Familiar faces

I see you almost every day – with your worn shoes and raggedy clothes, lines for a few peoples’ lifetimes etched across your face. Your mostly shuffling along, looking at nothing much, constantly mumbling. I find myself immediately asking: I wonder how you broke your life? I wonder what you did to get yourself to here? I assume I know what you’re doing that’s keeping you here – the very same reason I don’t even consider giving you money. 

And then, for a moment, I am given a peek at myself, and I am ashamed. I realise that I have decided so many things about you without ever having heard your voice in conversation – I have decided that you must have done something to be where you are; I have decided that you must be the one keeping yourself there. I realise I never ask other questions, questions like: Who are you talking to? How long have they been your companions? What happened to you? How do you cope?

Now, the many homeless on our streets might be an extreme example – I realise that their stories are never simple, and that you will always have those whose stories confirm every stereotypical thought we have. But that’s exactly the point – we live our lives unthinkingly, from the one stereotype to the next, without realising it’s trapping effect. Is that the same as saying that all stereotypes are bad? No, for we do need to be able to box all the information we receive every minute of every day in order for our minds to cope. What is the problem then? That we never really go back to those boxes to sort through what’s in them. We put things, events and people into categories, never again questioning why…unless we are forced to…  

We assume so many things. I would even go as far as to say that most of our life is one big assumption. Even worse? Those assumptions become the basis for not only our reactions, but also our actions. The result? We miss each other; we miss life’s fullness. We live hollow lives without ever noticing it. The interesting thing? You would think that someone like me, someone who knows what it feels like to be stereotyped and judged, would be better. But I am not. And so the cycle repeats itself, and we keep on living past each other, thinking we know everything when actually we know nothing.

What to do? A good mind box spring-clean would be a good start. Making it a regular thing even better. First prize? To start living more consciously – which is the polar opposite from living in our heads – making sure that we don’t just let life and the people around us go by, but that we truly experience each moment. That we stop assuming, that we start risking. Our lives will be the better for it. We might then even consider ourselves rich. We can then definitely know that our lives had worth.