More time for thinking

Place I live in, Oulu, is somewhat far from the most populated areas of Finland, and therefore from most of the clients. Helsinki, the capital, or about 600 km away by car and about 6 hours by train. Either way is less than convenient. There is also flying, which actually works well for day trips but I'd rather lower my co2 figures than raise them.

Next major town, Jyväskylä (if going towards Helsinki) or about 350km or 4 hours away by car, and I find myself driving that road quite often. Some time ago I took my first longer road trip - 1300km total in two days - with my Kona Electric, and despite it being relatively cold (-5 to -20 C), there weren't any major issues with it. Granted, shortened battery range makes forced me to have some less than perfectly places stops on the way, and I was back home with just 30km range remaining (last charging point I used being just over 200km away), but still it is far less difficult than gasoline-enthusiasts claim. But all that is not what I'm trying to write about here now.

I've driven enough so that the highway driving is mostly happens on autopilot now (on light traffic and normal weather conditions, obviously more demanding conditions require more attention).

I've written before about giving your mind some time to work. I find that driving also gives my mind a break. Not as well as walking, I can't "zone out" completely since road obviously requires some attention all the time, but still the "background processing" I spoke about can take over. Unfortunately there's usually only so many things to ponder and road ends up being much, much longer than I'd need for such processing, but, well, you can't win all the time.

During this latest trip I was also thinking about self-driving cars. While this car has lane keeper assists and such, they are long, long way from system I'd consider trustworthy. Especially since snow covers lane markings so car doesn't really know of those any more. But assuming there were full self-driving capability so I wouldn't have to even pay attention. Would it be possible to let my mind relax well enough for that background processing to occur? I suspect not.

Does it make any difference, though, is another matter. Maybe it really doesn't.

Just thinking aloud here.