Turbochargers and the Art of the Overreaction
There’s a moment in an old turbocharged car, just before the power hits, where everything feels calm. Deceptively calm. You press the throttle and...nothing. A pause. A breath. Then, suddenly, all hell breaks loose.
That moment is called turbo lag, the delay between your command and the engine’s explosive response. And for many enthusiasts, that surge was part of the thrill. Unpredictable. Violent. Alive. The car lulled you, then launched you.
In a way, turbo lag is an engine’s version of emotional repression.
I know, because I’ve lived it.
For much of my life, I trained myself to stay composed. Calm. In control. I bottled things up—frustrations, judgments, disappointments—until eventually, something small would trigger me. A careless driver. A tense conversation. A perceived insult. And then the reaction would come, too big for the situation, too late to contain. Just like a boost spike at the wrong time in a corner, I’d spin out.
Bottled Pressure, Delayed Release
Turbochargers work by recycling exhaust gases to spin a turbine, which then crams more air into the engine to make more power. But in older systems, the turbo needed time to spool. During that lag, pressure was building, invisible, inaudible, inevitable. And when it finally arrived, it didn’t creep in, it crashed through.
Anger, in many of us, behaves the same way.
We suppress it. Rationalize it. Tame it. Until one day, the pressure finds an opening, and the reaction is disproportionate to the stimulus. You weren’t just annoyed that someone cut you off, you were furious about being overlooked, again. You weren’t just arguing, you were finally unleashing weeks of swallowed resentment.
Turbo lag, in this way, becomes a metaphor for all the ways we delay our truth—and then detonate it.
Mainstream Boost, Mainstream Suppression
Today, turbochargers are everywhere, from econoboxes to supercars. And engineers have all but eliminated lag. Variable vane turbos, electric assist, hybrid systems, all of it designed to give you instant power, without the wait.
We want responsiveness, not volatility. Controlled performance. The thrill without the unpredictability.
And maybe that reflects something deeper about modern emotional culture too. We’re learning to self-regulate. To meditate. To acknowledge and process our feelings before they explode. We seek emotional torque fill—not spikes.
But something else is lost, too.
Old turbo cars had character. They taught you timing. Anticipation. Respect. They punished recklessness and rewarded awareness. You had to learn to feel the boost, not just press a button.
Is there something similar happening with emotion? Are we trading volatility for blandness? Power for polish?
Driving Our Inner Boost
I’ve come to see my anger not as a flaw, but as a signal. It means something important is being ignored or suppressed. The solution isn’t to eliminate the boost, but to build a better wastegate—a way to release pressure before it becomes destructive.
In cars, that means refining the system. In humans, it means making space to feel what’s building up—before the throttle hits the floor.
The turbocharged engine is not evil. It’s just misunderstood. Like anger, it can be thrilling or dangerous, creative or corrosive. It all depends on how, and when, it’s released.