the ocean

I am not one of those people who considers every minorly unpleasant public encounter to be a sign of the fall of civilization. As a general matter, I understand that we as a society have some serious problems we have not historically addressed in a super productive way, and they tend to be more visible in places where there are more people, such as the city I live in. So, for example, when my mother emails me links to breathless online articles about crime in Chicago, I like to point out that the small town I grew up in has had two high profile murders that became Dateline episodes within the past decade. We can extrapolate that per capita if we must. 

That all being said, I did have a particularly colorful CTA trip Thursday afternoon on my way back from work that further underlined the work we as a society have left to do. When I got on the train, there was a gentleman listening to music loudly, occasionally rapping along, and violently rocking back and forth in his seat. Since I am uninterested in transit theater, I took a seat elsewhere in the car. Then at the next stop, a man got on the car actively smoking a cigarette. He did not put it out, but instead positioned himself in the handicapped seating and began puffing aggressively. Although I think smokers are jokers, I vigorously continued on my course of not getting involved. At this point, a man entered our car from the one behind it and started accosting the passengers one by one to ask them for money. I turned up the volume on my earbuds and became intensely interested in the contents of my phone.

Then it was my stop. I got off the train and reminded myself that I'm a very fortunate person to have had the background and opportunities to live and work the way that I do. So I'll be sure to include some charitable contributions in my celebration of America's traditional year-end spending extravaganza. But I will also allow myself my desire to be left the fuck alone on public transit.