The funny thing about living life is that in the end, it's what kills you.
We get up at 7 am because our job is what provides us with the means to survive. We commute to work, taking the fastest route possible, cussing out the dumb blonde in her daddy's BMW because if we're late, that job we desperately cling to is gone. While at work we keep our heads down, tirelessly and methodically doing our various tasks until well after the workday has ended.
Coffee break? There's no time for interaction, that report needed to be done yesterday!
Then, when it's all said and done, we go home, much too tired to talk to anyone.
It's no secret that the American culture is one of unbridled individualism, but I never really noticed how ingrained it was until I decided trying to get out of my own world and into other people's.
You see, the problem is that people are like cars. Cars without brakes--going downhill--at 70 MPH--with their engines on fire. It takes every bit of concentration we have to keep our cars on the road, to see through the smoke blazing out from under our hood. The further we make it, the faster we go, and the more desperate our situation becomes. The last thing we need is someone in the passenger's seat asking us how our day went.
It's this kind of attitude I encountered on day 2.
For lunch I went to a small cafe near my house. I ordered their special "green eggs and ham" breakfast wrap, presumably in a sub-conscious effort to counteract yesterday's debacle of eating lunch for breakfast. The man behind the counter looked even more impatient than the gentleman at Breuggers from the day before. He asked me how I was doing, but two words into his own greeting he was already turned around looking towards the back for a co-worker that seemed to have gone AWOL. I'm no detective, but something told me he didn't actually care much about how my day was going. I can't blame him though. As I said before, life is hard! We don't have time for such pleasantry while at work.
As I walked outside to sit in the sun and enjoy my Dr. Seuss inspired concoction, I noticed that everyone around me was terribly isolated. There were probably 10 people on the patio eating lunch, all huddled at their own tiny tables. All of them were alone, one hand on their food and the other on their mouse, clicking away at their laptops.
While I sat in the sun quietly eating my lunch, I debated whether I was going to bother any of these people. They all just seemed so incredibly busy. Their faces were filled with such concentration, I wouldn't be surprised to learn they were actually disarming bombs strapped to all the restaurant's chairs. After inhaling my delicious green burrito, I sat there for a few minutes in a heap of social anxiety. A mental tennis match took place inside my head. Was I going to speak to any of these people or not? Here was a perfect opportunity to start a conversation with someone, yet everyone around me looked as though they were 10 miles deep, submerged in their own reality. I simply didn't have the heart to yank them out of it.
I stood up, threw my trash away, and silently headed back to my office.
Such is the way of the real world.
Several hours later, it was time to go home. The day was shaping up such that once again the bus ride would be my savior. Sure enough, when I reached the bench to wait for my ride, a young man sat down next to me. As with every stranger I had seen so far today, he was staring intently at an electronic device. Already discouraged by my failure at lunch, I quickly resigned to the fact that I wouldn't be speaking to this individual, either.
But then, as if the universe wasn't about to let me give up, my bus came featuring flashing orange letters on the front marquee: "Bus Full." The driver flew by my stop without even so much as a tap of the brakes. I'd be waiting for at least another 20 minutes. That was plenty of time to find a way to pull this kid out of his technological love affair.
After a few seconds of mental preparation, I blurted out the world's most obvious question: "Is that an Iphone?"
Brilliant.
The young man looked up as if he didn't know someone was sitting next to him and answered kindly that it was. I told him my phone was a piece of crap and that I desperately wanted one as well. He said they were nice, but unfortunately didn't support flash. As we talked more, I could tell he really didn't mind having this conversation, and was maybe even enjoying it a little bit. We got on the topic of Assassin's Creed, and he informed me he would be buying the game even though he doesn't own an XBOX. A bold move, indeed.
We chitchatted a bit more. He was a freshman, headed to an adviser meeting across campus. I got the feeling he wasn't all too excited about it which might explain why he looked so down when I first saw him. Eventually his bus came, and he hopped up quickly, uttered a short goodbye and was on his way.
I'm going to be completely honest. A simple act such as speaking to a stranger is deceptively challenging. It's not easy to talk to
someone when they are in their own world. I can't help but feel like I'm bothering
them. In fact, I probably am. Try it sometime. Look around you and see
if the people nearby look like they want anything to do with you.
