Doctor, doctor won't you please prescribe me something
A day in the life of someone else?
-- P!nk
I have a sociological understanding of people but
it is startling to me when I see a single person so in touch with one's
ego while being out of touch with everyone around her -- a common example
is a person talking on her mobile phone when ordering in a
Chipotle-type restaurant, as if the time of the people in line behind
her (and the efficiency of the workers) never crossed her
mind. Another is a person making obviously illegal maneuvers in a car
across lanes and around (or over) barricades with the expectation that
although he does not have the right-of-way, he expects everyone
else in traffic to yield the right-of-way to him (and, stupidly, on some
level assuming the road conditions in addition to everyone's brakes,
tires, other vehicle systems, and perception-reaction
times are sufficient to avoid collisions or worse). I suspect the last
time I could tap into that level of self-absorption was during my
Terrible Twos.
Certain experiences have made people-watching dull for me. I people-become. Sometimes I come up with a great impersonation and sometimes I have greatness thrust upon me. I have honed my Self-Effacing, Ice-Breaking, Peace-Making, Mind Reader act to near perfection and use it in most social situations. I do not think I can read minds, of course, but I can tell with high precision when someone just wants to talk about themselves and/or is looking for some empathy. I usually make an effort with weary checkout clerks and waitstaff and speak their name as I pay them some compliment (I am reminded of Dale Carnegie who wrote: “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language”). I always make an effort with anyone handling anything I am about to consume -- Paula Poundstone, remarking about customers when she waited tables at an IHOP: "When people would be rude to me, I would touch their eggs. They didn't know; I felt better; it worked out." (I hope this does not make any germophobes reading this avoid breakfasty establishments).
I have radically accepted society as it
was and as it is. I have seen the incredible breakthroughs and the
gut-wrenching genocides. The promising democracies and the promises of dictators to their nations (and the not insignificant numbers of people governed by one that
want to be governed by the other, grass being greener and all that). The
peace-makers and the war-mongers. The mutually-exclusive groups
that claim to have the Truth and the wise people who nod at them
politely then get back to the tasks of recording, archiving, and
revising the repositories of knowledge as new information becomes
available. Note I did not say I liked or approved of society, just that I have accepted it as is.
Everyone has the potential to improve society, the world, and beyond if we rely more on our brains and transcend primal instinct that has outlived its usefulness. So the next time
you refuse to spend the 20 seconds required to return your shopping cart
to the cart corral because your time is way more valuable than that of
other people, remember that we have abundant resources and so we do not
have to behave like cavepeople in life-or-death situations -- we have
evolved. What do you say, does it make sense to rationally act evolved as a member of society or to REact on impulse, out of control, like an animal?
