glass of milk
I live a fairly sheltered life. I tend to always see the same people every day and am rarely exposed to new people or new places during my day to day existence.
This past Friday night we went out to a restaurant downtown, with the kids, to celebrate a friend's birthday. After the main course but before dessert, the kids were getting restless, so while carrying V-8, C-ling, G-bot and I walked up and down the block and then came back again. About two-thirds of the people that the kids happened to bump into (because they don't pay attention, do not walk straight and are not used to walking in the city) were very nice about it and commented on how cute the kids were. The other third were more abrupt and not courteous at all, likely questioning the wisdom of allowing kids aged 4 and 6 to be walking on a busy downtown street. I was fairly pleased that the ratio was in favour of the friendly people.
What dawned on me as I was a witness to the vast numbers of people on the street was just how insulated I am from them. Each of the individual people who we passed as we were walking, or who passed us; they all have individual lives with hopes and dreams and challenges and disappointments. Of course I will never know any of them.
Since I read articles almost daily concerning potential societal failure(s), it saddens me that so many of these people, myself included, could be affected in profound ways, and not to our benefit.
4 comments:
i have thise same thought while driving to work every morning.tip.thegunslinger
I live in a small town of 4,000+. I know almost everyone & almost everyone knows me. It's always a bit of culture shock when I go to another city where I don't know anyone, esp. a big city. You think I'd get used to experiencing that paranoia & distrust of strangers that one gets caught up in when in the city. It's a relief to get back to my familiar territory.
I would not want to be a city dweller during a major societal failure. City people seem generally stressed out to me.
I've lived in so many places, and know so few of the people around me. But when I have to reach out to strangers, they usually are helpful and concerned.
The unpredictability of children worries me, since a fall would be very bad on my back. And their screams are physically painful to me. I tend to be warily respectful.
Ah, I had a similar moment of revelation (on which you commented).
You have to remember that reading stories on the potential societal failures is not reflective of society on a whole. In fact, the media provide a poor cross section of humanity. I think there are as many failures as there are successes, and then a whole bunch more who remain indifferent or static.
I`m glad your experience was positive with 2\3 of the unknown people.
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