one more push, for the amg

pre-2025 i did not care about cars. at all. a car was a mechanism for getting me from point A to point B.

my brother-in-law owns an auto body in ottawa. he's a serious enthusiast, which means he gets invited to things, and on april 1st, 2025 one of those things was a car show. my sister and i tagged along.

before

i'd been to these things before and i always enjoyed them, but not for the cars. i had fun watching grown men show each other their toys - fully adult, fully employed men, reverting to boys in a parking lot. it was mostly a joke to me. but every so often a maserati would roll through and i'd think, sure, okay, that's nice.

the show

hundreds of cars were spread across a parking lot the size of a small town. my sister and i decided to walk around and check them all out.

we got to the end of the first row and turned around to look back at the rest of them.

and then i saw it.

the batmobile

it looked like bruce wayne had pulled up, parked, and walked off - left it there completely unattended.

i have never seen a more beautiful object in my life. i stood there genuinely taken aback. not oh, cool car taken aback. the kind where your brain stops offering commentary for a second.

it was an AMG GTR.

standing there, i understood everything i had been quietly making fun of. i understood why someone would live in a shoebox if it meant a porsche was in their name. i understood why those men drive hours across cities to stand in a parking lot together.

what happened after

i went home and started obsessing. i looked up what a GTR costs. i did the math on what i'd need to make annually to afford one. i built a budget around it. i started a list.

and then something strange happened: my life felt like it had a direction.

this is going to sound stupid, but at the gym, when i'm mid-set and about to quit, i tell myself that if i can't get through three more reps then i'm never owning a GTR. one more push, for the amg.

it works. it works in a way that nothing intangible ever has.

the point

wanting a material thing is completely different from wanting an abstract one. a salary number is abstract. a body type is abstract. they're both real goals, i've had both, and neither has ever gotten me through a set.

but a car is a thing. it exists. one is sitting in a lot somewhere right now with someone else's name on it.

there is a thing i want, and i am going to have it.

that framing rewired something. i started looking at every decision - my internships, money, time - through whether it moves me closer to owning my GTR.

if you don't have one - a real, specific, slightly embarrassing material thing you're working toward - i'd recommend finding one. it doesn't have to be a car.

mine's a car.