City Of God 16

The city is what surrounds us. It is also what lives inside us, just as much as we are inside it. The city is the people around us, and we are the city to those who are near us. I was chatting with a friend on Skype the other day, who lives in Mexico City. He mentioned that when he is out on the street, he really tries to ignore the other people, not get in anyone's way, and just does whatever he needs to do, then returns to the safety of home. This I think is a very universal experience. We expend a lot of energy in blocking out the other. Tech makes it easier, and so you see a lot of people plugged into their listening devices or fiddling with their dear little phones. Anything to block out the people around us, I suppose. I won't do this. As annoying as I find everyone, I still want to know that we are together, if only physically in the same space because this way I am reminded that I am not alone (none of us is, really, one of the great lies of existential atheism and post-modernity is that we are alone). I also ,simultaneously, want to be alone. Yesterday when I was out walking I was faced with an unpleasant choice: either put up with two young women walking and talking interminably behind me as they were pushing a kid in a stroller, or cross onto the other side of the street where I would be facing oncoming traffic and blinding headlights, since a lot of drivers don't seem to know or care that they have their fog lights on in the middle of the day and that they are going to take out our retinas. I crossed the street, guarded my eyes as needed from oncoming headlights and once the chatty Cathies were no longer around, crossed back to the other side. I like audial privacy when I walk alone, as I am often processing things, and I have always had trouble filtering out other people's voices, especially from behind, but there is a reason for our hearing to be particularly sharp when it comes to noises from behind. This is how our ancestors survived not getting eaten by sabre-toothed cats or cave bears. They had to hear, and very clearly and well, the noises from behind to escape getting ambushed. We carry in our post-modern selves their DNA. Although we are all cheek by jowl in this lovely urban density, we still react and are impacted as though we were hunter-gatherers eking out our survival in the wilderness. There is actually quite a bit of lunacy to wandering around in the city with earbuds. You might have your favourite playlist to distract you from the boring everyday that surrounds you but it is going to be at a cost. You are not going to hear the sabre-toothed cats or the cave bears behind you. Neither cars that could put a sudden and decisive end to your sad, solitary existence, nor other pedestrians who want to walk around you. And if you are riding your bike in traffic with your phones on then you are being particularly stupid and as a prime candidate for natural selection you might be a little bit less deserving of our pity. Living downtown, as I do, I am surrounded by people, and by noise. There is the old derelict with the loud, chronic cough in the special-needs building right next door, and other little delightful sounds from some of his neighbours. there are the workers in the sushi restaurant downstairs yapping interminably on the pavement outside my window during their smoke break. There is also the occasional homeless unfortunate screaming from the alley while high on crack. There are also some of my own neighbours. The two smokers across the hall with their chronic coughing fits, and one of them still doesn't seem to know or care that it is no longer considered acceptable to fill the hall with his secondhand cigarette smoke. and there are the sirens: police, fire or ambulance, anytime, day and night, as well as the noise from construction nearby. Earplugs often help, or simply closing my window for a while. Other times, it is better to keep an ear open for trouble, in case someone needs help, like the woman screaming repeatedly from the special needs building next door. I phoned the staff there, not to complain about the noise, but out of heartfelt concern for her wellbeing. There is also my neighbour in the adjoining apartment who sometimes is shoving or wheeling different items into her unit, noisily. But when I see that it's her, or another tenant, I simply ask if I can help. Annoyance is part of the job of coexisting, as are the legitimate needs for peace quiet and privacy. But we also have to know and respond appropriately when we are being reminded that we are all in this together and that liking it or not, we are all part of one another in this strange and sorrowful boot camp that is training us for the City of God.