Sometimes people really do surprise you
A lot of the time I feel like the world has gone to hell, humanity is a hopeless case, and that we’re all doomed to play bystander as doomsday rolls around to drag us all into the doldrums - where everything is a riddle and no one knows the answer.
Perhaps life is merely a game, better yet a theatrical performance where everyone is an actor. There are a billion people all trying out for the same part and they’re all watching and waiting for you to fail - waiting because they know there’s no way you’ll succeed.
Some days you’re up on the stage and you go through the motions with ease, and other days you’re the only one who forgets your line. Then there are those rare occasions, the one’s that happen when you least expect them and it makes you step back from your jaded life to revaluate humanity for just that moment. You’re up on stage and you’re about to say your line and then the words escape you. Why? Not because you can’t remember, but because the other actor does something that genuinely surprises you.
The other day I was waiting in line in the subway to pay my fare and some guy I’ve never met before approaches me and asks if I was paying with cash. It was an odd question I think, seeing as I’d have just gone through if I had a token or metropass, even so I nodded. He smiled and said that he had a day pass and not to waste my money. (Now if you don’t know, a day pass allows two adults and up to four children to use the subway and buses for the day.)
I found myself in one of those moments where I forgot my line, I had no idea what to say because I was so shocked and before I knew it, he’d showed the man in the booth the pass and we were both waiting for the train. I thanked him - probably around seven times - he just laughed and said it was okay.
“When you have a day pass you might as well share right.”
That’s what he said, and he seemed so happy. I found myself nodding in agreement, though I was really stuck in my thoughts wondering if things like that really happened, if people could actually be kind. Up to now I still don’t understand why he was so happy doing something for someone else - these days you rarely see that.
I guess I really don’t have all that much faith in humanity, but then again people rarely give me a reason to. I guess I found it almost too unreal that a stranger would have me spending so much time speculating about people.
I’ve come to notice that things that make me truly happy are often a result of people I don’t know. Comments from people in random parts of the globe about my stories, a stranger doing something for me without expecting anything in return, and the expressions people make when I do something for them without expecting anything of them for it.
Funny how these things work out, isn’t it?