Why I will never learn to drive

As a 28-year-old who doesn't know how to

drive, people are usually shocked and

surprised when I tell them this. They say

things like, aren't you interested in

driving? Why don't you want to be able to

drive a car? How do you meet up with your

mates? And I find it kind of cute that

they thought that I had mates in the first

place. And I usually tell them that I

don't have any mates, and there's nowhere

I want to go. There's no way being able to

drive would benefit my life in any way.

Even if I could drive right now, there's

nowhere I would go to. The only place I

want to go to is Japan, and last time I

checked, you can't drive a car to Japan.

Could you? I guess technically you could.

You could get a ferry over to France with

your car, then drive across Europe, and

then get a ferry from China into Japan.

It would take a very long time. I'd rather

just take a plane. I find it kind of

irritating when people criticize me for

not being able to drive. Sometimes my mum

says, he's 28 and he doesn't even know how

to drive, as if being able to drive is the

most important thing in the world. Okay,

maybe back in the olden days it was very

important to be able to drive because you

needed to be able to drive to work, you

needed to be able to do the shopping, you

needed to be able to take your kids to

school. But it's 2017 now. We have this

thing called the internet. We have

next-day delivery on Amazon. We can

actually talk to our friends without

having to meet them face-to-face. If I had

kids, I wouldn't even send my kids to

school because schools just waste your

time teaching you rubbish like PE,

religious studies, Geography, French.

How's French going to help you in life

unless you're actually going to move to

France, which most people don't? From my

experiences, going to school was just a

huge waste of time. I didn't learn

anything important from school apart from

social anxiety and how to be a social

outcast. Okay, what about driving to work?

Well, I don't want to have a job where I

have to drive to a certain place to work.

I don't want to work in an office or in a

shop or in a construction yard. My dream

job is working from home and in my

underwear, using a computer. When robot

technology improves and all the manual

labor jobs and retail jobs are taken over

by robots, the majority of people are

going to be either unemployed or doing

work using a computer. And if you do work

using a computer, then you can work from

home, and that eliminates the need for a

car. Hold on, if everyone's at home doing

online shopping, wouldn't that mean that

the retail companies would need more

drivers to drive delivery vans? Which

would then increase the demand for people

who can drive? No, because when driverless

car technology is perfected, we won't need

delivery men or postmen or lorry drivers

or taxi drivers. For me, learning how to

drive is just a huge waste of time, and as

technology improves, being able to drive

is going to become less and less

important. All you people criticizing me

and making fun of me for not being able to

drive, you should be thankful. You should

be praising me for not driving, for not

adding to the traffic, for not adding to

the air pollution. We shouldn't be

encouraging people to drive. We should be

encouraging people to not drive. Can you

imagine what it would look like if all 7

billion people in the world had their own

cars or transport? It would look like

China. Do you want to have to wear a gas

mask every time you go outside? No, no one

wants that. No one wants to live in China.

So next time you meet someone who doesn't

know how to drive or isn't interested in

learning how to drive, don't make fun of

them. Take them by the hands and look them

in the eyes and say, thanks, I appreciate

you for not polluting the atmosphere. If I

can get to the end of my life without ever

having to drive, I'll die a happy person.

Actually, the reason why I dislike driving

so much isn't just because I'm too lazy to

learn how to drive or because I care about

the air pollution or the atmosphere. I

don't really care about air pollution that

much. I think it's because I feel like

cars and driving took my friends away from

me. Let me try and explain. So back in

secondary school, I had 2 very close

friends, and I want to make a video

talking about them properly. Next time,

but since this story is related to cars

and driving, I guess I can talk a bit

about them. Every morning, me and my

friends used to ride our bicycles to

school. They would come to my house at

half past 8 in the morning, ring the

doorbell, and we would ride our bikes to

school. And I used to really enjoy this.

I used to actually look forward to it.

But then we turned 16 and everything

changed. In the UK, when you turn 16, you

can actually get a license to ride a moped

on the roads, and that's what my best

friend did. He got a moped and he started

riding that to school instead of riding

his bicycle with us. I was really jealous

of my best friend, and I wanted a moped as

well, so I asked my dad if I could get

one, but he said no. I guess he thought it

was too dangerous. My friend started

hanging out with the other kids who also

rode mopeds to school, and I used to hate

these kids. I thought they were idiots.

They were loud, obnoxious, some of them

were kind of racist. I felt like my friend

was slipping away from me. When we turned

17, both of my friends got cars and they

started driving, and I felt like it was

the end of our friendship. They started

lifting weights and getting tattoos, and

they started hanging out with other people

who also liked driving and getting tattoos

and lifting weights. And I felt like they

were going down this path that I couldn't

follow. My friends were quiet video game

nerds who used to play Warhammer 40K and

had debates about Halo or Lord of the

Rings. And I watched them transform from

this into loud, obnoxious people who liked

driving and getting tattoos and getting

ripped. Basically, they turned into the

kind of people that I hated so much during

secondary school, and I felt kind of

betrayed. I've always seen driving as this

thing that adults did, that grown-ups did,

and by getting a car and learning how to

drive, it's kind of like saying, hey, I'm

an adult now, I'm grown up, goodbye

childhood. And that's always been

something that's terrified me. When my

friends got cars and started to drive, I

felt like I was watching them grow up,

like they were becoming adults, and I felt

like I was, I was being left behind

because I was incapable or unwilling to—

fucking hell. That was strange.

I've never burst into tears whilst making

a video before. I didn't think I'd get so

emotional talking about this. So what was

I trying to say? I was trying to say that

I felt like I was being left behind

because I wasn't willing to or capable of

growing up like my friends were.

And, um, yeah, that was it. Hey, and

welcome back to another edition of Cooking

with Daniel. So what are we making today?

I think we're gonna have these ramen,

tonkotsu flavor, basically pork

bone soup noodles, something like that.

So first we need water,

and then we need some kind of metal

container. What's it called?

A pot? This one will do. Step 1,

put the noodles into the pot. Step 2,

sprinkle the magic powder into it.

Step 3, pour in the, um, I don't know what

this is. Sauce flavoring, I guess? And to

make it a bit more healthier, we're going

to put in some frozen vegetables.

And then we add the water.

Oh, and we need some fire, so turn on the

gas and then use this. Whoa!

After a

few minutes, it should be nice and soft,

and then we can get a bowl.

Where's my bowl?

Shit. Stupid bowls.

Oh, I hate this cupboard. It's so

annoying.

I like this plastic bowl because it's nice

and light. I don't like those ceramic

bowls because they're so heavy, and if you

drop them, they break. Look.

This one doesn't break.

Da da da da! It's finished, ready to be

consumed.

Meow meow meow meow.