Everyone has their own problems. This kid really didn't want to go to his adviser meeting. The man behind the counter at the cafe probably really didn't want to be working, a fact made no less relevant by his slacking co-worker. The people eating lunch outside were probably feeling a bit guilty for taking time to enjoy the nice weather, so they brought their computers to get a little extra work done.
Such is the way of the real world.
I hope I brightened that young man's day just a little bit. He certainly smiled a couple times during the conversation, so it's not completely out of the question. Maybe he enjoyed having someone in his passenger seat for a few moments.
I leaned back as I sat in the shade, spread open my arms and rested them on the back of the bench. A slight breeze cooled me off, and I watched as endless amounts of busy people drove their cars up and down the hill. I couldn't help but imagine a little smoke coming from their engines.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Day 1: It's All in the Cards
I'm not a betting man.
I once tried my luck at blackjack while vacationing in the Bahamas and lost 40 dollars on the first hand. For some reason after that I never really found the process to be very alluring. Go figure.
However, had I been forced to bet on how the first day of this little experiment would go, I would certainly not have placed my money on what wound up happening.
I started off my day planning to get the first conversation out of the way as soon as possible. After lifting, I went to Breugger's Bagels for some breakfast. It was here I figured I'd have my first opportunity, either with someone else in line or one of the sandwich makers. Standing in line, I found myself thinking more about what I was going to say rather than what I was going to eat. This led to an awkward moment when the impatient man behind the counter with a voice that projected surprisingly well asked in a monotone manner, "HEY WHAT CAN I GET YOU?"
I simply stood there for a moment and panicked, scanning the entire menu in one sweep. A thousand words flashed in front of my eyes at once. Instead of getting a normal breakfast sandwich or a bagel, I somehow defaulted to a chipotle turkey club. I don't think I'd ever even tasted chipotle in my life before this morning, and here I was ordering it at 8 am like some kind of barbarian with no regard for the rules of breakfast.
"WHAT KIND OF BREAD WOULD YOU LIKE IT ON?" asked the worker.
"Hmm..just normal..white..bread.." I stuttered, still pondering why the hell I was ordering a southwest styled turkey sandwich instead of going for a muffin like every other normal person on earth. The worker just stared at me for a moment, and grabbed the wheat bread. Apparently I ordered it wrong. It was at this point I decided I'd parlay my first conversation until the bus stop.
The sandwich was pretty good, though.
So far, my cards weren't looking all too well. I'd gotten a 2-7 offsuit and a terrible flop at Breuger's Bagels. I needed a good 'turn.'
It was at this point I figured I'd end up having a conversation with one of the Indian foreign exchange students in my apartment complex. Every morning I stand at the bus stop surrounded by Indians, like a white dot on a brown page. They always seem friendly enough to each other, so I assumed this would be pretty easy. I'd talk about how long the bus was taking, ask a few questions, and be done for the day!
Sure enough, as I was walking out to the bus stop, a young Indian man came running out of his apartment. As we were both crossing the street, I looked at him, preparing to ask him what his thoughts were on eating lunch food for breakfast, when I saw the 'turn.' He was wearing headphones.
Ouch.
I walked onto the bus, a bit disappointed that my brilliant bus-stop plan had failed so miserably. At this point, a poker player would fold his hand. He'd see he simply didn't have the cards to win, and would jump in on the next pot. I was certainly prepared to do that. Maybe try again with someone after work, when people are awake, not making sandwiches or listening to music.
But then I sat down on the bus and saw my card.
Correction, my cards fan.
Like a gift from above, somehow, for the first time since coming to North Carolina, a Cardinals fan was on my bus. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There, right across from me, a young man donning a shirt with those beautiful birds on the bats. Without hesitation I asked him if he was from St. Louis. He looked up, surprised that someone was speaking before 9 am, and probably guessed by my stupid overly-delighted smile that St. Louis was dear to me. "Sure am! I take it you're a cardinals fan?" he said.
"Of course!" I said "Are you excited for the season?"
"Yeah, but I'm going to a red hot chili peppers concert on opening day, so I'll have to tape it."
We chit-chatted about the upcoming season. How things look without Carpenter and Pujols. How we will probably win the division anyways, and how exciting it was to win the world series last year.
