Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes 26

Yes, I know I make it sound so easy, this business of turning into loving and caring humans. I only wish. It will probably be one of the hardest, most challenging projects in your life. Especially given that we live in such a toxic selfish society that punishes altruism and rewards self-centred conduct. Everything seems geared towards selfishness and living as though no one else matters. Even when we are together with other strangers, almost everyone tries to behave as though no one else is there. I have heard this lamely referred to as respecting the space of others. Pretending that the person seated next to you on the bus does not exist has nothing at all to do with respect and everything to do with a kind of passive hatred of our own kind and our own species. And people do this to each other all the time. Seeing how many devote their attention to their little techno rigs for their dopamine hits (smart phones, baby, smart phones!) and otherwise appear to bend themselves into coat hangers in order to avoid eye contact with strangers, I am inclined to say that we are all in the midst of a massive, and passive, hate-in. There are, of course, valid reasons for not wanting to interact with strangers on the bus. No one wants to be hit on, or worse, by some creep seated next to them. This has happened to me on occasion, for example, this young man who kept thrusting his erection onto my shoulder while I was seated on the Skytrain. Finally, I looked up at him, gave him a sly little smile. I have never seen such a red face in my life. Busted, he didn't dare try it again. More recently, just a couple of years ago, a South Asian man would not stop pestering the Filipina woman seated next to him. When she yelled at him to stop bothering her, he persisted. I got up, intervened, and told him to lay off her this minute. The coward got off the bus at the next stop. Not a word of thanks from the lady, but such is life, eh? Even when we pretend otherwise, we are all in this together. This is the way we are programmed, genetically engineered: to interact with one another. No matter what we do to try to avoid this it is still going to happen, if we don't try to manage and steward this impulse to connect responsibly and carefully then it is going to erupt dangerously and badly like a banked fire, and it is likely going to take more than a few loud prophetic voices to get everyone's head out of their ass. I am one such voice, and my voice is nowhere near enough. Gentle Reader, do your part. Connect with the stranger next to you. It isn't that hard, and please, no lame excuses about being an introvert or whatever. Just do it, and please don't be a creep about it.