Inspirator #1
I recently heard the story of an actor from a small town in the country who moved to the capital in order to promote his career. At first, he tells, everything in the city was so new to him, that, whenever he entered a subway car, he used to say hello to the people there, just like in small towns, where everybody knows everybody.
Now ain’t that cute?, I said to myself. The actor has now become quite successful and, for sure, more “civilized”, but I think that the fact that he still tells this story proves that it belongs to a part of him that does not make him feel embarrassed.
Inspired by his example, I started to do something similar from time to time. When entering a crowded room, or any mean of public transportation, I got into the habit of mentally say hello to all those unknown fellow humans with whom I was going to share the upcoming minutes of my life. In those moments, an invisible stream of sympathy flows from me towards them. They’ll never know it consciously, but you bet they notice it.
Inspirator #2
Although artistically modest, I appreciated “Slumdog millionaire” as a honest attempt to portrait a pretty horrifying situation (being poor in India is being really really poor, man) through an entertainment product suitable for the masses.
There is a moment in the film when one of the characters bids farewell saying “may you have a good life”, and I liked the poetry in the sentence, so I added it to my practice, although using it in a very different context (the guy in the film knows he is about to be murdered, I celebrate the vertigo of so many unrepeated faces in a city, so many people who you will never see again). Before leaving any crowded context, I changed my plain goodbye by a mental “may you have a good life”.
What for?
Attitude conditions everything. The most worthwhile effect of this exercise is upon oneself. In many public places, there seems to be some kind of “default”, untold, aggressive feeling in the air. By reinforcing one’s own good feelings, one “gets clean” of any latent violence and overcomes any (idiotic, primitive) sensation of threat.
But not just that. Your fellow human beings are going to notice the difference too. By being mentally nice, your body language will change. Your breathing will become naturally slower, making the pace of your movements slower too, with smoother transitions. And who better than another human being to interpret those changes? It is a mistake to see a human being as a “central unit” with four or five “external devices” (eye, mouth, voice) to express emotions. Bodies work as a whole. Not to mention more subtle issues like the electrical potential of the skin and the like…
You don’t have to “love” them or anything like that. Just mentally say hello and goodbye. Find your formula of choice and actively accept the existence of the others. Not as an object you have to dodge. Not as an enemy in a struggle for resources. Actively accept that you belong to the same “human tissue”. It will set a completely new tune for situations. We are social animals, so be social, just in the same way as a muscular cell would not despise, nor even notice other muscular cells around her, in the moments when they are not interacting. Actively knowing that “the others” are there, is enough for the moment; the others are all that there is.
Other species have already found out that working as a team (flock, shoal) increases the possibilities of survival of each of the individuals. We still seem to be on our way, and it is good to make a conscious effort to remind it, from time to time. It is certainly not an exercise for every day of the year, it requires a previous positive state of mind that you cannot force, but, whenever it comes, it is healthy to exploit it as much as possible. Good luck!
Any small town stories here? Why are cities so charmless? What do you do to reduce your paranoia?
Related posts:
How to become optimistic with very little effort
The magic of journaling
Life right after removing the wrapper
GTD for writers
Admiration is healthy (and powerful, too…)