The conversation soon got silent, and I figured that was all I was going to get out of him. Then, to my surprise he asked "What brings you to Raleigh?"
I told him I was studying atmospheric science, and he told me he was getting his Phd in industrial engineering. Then he told me about how his really good friend was studying meteorology, and just got back from a year in Alaska.
It was at this moment that the bus had gotten to my stop. Caught up in my own excitement and full of incredulity at the fact that on the first day of my plan to talk to a new person for a month that I found a Cardinals fan with a best friend in meteorology, I uttered some kind of mix between "cyah around," "go cardinals, "and "good luck in IE school."
I think it came out something like "cyah Care-dinals yeah!"
So there you have it. On day one, I run into a Cardinals fan from St. Louis, with a close connection to meteorology.
At first I thought this was a one in a million type of situation. How many times could something like this happen?
But then I realized that this was also the first time that I'd even tried speaking to someone on the bus. Every other day I've simply sat there silently, like a poker player that folds his hand before the final card is shown. The one time I stayed in the game, and took a risk, I got a great result.
The next time you're around a group of people, don't fold your hand! Make that bet! Speak up and say "hello."
I'm guessing the cards will end up in your favor.
I once tried my luck at blackjack while vacationing in the Bahamas and lost 40 dollars on the first hand. For some reason after that I never really found the process to be very alluring. Go figure.
However, had I been forced to bet on how the first day of this little experiment would go, I would certainly not have placed my money on what wound up happening.
I started off my day planning to get the first conversation out of the way as soon as possible. After lifting, I went to Breugger's Bagels for some breakfast. It was here I figured I'd have my first opportunity, either with someone else in line or one of the sandwich makers. Standing in line, I found myself thinking more about what I was going to say rather than what I was going to eat. This led to an awkward moment when the impatient man behind the counter with a voice that projected surprisingly well asked in a monotone manner, "HEY WHAT CAN I GET YOU?"
I simply stood there for a moment and panicked, scanning the entire menu in one sweep. A thousand words flashed in front of my eyes at once. Instead of getting a normal breakfast sandwich or a bagel, I somehow defaulted to a chipotle turkey club. I don't think I'd ever even tasted chipotle in my life before this morning, and here I was ordering it at 8 am like some kind of barbarian with no regard for the rules of breakfast.
"WHAT KIND OF BREAD WOULD YOU LIKE IT ON?" asked the worker.
"Hmm..just normal..white..bread.." I stuttered, still pondering why the hell I was ordering a southwest styled turkey sandwich instead of going for a muffin like every other normal person on earth. The worker just stared at me for a moment, and grabbed the wheat bread. Apparently I ordered it wrong. It was at this point I decided I'd parlay my first conversation until the bus stop.
The sandwich was pretty good, though.
So far, my cards weren't looking all too well. I'd gotten a 2-7 offsuit and a terrible flop at Breuger's Bagels. I needed a good 'turn.'
It was at this point I figured I'd end up having a conversation with one of the Indian foreign exchange students in my apartment complex. Every morning I stand at the bus stop surrounded by Indians, like a white dot on a brown page. They always seem friendly enough to each other, so I assumed this would be pretty easy. I'd talk about how long the bus was taking, ask a few questions, and be done for the day!
Sure enough, as I was walking out to the bus stop, a young Indian man came running out of his apartment. As we were both crossing the street, I looked at him, preparing to ask him what his thoughts were on eating lunch food for breakfast, when I saw the 'turn.' He was wearing headphones.
Ouch.
I walked onto the bus, a bit disappointed that my brilliant bus-stop plan had failed so miserably. At this point, a poker player would fold his hand. He'd see he simply didn't have the cards to win, and would jump in on the next pot. I was certainly prepared to do that. Maybe try again with someone after work, when people are awake, not making sandwiches or listening to music.
But then I sat down on the bus and saw my card.
Correction, my cards fan.
Like a gift from above, somehow, for the first time since coming to North Carolina, a Cardinals fan was on my bus. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There, right across from me, a young man donning a shirt with those beautiful birds on the bats. Without hesitation I asked him if he was from St. Louis. He looked up, surprised that someone was speaking before 9 am, and probably guessed by my stupid overly-delighted smile that St. Louis was dear to me. "Sure am! I take it you're a cardinals fan?" he said.
