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Aug. 7th, 2007
On the way home
Aug. 7th, 2007 09:49 pmSometimes you just want to be able to walk down the street without having to hear or see anyone. That is, of course, unreasonable. But once you've lived or worked near downtown for a while, you realize that you also can't expect people to leave you alone. There's always somebody there with a clipboard or a cardboard sign, or someone in a car expecting people who haven't driven in several years to be able to provide accurate driving directions and teach them how to work parking meters.
Tonight was no exception.
ACT I
CAST:
Bum, walking East
Christopher, walking West
Bum: Can you spare some change for a bus to Harborview?
Christopher: (realizes that the bum is walking away from Harborview and toward Broadway) No, but it's like, six blocks that way.
Bum: Yeah, but, uh, I'm getting to the point where, I like, can barely walk any more.
Christopher: Ah. Yeah. (continues walking West)
DISCLAIMER
I don't need a PC lecture about calling someone a bum. After a while you can smell a lie like a fart in an elevator.
(time passes)
ACT II
CAST:
Three people getting into an expensive car parked at a BMW dealership
Christopher, walking West
Person 1: It's so hard driving over the viaduct every day now.
Person 2: I know. I have to walk under it all the time.
Person 3: (Said nothing, but should have told them how annoying they are)
Christopher: (Said nothing, but should have told them how annoying they are)
I didn't even need to hear details. I knew they were talking about the bridge collapse in Minnesota. Yes, it's terrible. I will never say a loss of life or a collapse of infrastructure isn't. But how small of a chance that something will happen to someone is too small for them to want to jump all over it? The people who were lost in that collapse represent a tiny fraction of people who drove over that bridge each day. 30 out of several tens or hundreds of thousands? It's not that much more dangerous than getting in a car in the first place!
But it's the American way. If you see a tragedy, you have to identify with it. If you don't, you're a monster. We live in a culture of fear. It's so much more fun for us to worry about how we can get hurt than to be thankful about all the ways we don't every day. The viaduct they referred to above is an accident waiting to happen, but even when it does, the ratio of danger to usefulness won't be very large. But people identify more with tragedy than they do with a normal routine. It's the only way they can think of that they'll ever stand out. Why be a firefighter when you can be burned alive? Why teach when you can survive a school shooting? Why live your life when you can be afraid of death?
Why, indeed.
Tonight was no exception.
ACT I
CAST:
Bum, walking East
Christopher, walking West
Bum: Can you spare some change for a bus to Harborview?
Christopher: (realizes that the bum is walking away from Harborview and toward Broadway) No, but it's like, six blocks that way.
Bum: Yeah, but, uh, I'm getting to the point where, I like, can barely walk any more.
Christopher: Ah. Yeah. (continues walking West)
DISCLAIMER
I don't need a PC lecture about calling someone a bum. After a while you can smell a lie like a fart in an elevator.
(time passes)
ACT II
CAST:
Three people getting into an expensive car parked at a BMW dealership
Christopher, walking West
Person 1: It's so hard driving over the viaduct every day now.
Person 2: I know. I have to walk under it all the time.
Person 3: (Said nothing, but should have told them how annoying they are)
Christopher: (Said nothing, but should have told them how annoying they are)
I didn't even need to hear details. I knew they were talking about the bridge collapse in Minnesota. Yes, it's terrible. I will never say a loss of life or a collapse of infrastructure isn't. But how small of a chance that something will happen to someone is too small for them to want to jump all over it? The people who were lost in that collapse represent a tiny fraction of people who drove over that bridge each day. 30 out of several tens or hundreds of thousands? It's not that much more dangerous than getting in a car in the first place!
But it's the American way. If you see a tragedy, you have to identify with it. If you don't, you're a monster. We live in a culture of fear. It's so much more fun for us to worry about how we can get hurt than to be thankful about all the ways we don't every day. The viaduct they referred to above is an accident waiting to happen, but even when it does, the ratio of danger to usefulness won't be very large. But people identify more with tragedy than they do with a normal routine. It's the only way they can think of that they'll ever stand out. Why be a firefighter when you can be burned alive? Why teach when you can survive a school shooting? Why live your life when you can be afraid of death?
Why, indeed.