The electronic sign just outside of town which congratulates me if I’m driving below the speed limit works with a cheap little solar panel and we are entering the season when it will often be off, so I’ve been psychologically preparing to do without this small but prized source of validation. I never even think of it as an entity that bestows approval until the first time I have to do without it, I slow down and look up at it proudly and instead of a cheerful rewarding flash of green I’m looking into the eyes of a dead god, just remote indifference. It’s like that Sartre quote about how absence creates God because God is the solitude of men. It’s exactly like that



















