So what is it about the train that brings about the worst in humanity? I don’t mean like senseless murder or genocide or Apple laptops… I mean isolation. Isolation on a train.
The loudest conversation on the train I’m on at the moment is the graffiti. It’s telling me that, well, I probably won’t want to shake Zed’s hand. And there’s someone out there called “Proe”. But it’s telling me more than the five other real live people are telling me, and they’re sitting across from me on my train.
And it’s more than I’m telling them on this train.
We’d prefer isolation. We court it and we aggressively display it. Don’t believe me? Talk loudly into your phone and watch people around you. Why do we bring our own bubble to the train – our own headspace? Why would I rather type this into my laptop rather than discuss it with my… neighbour? Why don’t I want to call them my neighbour on a train?
Why the barrier on a train?
Bounce. Sway. The social origami of reading & folding a broadsheet newspaper. The quiet tchik-tchik-tchik-tchik of MP3 headphones in the ears of half the commuters. The cinema-in-the-seat laptops playing pirated copies of the latest Batman film. People writing new thoughts for blogs… Everything and everyone screams DON’T TOUCH ME! on a train.
How can I reach out to touch someone… if I’d resent someone doing the same to me on a train?
How can I see public transport as a legitimate mission-field… when I’d cringe at the thought of someone evangelizing me on a train?
We all get to hide in plain sight on a train.
The loudest conversation on the train I’m on at the moment is the graffiti. It’s telling me that, well, I probably won’t want to shake Zed’s hand. And there’s someone out there called “Proe”. But it’s telling me more than the five other real live people are telling me, and they’re sitting across from me on my train.
And it’s more than I’m telling them on this train.
We’d prefer isolation. We court it and we aggressively display it. Don’t believe me? Talk loudly into your phone and watch people around you. Why do we bring our own bubble to the train – our own headspace? Why would I rather type this into my laptop rather than discuss it with my… neighbour? Why don’t I want to call them my neighbour on a train?
Why the barrier on a train?
Bounce. Sway. The social origami of reading & folding a broadsheet newspaper. The quiet tchik-tchik-tchik-tchik of MP3 headphones in the ears of half the commuters. The cinema-in-the-seat laptops playing pirated copies of the latest Batman film. People writing new thoughts for blogs… Everything and everyone screams DON’T TOUCH ME! on a train.
How can I reach out to touch someone… if I’d resent someone doing the same to me on a train?
How can I see public transport as a legitimate mission-field… when I’d cringe at the thought of someone evangelizing me on a train?
We all get to hide in plain sight on a train.
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