As a cyclist who, in the past few years, has steadily increased my daily rides to the point where I rode 10,000 km in 2019 and have ridden over 1,000 kilometers the past three months, I am ALL in favor of this idea.

I’d love to actually earn some of my living cycling people around. Not only would I get the exercise I love to get and get me outside, but it’d be a chance to meet people, too.

In addition, I don’t know how much people who drive cars regularly really ponder the psychological impact being shut inside one’s car has.

In my 20s, I lived in Los Angeles and often commuted by car for over an hour to my job, stuck in traffic, and it always struck me as sad that I was traveling with all of these people yet the only interaction I had with them was in thinking of them as obstacles to my destination.

And now when I bike to work here in Japan, I see the faces of people driving and it is rare I see one that looks to be in a relaxed, happy state.

Recently, I dubbed cars “ego mobiles” but, like the way our modern world has elevated the ego, first-person-only consciousness, it seems to me that being stuck in a car is often all people know and when I bring this stuff up with my car-driving friends, many of them can’t wrap their head around the concept.

Ultimately, I think this future you write about will happen – like it or not – and you’ve given me an idea for how I can “drop out” of the rat race and still be able to pay my bills. Rickshaw driver by day, superhero writer/artist by night, here I come!