Not to keep harping on the same thing, but after that horrible bus ride yesterday it's hard not to keep thinking about how strange the human race seems to me. Sitting there on the bus looking around at all these people and listening to them is usually a rather mind-boggling experience. I rarely actually people watch because I have little idea what to think about them and sense in them so little of anything I can identify with that instead of being drawn toward watching and supposing about them, I am confused and repelled and thus retreat rather into my own mind.
There are the businessy people with their tailored suits, their phones in hand, their serious expressions, their mundane conversations with their coffee drinking colleagues. I can hardly comprehend being into business like that, wearing the stiff clothes, upholding the current economic system with earnest interest in sales, advertizing, bottom lines, etc. I look at them and wonder, what kind of person is interested in that life? What kind of person finds fullfillment in desks and files and promotions and I-know-not-what?
There are the bums with their tattered miss-matched dirty clothes and rickety cart. And I wonder what brought them to that place. And why, even if they can't afford things, don't they comb their hair with their fingers and try and arrange their clothes to the best advantage they can. I pity them, wish them well, but yet wonder how they could seem not to even try with whatever they have? I wonder, what do they do all day? What do they talk about? Are they simply crazy? Are they unloved? Is no one, not even themselves, able to picture the bright healthy version of them? What would they even want to do or be in life? I have no idea.
There are the highschoolers in their jeans and Ts and hoodies, swarming in packs, talking, laughing, shoving, flirting, eating junk food, planning to hang out. They all look so much the same. They sport various logos, which I don't recognize though I know they must mean something to them, but that seems to be nearly the extent of the variety. They all seem to be talking mostly about other people, or things they saw or did that are supposed to trump someone else's story. I wonder what on earth they think about and do. I can only suppose. It seems like they mostly just hang out with other people their age - whatever hanging out means. It seems to mean just sitting or standing around talking. About what? I have no idea. I guess that they talk about celebrities, sports, movies, music, their friends, their teachers, their families, games they play, their relational issues, their impressions of other people they don't really know. I suppose all in all that's not toooo different from my friends, we do talk about movies and people we know, sometimes anyways, thought it seems to me that the specifics of the various interests such as movies and games and music that I could talk about would be very different from most others. I certainly can't comprehend just spending all my time talking with other people. How boring! I wonder if they do have any other hobbies or tallents that they develope or find joy in.
There are the very common looking ladies in their sweater sets chatting with girlfriends or attending their baby or small child. They look kind and friendly overall, but again I wonder, what do they talk and think about? Their friends? Their family? Their diet? Their fitness center? Their dog or cat? Their plans for the holidays? Their hairdresser? Their interior decorating plans? Their relationships?
There are the Sporty looking guys in their brightly coloured spandex clothes, large waterbottles at hand, helmets, sunglasses, and bikes. I suppose they mostly like to be active, feel the wind in their face or something? Go places, feel the rhythm of their movement, the energy of action? I wonder what they think and talk about. Probably sports. Who knows what else. They seem utterly foreign to me.
There are the 'hard core' looking young people with their crazy coloured hair, piercings, tattoos, patched and torn black, camoflage, plaid, and neon striped clothes, heafty looking boots, and various insignias pinned and glued on all over their bags and jackets. Cigaretts in their hands, '4 letter words' spewing from their mouths. Most of them seem to have a bitter sort of attitude toward life and other people. They always seem to look rather dirty, and their skin and faces often look worn. Do they mostly just sit around with others smoking, drinking, complaining about the world, and possibly doing other drugs? Do they listen to loud screaming music which feeds their angry attitude? Do they talk about movies and music? Do they talk mostly about other people or experiences they've had? I really don't know.
I wouldn't have a clue how to approach or engage any of these people, though I suppose I have the most practice with the ordinary looking ladies. Whenever I am out about in public it is continually driven home to me how foreign it all seems, and how little interest I have in being part of whatever it is that most people experience life to be like or whatever it is they fill it with. I am always rather jarred when people actually try to talk to me, and I suppose considering how much I don't pay attention to the world around me and live in the worlds of my mind, you could say for a normal person it would be rather like a three headed man just dropping out of the sky in front of them and asking whether they think brown or grey gryphon eggs taste better. First it is startling, then you have to process the alien standing in front of you, then you have to try to answer something which you don't really have any experience with beyond a vague idea by way of association...well you don't eat gryphon eggs, but since brown chicken eggs don't taste any different from white ones you suppose it really doesn't matter with gryphons anyways....wait, they have eggs? ok whatever. The best answer seems to be a smile and nod under the circumstances. Then you wonder why it was even asking you in the first place.
Yes, that is pretty much what it's like. They are all aliens. :D (or I am)
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