I spend a lot of time listening and
watching. I’ve always spent a lot of
time doing those things. Around the age
of 14 or so I became a self-proclaimed scientist of man. I was interested in people, their thoughts,
and what events brought them to where they were. But of course, I was just a kid at the time
and even with my “pure hearted” look of life, or what would be the fall of said
pure heart, I couldn’t fully grasp the idea just yet.
I sit today looking out at the people around me. I don’t mean those close to my life, I literally mean the physical bodies surrounding me in the commons today. I think as people we often get caught up in our life, our own stories. We are so busy moving from A to B that we become rather selfish with our own lives. The “people” who exist around us appear as objects that are optional interactional devices if we choose them to be so, and thus, we often shrug them off without a second thought. Not intentionally of course, but when people get distracted they can end up missing a lot. You sit down and see a man in front of you. You begin working on your computer and before you know it an hour has gone by and you look up. The man is gone. Where did he go? When did he leave? Oh well, doesn’t matter.
I believe the above to be the general thought
process of most people, there isn’t anything wrong with that either. In fact before I began working on this I did
the exact same thing when I was doing my homework. I noticed someone, then in a blink that someone
was gone.
I believe people realize that people are more
than just bodies, but, I also think they don’t spend enough time wondering
about those people. I can’t blame them
either, you look at a room and see 20 people in it, it could take a lot of time
to guess the story of each person, and you’d probably be wrong for most of
it. But that, is what interests me.
I look around the commons and I just see a sea
of people, people who are caught up in the motions of life. I look around and see each face and think
“Each of your stories, could be so different, and yet so similar to one
another. What happened in your life that
has caused you to look the way you do, dress the way you do, speak the way you
do, what happened, what made you choose the decisions you did? What brought you here today? What brought all of us to be here, in this
room, at the same time, on the same day?”
All of these different stories, mine included, brought all of these
people to this location today, but why?
I don’t mean “oh I am here for class.” Yes, I understand you’re a student
and need to attend class. Why are you a
student, and, why are you a student AT this point in your life, and at this
institution? Young or older, what
brought you here?
When I look at people, as all of us do, I and
we, instantly cast a judgment of that person.
Intentional or not it is the human brain that is wired to see something,
analyze it and make a decision about it. It is instinctual and no amount of political
correctness, or whatever you would call it will stop you from casting
judgments. It is also not the judgment
you cast in your mind that matters, it is how you interact with those around
you after your initial judgment.
I often speak with a friend of mine I call
Falco. The day I first saw him I thought
he was a punk jerk who liked rock-metal music and was probably going to rob me
at some point. He was a tall guy with
dreads, wore all dark clothes and was kind of intimidating. He sat across from me and did for a long
time. I didn’t interact with him much,
not because of the judgment I casted on him, but I was new at a job, so I
didn’t really talk to anyone. Yet when
he did talk to me, or the few times I talked to him it wasn’t out of need or
forced interaction, but because I wanted to learn about him, and I would assume
he was interested in learning a little about me. Falco is still a tall guy who has dreads and
wears dark clothes. But what I learned
about said “anti-government vegan death loving” Falco, was a lot of really cool
stuff. The quoted text before is not
what Falco is, but more of inside jokes between him, friends, and myself. Falco and I are honestly two very different
people. The things we share in common
are very slim. We both think people
“shouldn’t be douchebags” and we work together.
I think that is about all we have in common, ha ha! But, regardless, I learned that Mr. Falco is
actually quite a gentle guy who doesn’t anger easily. He enjoys eating chicken and vegetables for
dinner, he likes alternative music, from what I can tell, and has to have some
sort of drink every day or he gets crabby.
I don’t know the name of the drink, but I call them “Freezes”, which
doesn’t make sense since they come in an aluminum can.
In fact, I have made a lot of new friends
recently who I have near nothing in common with. A guy who is really into eating healthy and
weight lifting, two girls who are all about cross fit and continually and
relentlessly never stop telling me join, a guy who I deem “above my intellect
to interact with” who graduated from Stanford, a gal who always seems to have a
lot on her plate but never seems to falter, and is always dreaming of returning
to Austin, weeeeeeeell shooooooot! I’ve
even been friends with a young lass, whom I’ll call April; because I believe
the character April from Parks and Recs was created entirely based off her,
after a year of events and memories with her, I can safely say, I still don’t
know that much about her!
I’ve met a lot of interesting people and I am
certainly glad I never let original judgments get in my way, and I am glad to
know that those people let me know them.
The point of this article is that I think all of
us at one point or another, have casted judgments on people, never done
anything with it, and then completely forgot about said person or event, again
not unintentionally. I want you, as the
reader, to do the following at some point.
Sometime just look around you and wonder, “What brought all of these
people here?” Look at someone and start
thinking. As you delve into the mystery
of their life, it is kind of like watching a TV show. You’ll start to feel a connection that
person, and they no longer will just be “people” around you. I feel we think of others as “people” and not
in the technical term to describe human beings, but more so as just something
to avoid. Don’t bump into that guy, that
girl over there is making noise, okay.
Think about them and their stories, instead of just your own. Why did that girl get that coat? Well she probably liked it. I wonder where she bought it from. I wonder what brought her to the store that
day. Was she shopping for a friend? Just happened to be in the area? Day off from work? I don’t know.
Now that girl is no longer “people”, she is a “person” and now I am
interested in what is happening.
We are all so different, and yet, we are all so
similar. Human emotion and human nature
is a giant characteristic that we all share, and yet somewhere along the way we
disconnect ourselves from everyone and all “people”. I know, I too, am caught of this in sea of
life with its ever crashing waves of change and rip tides that inevitably cause
space between us. But today, just for a
second I feel I stopped myself against these tides to look, to watch, and to
listen as others continue through the cycle.
I ask, and I encourage you all too every so often resist the tides as
they drag you from destination to destination and spend just a few minutes
watching the stories unfolding around you.
-------------------------------------------------------
Let me
apologizing for my absence. Life, as I am sure it has been for you, has
kept me quite busy. Last semester really kept me down, both physically
and emotionally. Since I've started a new semester the pace still hasn't
slowed at all. I don't make promises I cannot keep, so I won't be
promising I'll keep on top of this, but, I will attempt to make a bit more
time. My schedule is already bursting at the seams, and of course, I have
more tasks that will be added to my schedule in the coming months. But I
am hoping it will slow down again, hopefully, in September. But knowing
my fate it seems rather unlikely.
Regardless, I highly appreciate all of you come here to check out my
latest articles, spread the world, and show your overall support. It is greatly appreciated and I wouldn’t
bother doing this if it wasn’t for people like you.
As
always, if you ever have something specific you want advice about feel free to
leave a comment, send an e-mail, and just in general reach out. Hope you have a great day, regardless of
however your story is currently unfolding.
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