The Studio

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers...
Ok, perhaps depended is too strong of a statement, but I have certainly believed in the kindness of strangers.

I have always believed that people are basically good. There may be circumstances when people are forced to stray from this in order to protect themselves, their loved ones, or for other reasons of self-preservation, but I believe that people want to be good. I don't think that there are many people who leave their houses each morning and say to themselves, my goal today is to make a dozen people miserable.

Don't think for a second that my views are naive or sheltered. While I have witnessed quite a bit of anger, rudeness, and various forms of malice, I never really thought that these sorts of reactions came unprovoked. In all cases, I thought that the reaction was wholly un-necessary and was a complete over-reaction, I considered the provocation (whether intentional or not) as the straw that broke the camel's back, the trigger that sent the offended party off the deep end.

All my beliefs were shaken on a recent afternoon taking the BART back home from a day working in San Francisco.

The story starts with a delayed train...
I arrive at the BART station at 4:55, hoping to catch the 5:05 train to Fremont. As I stand in line waiting for the train to arrive, I notice that the monitor is only showing trains for Dublin and Richmond -- two of each, in fact, and no indication of a Fremont train. I ask the guy (I typically would have used the word 'gentleman' here, but his response did not warrant such a designation) next to me if they thought the Fremont training was coming or if something happened to it, etc. The guy asked me if I had missed the train, but I was fairly certain that I hadn't since I had arrived on a good 10 minutes early, and informed the guy of this. I was completely taken aback when this guy scoffed (loudly and rudely) and sarcastically asked if this was the first time I had taken the train.

Really? Was that necessary? I asked for your opinion, not to be ridiculed. What if it WAS my first time taking the train?? I proceeded to just laugh off his remark and mumbled something about how I hadn't taken the BART very much because I work in the south bay. I just didn't really want to deal with this guy anymore. I suppose he felt a little bad for being such a jerk that he started to rant on about this is the very reason that he prefers to drive. Sorry, buddy, I'm just not listening anymore at this point.

The loud speaker soon announced that there was a stalled BART car somewhere north on the Richmond line, and that it was delaying some trains by up to 30 minutes. Folks trying to go to Fremont should take the next Dublin train and transfer further down south to the Fremont train. By this time, there were two loads of people waiting for the Fremont train, in addition to the people waiting for the Dublin train. So, as the next Dublin train pulled up, three loads of people pile into the cars -- we were packed in like sardines!!! I half expected to see those people in Japan whose job is to push people onto the subway cars.

So, there we are, packed in like sardines, bumping into each other each time the train starts and stops. I take a quick survey of of all the folks around me. There are two teenage girls behind me, who are less than class acts and who are literally leaning on me. They're loud, taking up the most room of anyone on board, and their behavior is rather inappropriate on a crowded train, but mostly they're just shouting and horsing around with each other. There is a man standing in front of me, leaned against the wall, well dressed, reading a novel. There is another gentleman to my left, who appears to be roughly my age, probably a student, judging by his bookbag and clothing.

We're standing there, standing there, trying our hardest to not bump each other, wishing the train would move faster. In situations like this, I just try to stare out the window, and when we're underground or in a tunnel, I just look at various things on the train, including the other people. People watching is a favorite past-time, but I'm careful to not look at any one person too long. I've also perfected the art of looking at a point about 3 feet above someone's head so that you're not looking directly at them. Anyways, I'm just gazing about because it's too crowded to do any of the reading that I brought with me, when there's a small jolt. At this point, I happened to look straight forward, in the direction of the man standing in front of me. He too looks in my direction and our eyes meet. Having made eye contact, I did what I deemed to be the polite thing and acknowledged the man with a slight smile.

This next part is the really good part. You're NEVER going to guess what this man says to me. NEVER!

The man says:
You have an eye problem(.)(?)

The two different punctuations above are because I couldn't tell if he was making a statement or asking a question, but in either case it was RUDE!!! It was more than rude, but even now, when I think of this incident, I get so flustered I can hardly think of words to accurately describe this man's behavior

I, of course, was rendered completely speechless. I spent the rest of the evening trying to understand what this man gained from treating a complete stranger in such an atrocious way. I could not for the life of me understand what this man stood to gain by behaving this way, and what he would lose by being polite, or even indifferent. Has our society decayed so much that rudeness to strangers is widely accepted? Is this type of behavior a perk of freedom of speech? I'm not suggesting that there should be legislation on social decorum, but what values do we share as a society? Was this man just a misfit, or does he represent average Joe? Where does a person learn that it's ok to be so awful?

I couldn't help but think about what must have happened in this man's life that would have caused him to behave in this manner. Regardless of what scenario I came up with, I ultimately decided that there was not a single good reason in the world to justify someone saying that to another person. The irony of it all is that he had to have been looking at me to notice that I was looking at him.

Although my beliefs were shaken a little that night, I've managed to reclaim my faith in the goodness of people. Will my experience on the train stop me from looking at people's faces? Heck no! I have lots of good reasons to look at the faces of people around me and on the street, one of them being my own safety. People who walk around this world staring at their feet or the pavement increase their risk of being victims of crimes. So heads up everyone, check out your surroundings, and look at that man walking towards you in the face.

Of course, that's not really why I looked at the man on the train, but I am not going to offer up any excuses for looking at this man, while he should be ashamed of his behavior

She calls out to the man on the street
"Sir, can you help me?
It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep,
Is there somewhere you can tell me?"

He walks on, doesn't look back
He pretends he can't hear her
Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there

Oh think twice, it's another day for
You and me in paradise
Oh think twice, it's just another day for you,
You and me in paradise

She calls out to the man on the street
He can see she's been crying
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet
Can't walk but she's trying

Oh think twice...

Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do
Oh lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell from the lines on her face
You can see that she's been there
Probably been moved on from every place
'Cos she didn't fit in there

Oh think twice...