Fourth Form of Madness

Another week, another train incident! This particular morning the train was packed due to there only three carriages on the train instead of the normal six. I was sitting in priority seating because I’m special hee hee – no as there were no other seats and the only other people standing were abled bodied, not pregnant, not too old beings. I had with me more books than a library and about 3 bags so I thought I looked the most needy so I got the seat. Beside me was a lady in her late fifties and I could tell she was going to be a fun travel partner.

We had not gone very far, when she was squirming in her seat and started doing over exaggerated gestures with her hands to indicate she had a bad back in-between bending over her Kindle and reading a few lines. Now my head admittedly was stuck in my philosophy reader for my latest unit and I was having enough trouble struggling to understand Leibniz’s theory of monads without her dramatics. As I read on, I allowed her about 10% of attention to monitor if she was for real or just wanting to get my attention and drag me into whatever drama she was requiring to get through life. It didn’t take long to realise it was the later. I kept reading as she kept bitching on about this and moaning about the state affairs of this and shooting me side way glances. No sorry lady, not going there with you. Then the train filled up to breaking point and she was forced to escalate her moaning to a level perceivable by all, I cursed myself for not putting my iPhone earphones in!

On and on she ranted as we travelled through the suburbs. At all times shooting glances at me and expecting my participation. Now I am not a callous person, but I have become one that likes to focus my energy and time on people that don’t create dramas for the sake of them without any intention of trying to fix the things they are moaning about or without any intention of treating people well. She then proved me to that she was the later person as well. One of the young guys standing next to us, had his iPhone music up really loud and even though he had his ear phones in we could all hear it. Now the music wasn’t overly loud to my hearing and it was rather pleasant and secretly I was pleased to be hearing what the young people 🙂 listen to these days as all I seem to listen to these days is yoga music which is probably why hubby is always saying our home is like living at a yoga retreat!

Anyway, back in the train my travelling buddy in her loudest and most obnoxious tone, prods the youngster in the leg with her finger and asks him to turn it down. Now the young man, took one ear plug out for long enough to say “It is loud isn’t it” and then promptly put the ear plug back in ignoring her request to turn it down. Now at this point I’m not interested in taking sides or saying who was right or wrong, I’ve spent enough time doing that in life and seriously at this level, it can all be a bit of a waste of time. However, my now highly angry and outraged travelling buddy starts screaming at the youngster “You’re such a prick, your nothing but a prick” amongst other nasty, vile obscenities. Seriously all this ugliness over someone not doing what you want. Let it go. Pick up your Kindle and continue reading at all times feeling grateful that you woke up this morning and have an able body to go about your day and enjoy this absolute gift of consciousness – seriously the rest is just matter (hee hee).

So there I am still plugging along reading Leibniz which now has become almost impossible (however i think it might still have been impossible even if I was at home). I am mentally counting down the minutes until I can squeeze myself out of the train and escape this hostile energy. And then she screams out my favourite of her ensemble – “I hate this train, I hate the awful, horrible people you find on it, they make it an unpleasant journey”. I drop my philo book to my lap with the irony of her statement. No where in that statement do I think that she might have considered the possibility that she just made a train journey very unpleasant for a whole carriage full of people purely through her choices of whether to react or not to react to things that did not suit her liking. There are a lot of things in life that probably do not suit her liking, is she going to react that violently against all of them? She is going to be very tired, and very angry if she does.

Then as a parting gesture she treads on my foot as she departs and I truly feel touched by this meeting.