The profundity of driving a stick shift

Also: Community college started me toward my PhD [View in browser](    [❤️]( March 5, 2023 Dear Cog reader, The manual transmission is nearly extinct. Last year, [fewer than 2%]( of vehicles sold had stick shifts. But people who love to drive stick really, really love it. Cog contributor Jonathan D. Fitzgerald is one of those devotees. Last week, he wrote an ode to the kind of driving that seems at odds with newer technology: It requires more, not less, of us. “A manual transmission is needier than an automatic; it wants every one of your limbs engaged,” he wrote. “Left hand on the wheel, right hand on the stick. Left foot on the clutch, right foot on the gas.” I drove a manual for many years, and though it never inspired the same devotion (shifting interfered with my morning coffee), I was moved by his essay. So were many of our readers: The piece quickly shot to the top of our most-read list. As we enter the fourth year of the pandemic, with continuing bleak news on war and climate, this essay about a small passion ran deep. “The thing is, a lot of the time, I feel out of sync — like I’m the one stuck between gears,” Jonathan wrote. “I think this is why driving my little blue Subaru Impreza with its manual transmission can feel profound.” Happy reading, Kathleen Burge Editor [Follow]( Support the news   Must Reads [Community college started me toward my PhD]( Only when Ifinallyattendedcommunity collegedid I feel thatmaybe I could be a successful college student, writes Brandi Perri. Other students shouldn't have to struggle so hard to pay for it. [Read more.]( [Community college started me toward my PhD]( Only when Ifinallyattendedcommunity collegedid I feel thatmaybe I could be a successful college student, writes Brandi Perri. Other students shouldn't have to struggle so hard to pay for it. [Read more.]( [The profundity of driving a stick shift]( There’s a feeling — if you’ve ever driven stick, you know it — that the machine isn’t made for you; rather, you are made for the machine, writes Jonathan Fitzgerald. [Read more.]( [The profundity of driving a stick shift]( There’s a feeling — if you’ve ever driven stick, you know it — that the machine isn’t made for you; rather, you are made for the machine, writes Jonathan Fitzgerald. [Read more.]( [The quick arrests of the police officers who beat Tyre Nichols may be a 'blueprint.' But there are no easy answers]( While the arrests in the Tyre Nichols case do suggest a change in the national approach to police violence, writes Jon Carter, we still need to brace ourselves for a more complicated conversation about systemic change. [Read more.]( [The quick arrests of the police officers who beat Tyre Nichols may be a 'blueprint.' But there are no easy answers]( While the arrests in the Tyre Nichols case do suggest a change in the national approach to police violence, writes Jon Carter, we still need to brace ourselves for a more complicated conversation about systemic change. [Read more.]( [Rep. George Santos covered ‘Hallelujah.’ I listened so you don’t have to]( All of us have been guilty of torturing a good song, writes Julie Wittes Schlack. But Rep. George Santos -- who can't tell truth from fiction -- covering Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah,” is just too much. [Read more.]( [Rep. George Santos covered ‘Hallelujah.’ I listened so you don’t have to]( All of us have been guilty of torturing a good song, writes Julie Wittes Schlack. But Rep. George Santos -- who can't tell truth from fiction -- covering Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah,” is just too much. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "Most days, it’s difficult for me to consider my course through the world. But walking in a cemetery, I’m humbled to read the incomplete markers left for those who’ve already made the trip." "[Want to Lead a Better Life? The Secret Is in the Cemetery.]( The New York Times Magazine. "I think it’s really a question of what the university is investing in ... When you’re telling touring students, ‘This is our shiny new building that is the jewel of our expanding campus,’ and are making no visible investments in the humanities, that creates a narrative.” "[The End of the English Major]( The New Yorker. "We wanted people to ask us about our grief and how we were managing this catastrophic loss. It was, after all, the only thing we were thinking about." "[What Losing My Two Children Taught Me About Grief]( The Atlantic. "The thing is, a lot of the time, I feel out of sync — like I’m the one stuck between gears." — Jonathan D. Fitzgerald, "[The profundity of driving a stick shift]( ICYMI [‘We all have to do this work’: Paul Farmer’s greatest legacy is the people he left behind]( Dr. Paul Farmer, a co-founder of Partners In Health and a medical anthropologist affiliated with Harvard University, died, unexpectedly, on February 21, 2022. A year after his death, 10 of his colleagues and friends share what they miss and what lessons they hope to carry forward. [Read more.]( [‘We all have to do this work’: Paul Farmer’s greatest legacy is the people he left behind]( Dr. Paul Farmer, a co-founder of Partners In Health and a medical anthropologist affiliated with Harvard University, died, unexpectedly, on February 21, 2022. A year after his death, 10 of his colleagues and friends share what they miss and what lessons they hope to carry forward. [Read more.]( If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📧 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news     Want to change how you receive these emails? Stop getting this newsletter by [updating your preferences.](  I don't want to hear from WBUR anymore. Unsubscribe from all WBUR editorial newsletters [here.](  Interested in learning more about corporate sponsorship? [Click here.]( Copyright © 2022 WBUR-FM, All rights reserved.