws a decent but mostly docile crowd when the sun goes down, especially on certain theme nights, like reggae Mondays.
But trap muzik on Saturday night plus an unlicensed taco truck slinging birria so spicy it should come with a warning label?
Way too much heat for our hood to handle.
For about an hour after bar close, our block turned into a mashup of a car show parking lot, a state fair midway, and Freaknik.
Gas-guzzling slabs boomed bass that rattled bones on a soul level.
Lowriders bounced in the street in single-file procession, with drivers dranking something way more purple and potent than what Snoop Dogg sipped on in the ’90s.
Motorcycles screamed bloody murder with pipes cranked past eleven and gunning for infinity and beyond.
Even mama’s minivan rolled through with a system that pounded the pavement like it owed her money.
In those moments, our block felt more like Crenshaw Boulevard from Boyz n the Hood than our usually relatively mellow stomping grounds. And when a few loud, alcohol-and-Hatch-chile-taco-sauce-fueled arguments flared into full-fledged fights within a championship-level length putt of my front door, I half-expected Morris Chestnut to sprint out of the alley and meet Ricky’s tragic fate.
It was a spectacle.
And it made me think about the next step in human evolution—because the scene from that night wasn’t progress. It was backsliding.
Yet all that dysfunction gave me hope. It proved we’ve still got plenty of room to grow.
Unlike polar bears, for example—apex predators evolved for a climate that’s changing and not going back to how it was—we humans are on the evolutionary come up, still some kind of cosmic larvae. Fortunately for us, we don’t have to wait for natural selection or genetic mutations to adapt to our fast-changing environments.
Our niche in nature isn’t apex killing, it’s consciousness, which means we can choose to evolve. And the shift starts with one conscious decision: choosing to be more conscious.
It’s that simple.
The next step in our evolution isn’t faster microchips or Mars missions—technology is just a reflection of our collective consciousness.
The real upgrade is improving the quality of our consciousness.
If we chose to be more conscious, we wouldn’t scream at each other, throw punches, pound shots until we become the floor show, or terrorize residential neighborhoods like mine with eco-hostile cars that go boom.
Nor would we wage wars, organize societies around money, turn our backs on each other, or elect leaders who put profit over people and the planet.
And yet… we do. All the time.
Which means we’ve still got a ways to go before we reach the next chapter of the human story. As one of my favorite law professors, bless his soul, liked to say, Onwards and Upwards!
On the New Earth, we’ll still have plenty of fun—only in moderation.
We’ll still ride—just not in cars.
Especially not in the cars that go boom.
