Making the World a Bitter Place

Some days are harder than others.

That's anything but a profound statement, I know. I mean, isn't true for all of us? Aren't we all struggling in our own, little ways? Aren't we all surrounded by such an array of negative energy that, some days, it seems nearly impossible to continue on?

This isn't just the move talking. This isn't just the bathroom lock-in or the slow traffic or the middle fingers or the blank, speechless stares by office-workers when I offer a polite "hello!" in the hallway. This isn't even the years of bad luck culminating in a single diatribe.

Rather, it's all of these things. And the dozens of other things that happen that are just too unspeakable to even post on these pages. It's the accumulation of things that seem reasonable enough in small doses, but that slowly choke us over time — that is, the air that scarcely clears before the next sprinkle of foul weather.

And so I say: some days are easier than others. That's not to say things necessarily improve on those days, but that I'm sufficiently distracted to not think about the way I'm treated on the roadways, in the office, at home, etc. Maybe I've had a day or two without incident. Maybe the endorphins are hitting just right at the gym, or I'm out of the city for a weekend.

But whatever it is, those days — those moments of contentment — have been increasingly difficult to come by over the past couple years.

Maybe it's the city. Maybe it's the situation. Or maybe it's just me.

Only time will tell.

***I read once that people are wired to exist in communities of no more than 200 people. A friend offered an eloquent reminder me of this in a recent post that really got me thinking not only about city-life, but how our wiring impacts the way we treat others — particularly, those who aren't a part of our troop.

Do you remember the first time you ran into a teacher at a grocery store? The first time you saw them in jeans, or caught them holding hands with their significant other? Do you remember the first time you saw your doctor at the movie theatre, or the first time you realized you weren't a "test tube" baby?

It is difficult, at times, for us to see people outside of the roles we have assigned to them. It is difficult for us, as growing children, to realize that our parents aren't just providers, but that they, too, once upon a time had these living, breathing dreams.

It is exponentially difficult for us to imagine the utility of strangers. Or even more so, it is difficult for us to imagine — or, at least, easier for us to not imagine — them laughing and smiling and crying and starving and breathing and living and dying.

We have enough to worry about, after all. Our bills are due Tuesday, the bread is stale and dammit-didn't-I-clean-the-clogged-pipe-just-last-week?

This changes, of course, when we lump these "strangers" into other communities (i.e. slapping a single face onto hundreds of thousands of people). We'll rally together for causes — for hordes of people suffering from any variety of maladies — but we fail, even still, to genuinely care about the individual.

And by that I mean: we fail, religiously, to treat others with a modicum of respect. We fail to recognize the humanness of those around us: do you ever stop to think, for example, about the woman at the grocery store checkout? Do you ever look up at those skyscrapers as you drive past, and marvel at the thousands of lives — the millions of stories — that are unfolding within those walls?

Do you ever stop to think that the person you tailgate on the highway might be on the way back from the hospital — or on their way to picking up their kid from school — or battling a terrible, life-altering illness and your thoughtlessness is somehow impacting their day (their life) in what only seems to you to be a microscopic way?

You don't know these people. You don't know who they are, or what their situation is.

But you may very well be pushing them over a rather steep ledge.

Or is that not what road rage is about? The thoughtlessness of two strangers who insist that they were wronged by the other.

But in a world where everyone is right, no one is.
***We've come to expect this treatment from other people: that's precisely how we justify it when we turn around and do the same unto others — right?

But what of those times when this thoughtlessness infects our very community? Those times when the cold stares and the lack of consideration and the me-first mentalities inhabit our walls like termites thirsty for the soul?

We have nowhere to turn for solace. Living becomes intolerable. So much so, in fact, that some people simply... give up. That's not to necessarily say they make a vertical incision along their wrists, but that — if nothing else — they, too, stop trying.

They become hapless, inconsiderate drones. Just like everyone else.

***

If Thoreau got one thing right, it's this: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

I challenge you to people-watch at a mall — or a busy intersection, or a bar — and to not come to that same disheartening conclusion, time and time again.

That's not to say there isn't beauty in life — there is — but that we're too often immune to it.

Or, even worse, we want it strictly for ourselves. Or if we're feeling generous: our community.

***

So the next time you volunteer, or the next time you drop a one-spot into the fireman's boot (both of which I encourage you to do, by the way), don't think for a second that your good deed for the year is done.

There are thousands of people out there relying on you to make their day a little less miserable. Some of them you know. Some of them you don't.

But a fair number of them, I'd wager, could really benefit from some kindness.