"Of course!" I said "Are you excited for the season?"
"Yeah, but I'm going to a red hot chili peppers concert on opening day, so I'll have to tape it."
We chit-chatted about the upcoming season. How things look without Carpenter and Pujols. How we will probably win the division anyways, and how exciting it was to win the world series last year.
The conversation soon got silent, and I figured that was all I was going to get out of him. Then, to my surprise he asked "What brings you to Raleigh?"
I told him I was studying atmospheric science, and he told me he was getting his Phd in industrial engineering. Then he told me about how his really good friend was studying meteorology, and just got back from a year in Alaska.
It was at this moment that the bus had gotten to my stop. Caught up in my own excitement and full of incredulity at the fact that on the first day of my plan to talk to a new person for a month that I found a Cardinals fan with a best friend in meteorology, I uttered some kind of mix between "cyah around," "go cardinals, "and "good luck in IE school."
I think it came out something like "cyah Care-dinals yeah!"
So there you have it. On day one, I run into a Cardinals fan from St. Louis, with a close connection to meteorology.
At first I thought this was a one in a million type of situation. How many times could something like this happen?
But then I realized that this was also the first time that I'd even tried speaking to someone on the bus. Every other day I've simply sat there silently, like a poker player that folds his hand before the final card is shown. The one time I stayed in the game, and took a risk, I got a great result.
The next time you're around a group of people, don't fold your hand! Make that bet! Speak up and say "hello."
I'm guessing the cards will end up in your favor.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Day 0: Untapped Potential
6,840,507,003.
That was the Earth's population in back 2010. (According to World Bank. Leave it to the banks to know exactly how many people they can take money from.)
7.
That is the number of people I spoke to today. (Not including email, and facebook.) Four of those people I am virtually required to speak to as they are in my research group. That leaves my roommate, a classmate, and the terse Japanese lady that I buy chicken teriyaki from every Tuesday as the sources of my outside-world interaction.
Graduate school, and probably any aspect of "grown-up life" for that matter, leaves little time or energy for recreational socialization. The grind of the laborious workday starts early and ends late, lingering in our minds well after we have stumbled home to our quiet and empty households. Some Wheel of Fortune, a bit of primetime television (complete with laugh tracks to tell your burnt-out brain when to think something is funny), and one final check of the email (because maybe your boss just remembered he wants you to do something right away!) and it's off to bed. The monotony of such a life is what I believe drives us to find great pleasure is escapism. Take TV shows like Terra Nova and Lost or movies like Avatar and Inception. These larger than life stories are what take us out of the doldrums of our own lives and into the world where exciting things actually happen. Imagine that! A life that isn't the same thing over and over and over...
It's this same type of lifestyle that makes bars so appealing (we are leaving sex out of this right now) on the weekend. The alcohol helps shrug off the social ineptitude that has accumulated through 5 days of solitary confinement, and the congregation of people in one building makes us hopeful we'll find at least someone that's interesting.
I've never been a big fan of this sort repetitious "living." And yet I just realized recently that I've fallen victim to it. You wouldn't expect to learn an important life-lesson from a Will Ferrel movie, but I did just that when watching "Stepbrothers" the other day. Towards the end of the film, we see the two once unemployed grown-up-man-children, Brennan and Dale, suddenly suited up, straight laced, and working at their equally depressing jobs. At the sight of his two soulless sons, the father takes them both aside and tells an extremely strange but insightful story. To make a short story (46 seconds) even shorter, Dale and Brennan's father tells them that his father made him stop acting like a raptor, and while he planned on being a dinosaur again one day, he woke up and eventually realized he'd forgotten how.
(You can see the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8gY0IT0CuA)
Put simply, the father is telling them that while being grown up and responsible is good, if you aren't careful, you'll wipe out your inner-youth.
So that's where this idea sprang from: I'm not going to lose my raptor.
Forget the stories on TV, there are currently close to 7 billion people on Earth waiting to share theirs. Forget the weekends, there are 5 other perfectly good days of the week to hear these stories.
This blog will highlight my attempt to meet a new person every day for the next 30 days.
I will share with you the entire situation, where I was, what I was thinking, what we talked about, and any thoughts afterwards. Obviously not every day will feature a thrilling conversation. Perhaps nobody will want to talk to me, so I'll only be able to tell you about the grocery store clerk that I was able to glean at least one bit of information from.
