Most Americans live in a car culture, and because of that, public transportation has a bad rap: delays, claustrophobic commutes, that one scraggly-haired gentleman discoursing on the heretofore unacknowledged connection between the Pentagon, extraterrestrails, and New Coke.
But public transportation offers one pleasure that the isolation of the automobile cannot: an ever changing gallery of new humans sharing a confined space. And since you're not the one doing the navigating, why not relax, relinquish control, and spend a couple of hours riding the bus or the subway with no particular destination in mind as you watch a bunch of people you've never seen before and will never see again?
How often do you truly study other people--scrutinize faces, analyze mannerisms, eavesdrop on conversations? With our friends and family, we're too busy negotiating the complexities of long-standing relationships, walking the tightrope of our intimacies. At work, we just want to get through that interminable meeting, that awkward conversation with the boss. But when you're trapped in a subway car with 60 strangers and no cell-phone service, your powers of observation are heightened in a way our attention-deficit-addled minds seldom permit.
And very rarely in our overscheduled lives do we ever just drift along, not shortcutting from point A to point B but simply enjoying that unlettered interstice. Try it one day. It's a ride worth the price of admission. Just leave the New Coke at home.
No comments:
Post a Comment