Life is easy for 4WD man

Keep driving and don't turn back.

Hi, just a quick note at the top to say that when I refer to a 4WD, I’m basically saying 4x4 or truck. That sort of thing. Basically you can tell from the picture below, so I probably didn’t need to explain this. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Sometimes I wish I could feel the ease and confidence of a man in a 4WD commercial.

He¹ is fazed by nothing. He drives up over some rocks and then down a sand dune. He tows another 4WD out of some mud. A slight nod, a two finger wave. Now he is on top of a mountain near a cliff edge. There is nothing he can't do. His wife and child are in the car and they trust 4WD man implicitly. The child is playing with a toy in the back and 4WD man and wife will look back occasionally then exchange a knowing smile, a shared joke. Life is easy. There are no regrets of the past, no anxiety about the future. Just uneven terrain to drive over. Now there is dirt on the car. 4WD man isn't worried though because there is a waterfall up ahead and he will drive through it to clean the car. Just how nature intended. Man returning to nature. There aren't any roads, roads are for losers. Just rocks, sand dunes, waterfalls and uneven terrain. There is no sadness, no existential angst. Just driving and laughing and knowing smiles. Are you worried about climate change? 4WD man will drive up into the sky and pull the ozone layer shut using his 3 tonne towing capacity. The waterfall washes the tears away. You're slipping and falling, but not on the sand dunes. Not with those tyres. Everything is ok. Just keep driving. The phone is ringing, it's your wife's parents. They're worried about you. Worried about what? Everything is fine. There's no turning back. Life is amazing. And easy. Look there's rocks up ahead. Just keep driving. Don't stop.

Buy a 4WD.

A few years ago my wife and I hired a 4WD to drive up to the north of Western Australia. And I was surprised at how much I enjoyed driving it.

I felt confidence and ease flood my body. And after many a time complaining about the number of 4WDs in my home state of Western Australia, I was slightly embarrassed at this revelation.

We'd needed the 4WD because the north of WA has some pretty rough roads, especially where we were headed, which was out into national parks in remote Australia. Red dirt land. And it was fun. We drove over uneven terrain easily. Overtook huge road trains with steady hands as wind tried its best to whip us around. Everywhere we turned up, I felt like I belonged. I was given a nod, a two finger wave. We were accepted.

I even felt it during a one night stopover in a mining town, when our neighbours down the road decided to light a car on fire and the police turned up. The next morning we did multiple slow drive-bys of the house to investigate, and the people out the front stared at us. We felt protected by the 4WD.

For a moment in time, I was easy confidence man. And life was easy.

And then, driving out in the middle of nowhere, we got a flat tyre.

Our confidence plummeted as we pulled to the side of a giant dirt road. We hauled all our stuff out of the back of the car searching for the spare tyre as trucks and caravans whooshed by sending clouds of red dust all over us. We had been pulled back to reality, back to our old anxieties. What if we got stuck here? What if we can't figure it out? What are we doing with our lives? Should I actually be eating more gluten?

Things didn't feel free and easy anymore.

Luckily a retired couple with a caravan stopped to help. For some reason the wheel was underneath the car and required solving some escape room level puzzle where you had to assemble a metal rod and thread it through a hole under the car to unlock the wheel.

We eventually got back on the road, but the ease and confidence was gone. With no spare tyre now, we drove slowly. Cars overtook us and blanketed us in more red dust. There were no waterfalls to clean the car and we worried if we would make it to our next stop. If we were out of our depth. What we were doing with our lives. What actually is gluten?

There was no escape.

That was two years ago. My wife and I are now in Ohrid. A town on a lake in North Macedonia, a place we're calling home for the next 6 weeks.

As we've gone on walks and explored the streets of Ohrid, we have continuously come across this one particular car. It stands out because it looks different than any other car on the road. It's small, an 80s baby. A biscuit tin of a car. It's square-ish and there's no shiny chrome to be found, but it has character and serious retro styling. It comes in non-flashy colours like dark green, beige and red. Not sportscar red, more like socialist red. Having witnessed it hurtling along out on the open road, you can tell it's a real goer.

It's my new favourite car and it goes by the name of a Zastava Koral, or as it's more commonly known: The Yugo.

Production of the Yugo started in 1980, so it's been around for 40+ years. That's significant as it's been through a lot including war and the deterioration of Yugoslavia. It's a car from Yugoslavia. Hence the 'Yugo'.

The Yugo represented the bright future of Yugoslavia. One of hope and prosperity and continued growth. Instead, everything fell apart. The first car came off the production line just as life under Yugoslavian leader Josip “Tito” Broz ended, and what followed was a recession and a decade long civil war.

It has also seen its fair share of criticism. It didn’t fare too well in the US market and was the butt of many jokes. US sanctions on Yugoslavia didn’t help its image as parts became harder to come by and therefore maintain. They were neglected and their reputation tanked.

This car has seen some shit.

And perhaps because of all this, I find myself drawn to it. It has a modest and quiet confidence. An assuredness that comes from having lived a difficult life and come out the other side. Where, in spite of everything, as other cars have come and gone, it's still around. It’s still going, 40 years later.

It was in noticing all this that I realised I had been fooled.

For a brief moment in time, back in remote WA, I believed I was easy confidence 4WD man, and that this was the ultimate goal.

And as long as I was driving a 4WD, life would be easy. I would be protected from the difficult things. This is what the commercial had told me. Just buy a 4WD and all your problems will go away.

But it was a scam.

It wasn't real. And the confidence of 4WD man was fake, brittle confidence. Artificial. And his ease a manufactured one based on escapism and avoidance.

4WD man wasn't a hero, he was running away. He was a coward with a square jaw and flannel shirt tucked into his jeans.

It's easy to have ease when you're living a fake life. It's easy to be confident without real challenges. But that falls down when you encounter anything hard. It's a protective shell that makes you weak. You gotta face tough life shit head on.

Driving over a bunch of rocks isn’t tough. Tough is having that hard conversation. Being vulnerable. Asking for help. Offering to help. Connecting. Deeply, beyond the smile and the two finger wave. Sitting with those feelings. Sitting in the mud. Don’t run away. Let yourself feel scared and sad. Let the tears come. Don’t wash them away under a waterfall. Let the water fall. Let it all out. Feel the feelings and then feel all the fear and then do it anyway.

Because that’s bravery. That’s tough.

That’s The Yugo.

Back when I was learning to drive, I failed my driving test the first few times. I wanted to give up, but I couldn’t. And so my parents enlisted the help of a retired driving instructor, a family friend of a friend. A tough, older man. Uncomplicated and honest. A man from Yugoslavia.

During our first lesson he told me: 'Driving is not hard. When I was a young man I was a refugee. I had to flee my country during the war. This is hard. Driving a car is nothing compared to this'.

Not long after, I passed my test.

These days, in times when hard questions surface and I find my mind wandering towards escape, wishing for the ease and confidence of 4WD man and disappearing through a wild river and up a mountain, I catch myself and wish for something else.

I wish for a mentor that's real and unflashy. A guide to help me navigate life's uneven terrain. A real leader and role model.

Not a 4WD, but something tougher. Something courageous. Something that’s had to battle and has made it out the other side.

I wish for a symbol that embodies all of these qualities.

Because now, when times are tough, when I feel real fear and I want to run away, I imagine I’m driving The Yugo.

And then I steady myself, drop the handbrake and drive towards life head on.

1. Because it’s always a man.