I see this man on my way to work every single day.
He’s roughly 40 and always has a towel under his hat. In the fall and winter he wears a windbreaker, and he sets his backpack on the ground beside him or sometimes on the wooden post he stands next to at the edge of the street. I always wonder how he gets to where he’s going once I pass him. Like, does a car pick him up? A truck? A bus? And I guess now what I’m wondering is how he would react if he knew a 21-year-old girl was basically tracking his wardrobe and bag position every day—and then writing about it.
Tuesday, he wasn’t there, and my heart kind of swelled for him. Was he late or early to what I’m presuming is work? It dawned on me then that he is entirely real. He is peripheral, but essential, to my visual world. If he was missed by me, a passing being and maybe even one he doesn’t notice, then he is likely missed by a host of family, friends, and coworkers. And how bizarre is that? He has a destination, and a life that revolves around his experiences.
It’s the same feeling you get when you’re driving by people on a busy highway—side characters, one might say—and realize that they could be going anywhere; a party, the emergency room, a museum of medieval torture devices.
Think of even the philosophical concept of solipsism, where one can only prove that they are conscious and in existence. It’s conceited, relying entirely on negating the relative experiences of others, from things like their love for others to their pursuits for education to their joy. People were actively telling these philosophers, hey, I can’t wait to grow up and be a merchant or something—I don’t know, I didn’t grow up in 400 BC—and they responded with, I don’t even know if you’re real. Hello? And maybe that’s a super shallow view of it, but this is for fun, so chill.
What I’m pining to say, is that yes, I’m the main character, but only in my car. I am confined in that bubble, watching people zip by into their own plots, and I just have to trust that they’re going somewhere and not driving into some spiny abyss where the horizon dips off and side characters go to die. There’s no need to smother our egos, we are selfish for protection and the desire to be seen in such great detail that the loss of a skin cell, the flick of a chipped nail refuses to go unnoticed.
And why?
There’s so much sunshine in being considered, noticed—I’ve learned that the key is to feed that same acknowledgement to others. Reciprocation is half the game.
Live in your delusion, that’s okay, I’ll live in mine. Strive to remember, though, that life is more than your experiences just as much as it is more than mine or the girl hanging out of her car window soaking up that Euphoria moment. I think the internet makes that hard, with all its beeping and buzzing, but you’ll get it when you consider the desires—those that are so alive, literally pulsing—of each human you love.
How could you shut your adored sister’s interest in fashion and vigorous search for internships down as a mini-quest? You wouldn’t—I certainly wouldn’t—but I think the scenario stands to display the major lack of connection we’re having with one another despite all the opportunities we now have to do meet each other in the middle in every sense. The distance between our people and ourselves is being chiseled into a chasm by our own self-interest. This goes back to how much we owe one another—and you can check out more about that here:
We can’t be the main character in another person’s story, but our presence can be secure. You’re loved, remembered, and amplified as though you’re the most shining star, the glimmering gem of Polaris. Isn’t it sweeter when that love is interlaced in the normal? Saved for special moments where you embody that most dazzling image in their minds?
You’re even in the heart of a stranger, and this is how I know it:
My day is better when I see that man there—my unknowing friend—and know that he is okay. That he’s been fed and rested enough to look healthy by the pinkness in his cheeks and his straight posture. I love that his routine is so concrete, and I wonder what that says about him—he’s punctual, at least, but is he a hard worker? passionate? escaping something? There’s a sort of kindness that shines in his eyes as he stands at that post quietly, accompanied by nothing but that bag and his thrumming heart. I think that despite his ruggedness he is gentle, and I see it in the way he handles his phone. Just three fingers holding it slack and one other tapping at the silky screen.
It is so violently lonely to bask in even soft arrogance, that which damages no one else but you. It is so isolating to place the onus of every beat in the rich life you’ve led on yourself. And it’s a disservice to your gargantuan, innately social heart, which I love! Community has shaped you! Sit back and notice. Notice the bustling lives taking shape around you and dare to wonder about the softness and even mundane business they’ve experienced. Join and invite.
Feel the sweaty pool of I am, I am, I am, and wring yourself clean.
CHECKING IN: mood - jazzy listening to - swan upon leda by hozier reading - last few chapters of a court of silver flames by sarah j. maas writing - something more personal Take good care of each other, and feel free to comment your own check-in responses. I'd love to read them, sweetnesses. Until next time.
I love this! Since I was a little girl I always found myself trying to wonder, or imagining, how was the life of the person in the car next to us. And now as an adult I still find myself thinking that every person I pass by while driving has their own individual world. It’s fascinating to me wondering who they are and where are they going in life and sad in a sense because I will probably never read the story of their life…. Thank you for this. Now I know I’m not alone in this wondering game 🫶🏻
It's beautiful. I always trend to lose myself in the similar thoughts of each of us has a life, a part which we don't know first hand because we are our main character.
😍💗