Beauty Begins When the Driver Steps Aside

On quieting the mind, listening differently, and learning to feel again

I recently realized that there are two voices in me.

One of them is always thinking ahead—about outcomes, expectations, what might go wrong, and what needs to be optimized. This voice doesn’t rest. It plans. It predicts. It builds. I call this one The Driver.

The other voice lives here, now. It notices light. It feels rhythmic. It doesn’t need a reason to pause—it pauses because something inside says, “this matters.” That voice is quieter, slower, and closer to who I was before I learned to prove myself. I call it Tuk Tuk Matt.

The Driver lives in the future. Tuk Tuk Matt lives in the present.

The Driver is probably the voice of my father, or what I internalized from him. He pushed, not out of cruelty, but out of fear. He wanted me to be strong. And for a while, it worked. I built. I performed. I earned. But something got lost: my ability to feel beauty as it’s happening. Not to recognize it, or analyze it, but just to let it move through me.

Tuk Tuk Matt doesn’t need to explain beauty.

He just feels it. He also loves geometry, but not for the numbers or the symmetry he can calculate. He loves it because it brings peace. It reminds him that something deeper is holding everything in place.

The Driver sees geometry and says, “That’s efficient. That’s correct. That’s balanced.” Tuk Tuk Matt sees geometry and exhales.

And lately… they’re starting to get along.

The Driver used to run the show. He was loud, urgent, always one step ahead. But something is shifting. Now, when I see beauty, I let Tuk Tuk Matt speak first. And The Driver listens.

One brings structure. The other brings meaning.

One protects. The other connects. They don’t fight anymore. They ride together, one steering, the other watching the light fall through the trees.

– Matt Delac