With that in mind, I've made some basic guidelines that I'd like to follow while doing this challenge:
After all, there are 6,840,507,003 stories out there. I'd say I should be able to find at least one.
That was the Earth's population in back 2010. (According to World Bank. Leave it to the banks to know exactly how many people they can take money from.)
7.
That is the number of people I spoke to today. (Not including email, and facebook.) Four of those people I am virtually required to speak to as they are in my research group. That leaves my roommate, a classmate, and the terse Japanese lady that I buy chicken teriyaki from every Tuesday as the sources of my outside-world interaction.
Graduate school, and probably any aspect of "grown-up life" for that matter, leaves little time or energy for recreational socialization. The grind of the laborious workday starts early and ends late, lingering in our minds well after we have stumbled home to our quiet and empty households. Some Wheel of Fortune, a bit of primetime television (complete with laugh tracks to tell your burnt-out brain when to think something is funny), and one final check of the email (because maybe your boss just remembered he wants you to do something right away!) and it's off to bed. The monotony of such a life is what I believe drives us to find great pleasure is escapism. Take TV shows like Terra Nova and Lost or movies like Avatar and Inception. These larger than life stories are what take us out of the doldrums of our own lives and into the world where exciting things actually happen. Imagine that! A life that isn't the same thing over and over and over...
It's this same type of lifestyle that makes bars so appealing (we are leaving sex out of this right now) on the weekend. The alcohol helps shrug off the social ineptitude that has accumulated through 5 days of solitary confinement, and the congregation of people in one building makes us hopeful we'll find at least someone that's interesting.
I've never been a big fan of this sort repetitious "living." And yet I just realized recently that I've fallen victim to it. You wouldn't expect to learn an important life-lesson from a Will Ferrel movie, but I did just that when watching "Stepbrothers" the other day. Towards the end of the film, we see the two once unemployed grown-up-man-children, Brennan and Dale, suddenly suited up, straight laced, and working at their equally depressing jobs. At the sight of his two soulless sons, the father takes them both aside and tells an extremely strange but insightful story. To make a short story (46 seconds) even shorter, Dale and Brennan's father tells them that his father made him stop acting like a raptor, and while he planned on being a dinosaur again one day, he woke up and eventually realized he'd forgotten how.
(You can see the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8gY0IT0CuA)
Put simply, the father is telling them that while being grown up and responsible is good, if you aren't careful, you'll wipe out your inner-youth.
So that's where this idea sprang from: I'm not going to lose my raptor.
Forget the stories on TV, there are currently close to 7 billion people on Earth waiting to share theirs. Forget the weekends, there are 5 other perfectly good days of the week to hear these stories.
This blog will highlight my attempt to meet a new person every day for the next 30 days.
I will share with you the entire situation, where I was, what I was thinking, what we talked about, and any thoughts afterwards. Obviously not every day will feature a thrilling conversation. Perhaps nobody will want to talk to me, so I'll only be able to tell you about the grocery store clerk that I was able to glean at least one bit of information from.
With that in mind, I've made some basic guidelines that I'd like to follow while doing this challenge:
- I cannot tell anyone that I am speaking to that I'm only speaking to them because I want to fulfill my blog-promise.
- I have to speak to all types of people, not just attractive women. (Although we all know I wouldn't have the guts to do that anyways.) This includes people of all races, sexes, shapes, sizes, whatever.
- How I decide whether or not to talk to the person will be based on a few signs, including but not limited to: initial eye contact, we are both waiting for something, sitting on the bus, standing in the elevator, the person is doing something I find interesting.
- Every day I must speak to at least one person, and ask something about them. If I haven't asked them a personal question, the encounter is not counted as a conversation. I am looking for stories here, and the best way to start one is by setting the scene. For that reason, personal questions are both good background for when I blog, but also an invitation for them to tell me more.
- No feeling stupid or embarrassed for talking to people. I'm pretty sure at one point I didn't have this strange phenomena, but over the years I've become scared of speaking to people. I think a large part of it is due to my ability to give terrible first impressions. Whatever the reason may be, I'm going to have to get over it for this experiment to work.
After all, there are 6,840,507,003 stories out there. I'd say I should be able to find at least one.
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