On Strangers
The silent influences in our lives
Sometimes I wonder: in my entire lifetime, how many people will I meet? Surely there is some sort of study that may give a ball park estimate, but who actually knows the accuracy of such studies? It’s not like we can have a large substantial sample of people clicking a ticker every time they see a new person, whether that person be a friend or a stranger. A distribution charting the dizzying array of met strangers will never be known.
From the time I wake to the time I rest, I am in constant contact of people. When walking to work, I step in rhythm with the amalgamation of suits, student hoodies, and other morning transit-ors towards the downtown core of Chicago, where our regular weekdays inhabit. Reaching my office building, routine truly initiates; the same office doorman executes his responsibilities to the utmost friendly degree and gives me, along with all the other individuals walking before and behind me, a wave and a greeting. We make eye contact and I walk forward, scan my key card, and board the elevators, where I am greeted by a dozen more individuals, some checking their phones as they wait for ascent and others rushing in to catch the closing doors. The faces of people become more and more familiar the closer I get to my office unit. There’s the IT specialist who upgraded my computer’s operation system sitting at his desk by the office hallway. There’s the HR representative who helped organize the company trip last wear grabbing her morning latte from the second floor cafe.
Whisked away by the details of my daily schedule and the interactions with my familiar teammates, I rarely ever think about all the unknown people I have interacted with or simply seen. These people rarely ever enter into the forefront of my focus. They simply remain as little minutia- NPCs which disappear and refresh when I myself disappear into my bedroom where no one else can see me.
It’s so interesting to think how all these people accumulate to make up my own little corner of the daily modern human experience, yet are never really considered. In the most un-morbid and compassionate context possible, I, shielded in the veil of my own perspective and social network of friends and family, do not have any reactions if any of these individuals pass; the passed, along with all the other strangers never to be seen again, simply disappear from my daily experience, only to be replaced with another set of walking, keyboard-typing, and coffee-getting strangers. I will not know of any special occurrences in their lives either. How many people I walk by have their birthdays that day? How many people in the line at the coffee shop just walked the stage of their university graduation? How many people are welcoming a new life into their family? In my perspective, their lives are so shallow- they simply appear to be strangers who fill up empty space of my everyday experience. But in actuality, their lives are rich and full of story, not unlike my own. Having a daily experience running parallel to mine, they go about their daily routines, seeing the strangers around them and thinking nothing more. If I passed, I will simply be a blip in their memory- a kid who walked by with a sherpa jacket and cargo pants in the morning on their way to work.
Sometimes when I walk the barren streets at night, I look up at the artificial rectangular stars, which uniformly align the surrounding condos and apartments, and let my mind wander. What is life like for the strangers up there? How similar is it to my life and my oh so familiar experiences? The room lights of high apartment buildings appear like lanterns- the light illuminates the windows like the fire that glows the walls. And analogous to the lantern’s light saving memories in the flickering shadows, the room lights glow in the stage and process of human life.
A step from complete strangers, there are the individuals whom I do not know, but see on a regular basis in places where we are all regulars. The most prominent is the gym; at approximately 6pm, I reliably see the same set of individuals training their repetitive weekly programs. While these individuals are nothing more than strangers- like the ones I see once in my entire life before they disappear into the greater world outside my own personal experience- they hold a little more significance in my daily life. While work has its refreshing days and stressful blocks, the routine of them working out offer a refreshing sense of stability. No matter how much the segments of my day may vary, if I come to the gym at the same time, I will see the same people. Consequently, there builds a silent subtle sense of camaraderie; we, as strangers, congregate to a common location in the pursuit of physical improvement. Regardless of whether these strangers have ever acknowledged my presence, they push me to go a bit harder, to travel a bit further, and to maintain focus and discipline.
Another step from the regulars are the individuals I interact very rarely with, but impact me in far more significant ways. A prime example is the barber I go to every couple of months or so. After my hair grows long and my own dissatisfaction of DIY shaving my sides festers, I walk into my regular barbershop and appoint the fate of my confidence and self esteem for the next couple of months to the shears and clippers wielded by the hands of a stranger. And as my destiny lay in the stranger’s blade, we chat over the insignificant experiences in daily life: the weather, our weekend plans, and the game. Within 30 minutes, my haircut wraps up and I exit the barbershop; the temporary bond is severed and the stranger disappears into oblivion. In his place is an established level of confidence and happiness in a new fresh fade.
Life is strange isn’t it? The many people we interact with but never give a second thought about form the basis of our understanding in the world; they play such a significant role in our lives. Without them, the streets will echo in emptiness, the gyms will lose their spirits, and the barbershop will cease to have its special moment in manifesting confidence. These people may disappear, but their impact is nonetheless continuous. And while they may disappear from our stories, their own stories are being progressively written.
Perhaps the accumulation of all those interactions integrate to become equivalent to a singular significant and meaningful experience we would have forever cherished otherwise~