I will never see any of you again. This is not by choice, but rather by the flow of life. I will leave today with rosy memories, but then I’ll be forced to consider the immediate. Thinking about where to stop for gas, then the next exit to take, and then the next chapter of my life. I will pass hundreds of other people on the way home, more people that I will never see again.
We cannot think like that. Our sanity cannot possibly bear the possibility that every face that we pass on the street, or every car on the freeway, could have been our best friend or spouse in some different life. I am just a small insignificant blip on their radar, and them mine, but we will both go on to weave an extraordinarily complex and meaningful life, completely devoid of each other.
So I don’t consider that, and neither do they. But they do consider some things. Much like I do consider some things. I know that these thoughts I am having aren’t necessarily all that revelatory, or unique, but that’s the point.
I will stop at a gas station, buy a shitty coffee from a stale pot, make a quick joke for a fleeting smile from the cute cash register girl, and then leave. The bell will mark my departure from that gas station, and her life. I’ll wonder if she’ll ever think about me, likely not, but likely I’ll forget her as well. But neither one of us will immediately cease to exist or have existed when that door closes.
She cannot consider a possibility of our future, and most of us condemn her. She’s a gas station register girl, what went wrong in her life? Maybe she had to take care of her father who had cancer, and that stole time from her schooling, and upon his eventual death the girl was forced to take up the reins of responsibility far too early, so now she’s balancing raising her siblings and his insurmountable medical bills.
Maybe not, maybe she’s a meth addict. But even that should not be condemning. Perhaps she fell in love with the wrong guy, and who can blame her for that, and he told her
“Just give it a try.”
He left her, but it didn’t, so now she’s trying to kick her habit and save enough to go back to school.
Judgement is not bad or avoidable, but it should never be condemning.
We often confuse ourselves by thinking that we are unique. Our entire lives have been experienced through ourselves. So, it is natural for you to think that you are the center, because everything has always been focused on you. The chair is under you, the sky is above you, there are people around you. This is the natural way we think, but we are always presented with the choice to think differently.
We have these natural tendencies to think that this world revolves around us, and that we know certain things about people. We don’t, but we have the ability to learn. We have the choice to not close off people, and instead excite something out of them. People want to talk about things they care about, and all they need is an interested audience. So be that interested audience. You are an exciting and inspirational individual, and so is everyone around you.
There is always more to the story. It is easy to write people off based on spot judgements, or a couple of damning characteristics. We are all products of our upbringings and experiences. That seems like a banal expression, but think about that for a second. Even the people that you will never see again, or that kid who bullied you in high school, or the people on death row, are products of their upbringing and experiences.
It’s easy to point and say “You’re evil, and you did evil things, because you’re evil.”
Questions of morality and ethics are really just questions about choices. It is natural for people to act in ways that seem best. Be that for themselves, for those they care about, or for the world. So in most situations the intention is following one of those things.
We are not so different. We choose to think about ourselves as islands, remote and distant from other islands. We are not. We can continue to focus and condemn based on what separates us, or we can make the choice to consider that they are a different person that is responding to the same feelings, emotions, and thoughts that we all have, and find connection in that. All it takes is that moment of reflection to stop, and think about the way you think.
This is not an exercise in the pointlessness of these moment long connections, but rather a celebration of them. These are fireworks, short-lived, but incredible and beautiful. I did not take the path you travelled in life, and you did not take mine, so we have something to talk about, and learn from each other. Seize that opportunity.
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