raven_burning

You see a lot of cars on the road. Well, duh, you might say. But, not in jams. Not as denizens as the stretch of road for miles, like on motorways. Just driving past- a quick flash of headlights. A momentary distraction from the monotonous tone of the journey. But you get to wondering. Who is that guy,  or gal? What are they up to? Where are they going? Why? Do they hope like I do? Did they have a pet as a child? Did they grow up in Norway, looked after by a distant relative after their parents died in a suspect mountaineering accident? What's their story? I'll never know. They are gone.

The scariest thing is that I'm just a flash in the dark to them, just another pair of headlights. But everyone has a story. Everyone is an I.

That's actually a very hard thing for people to grasp. We are social animals, true, but those social circles are not limitless- there is a "sphere" of people we know, and it does have a scientifically definable limit. But we think of most people in terms of ourselves.

My dad- I love him so, he's always kind to me.

Oh, he's such a great friend, always makes me laugh, funny too, I get jealous sometimes.

I hate him, because he treats me like dirt.

But everyone does this. Everyone is conscious. You know that stream of conscious thought which is constantly in your head, observing, filing, judging. YOU. Everyone has it. They really do. Most people on earth don't even care if you exist- you matter, yes, within your sphere, at the core, but that is, relatively, small. We all live our lives as if the world rotates around us, or around someone. And that's good. It's what we're meant to do. But we should remember that everyone is conscious EXACTLY as we are. We are all special, (say it every day), but this specialness, we share.

Now, this is obvious, of course. But what does it mean?

It means: everybody has a story to tell. Those people you pass in the street, your own flashes in the dark, they all have a story to tell. They all have motives, means, methods, purposes, hopes, dreams, good and bad memories, prejudices, beliefs, feelings.

Take Dick, the caretaker at our school. He's overweight, grossly so. I don't know why. People do mock him for this. But he's a person, really he is, which means he had roughly 1825 days of life at home, with his parents, whatever they were like- perhaps he had a favourite swing- then, he started school. How far did he get? Did he have a sweetheart? Was he a geek, a jock, the class clown, to use those archaic terms? Even then, was the first signs of his later obesity showing? Did he get qualifications? Maybe he went to university- possible, but given his job, perhaps unlikely. He still thinks. He still wonders. Does he get upset when people whisper or does he just not care anymore? Does he have any family? Where are his parents now? Dead? A nursing home? Who knows.

Or even someone like Tom Rattigan. Now, I don't know this guy. By all accounts, he's an absolute dick, a man for whom the worst insults in the OED were reserved. I never said that having a story to tell made you a good person. But why? Is there a reason? Does he love? As a child, did he play by a duck pond, throwing bread to the fowls of the air and of the waters? His parents dislike him now, hearsay says. Was he a cute baby? Did he gurgle as all babies do? Of course. Was he a loveable child? Most probably. How was his infant school? Was there a horse he played on every day, excited to get the chance to go on this badly painted plastic rocker as it moved scant centimetres in the air? Does it matter? It certainly wouldn't make him a better person in my eyes. But, in some small way, I think it does. Stories are important.

Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone. Even the background noise, even the supply teacher of one day who comes in with ideals and leaves with a migraine and a wasted heart. And that is weird. It's weird to let our guard down and look around at people who we won;t ever care much about, because why would we? And the same goes from them to us.

Don't let this rambling little piece effect how you live your life. Or even, how you view the world. But when you're walking in the street, when you see a flash in the dark, when you get pushed in the dinner queue by some guy who runs past in a hurry, the bastard- open your sphere. Imagine. Conceive. Yearn to know. And then, by all means, get on with your own story, for it matters just as much and as little as everybody else's. But hopefully, you might learn something, while your guard is down, while you consider these tiny flashes of humanity in the dark.