| | There is a great Douglas Adams (may he rest in peace) quote that goes:
We live in strange times.
We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The
people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole
other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out
into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say thing
like, "Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How's Carol?" involves a great deal of
filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to
develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the
comtemplation of the chaos through which they see the and world tumble.
So give your kid a break, okay?
If there was ever a place on earth as cosmically diverse and chaotic as Douglas Adams' universe, it is New York City. Imagine, if you will, what eight million people means. Now imagine that even though these people live in five boroughs, most of them work in the smallest of those boroughs. Also, they are not the only ones who work there. Now imagine rush hour. Here is what happens for most new yorkers during rush hour. We shove ourselves inside metal boxes that can comfortably fit a tenth of the people already inside. It takes a special kind of filter to be able to subject yourself to this day in and day out. Most people crack.
This is just one example of the many forms of interaction that new yorkers have to deal with that non-new yorkers might not. For example, we have sidewalks here. Sidewalks are like highways, but without cars. Just like highways or roads, you need to stay on the right side of the sidewalk and pull over if you need to stop. We have pedestrian traffic. Pedestrian traffic is different from people walking. It is entirely possible in New York, to get caught up in a traffic jam of people, not cars. Especially because some people don't stay to the right or stop in the middle of sidewalks, or at the bottom of stairs and escalators, or in front of doors.
Yesterday I was leaving the building that I'm currently temping at. They have heavy revolving doors that lead to the street. I put a little shoulder action into it and was able to get the door moving at a slow walking pace. There was a woman in the compartment ahead of me. When I had gotten outside, she was waiting for me and said: "Was I moving to slow for you?"
Some of my readers may not realize this, but I'm not one to back down. "As a matter of fact, you were," I replied. "You nearly knocked me over," she declared. "I seriously doubt that, but I think you'll find that if you put one foot in front of the other, soon you'll be walking out the door," I retorted. "You are rude and obnoxious," she added, but of course, when I say added, it didn't add much. "Well," I said, "I learned it from watching you."
Now, I don't pretend that I was nice to that woman, but honestly, didn't she want to get home, too? If she had any sense at all she would have thanked me for helping her move such a heavy door. Some people!
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| | Posted 3/29/2007 11:54 AM - 21 views - 7 comments
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