It was Disturbing, Then it was Uplifting.

On the subway last night I thought my heart was going to pound its way out of my chest and fall onto the floor between my feet. You know that feeling? When you see something that makes you so upset your hands are visibly trembling with anger from 50 feet away?

It started when a very short, very overweight old man, shabbily dressed entered our subway car announcing that we would all sing Jingle Bell Rock together. He sang alone. Two people gave him some change and he sat down directly in front of me. 

Then he began an incohesive rant. There's too many miserable men! Women don't want a miserable men, they want a happy man with a lot of land! - Too many men having babies that they don't care of, they can't look at one woman they need to look at many women - I don't do that - I'm not like that. I turned behind me to look at the stop number. This is 72nd street! - 81st street Natural History Museum!

86, this is 86th street!

He took water and some one dollar bills from a plastic bag and began counting them - I'm done working today, I've made enough money today I'm going back to my apartment - I am the only Santa Claus left, I am Santa Claus, that's my job. - Happy lovers be happy, don't catch the HIV, I know too many women with the HIV- I'm a man of God - Too many people hate my Jesus, I love my Jesus. 

No one batted an eye, they just let him go on, cut him the slack he deserves since he was clearly disoriented, had some sort of psychological impediment.

But one man, mid 20s, made it his mission to rile up, torment, and demean, this already downtrodden old man. I didn't make out exactly what this young fool said to the old man but he yelled something along the lines of 'OK! Shut up!' Or was it 'shut your mouth'? Either way it was enough to set Old Man off. He began yelling at young fool that he doesn't know who he's messing with, he could wipe the floor with him, young people don't know how to treat their elders, and I don't have to deal with miserable men like you. And on he went defending himself, clearly angered and hurt by young fool's unnecessary jab. 

young fool used his body, his words, his tone of voice, his eyes, every faculty he could employ, to say to Old Man 'you're beneath me, you're worthless'. he rolled his eyes back like he was having a seizure or an exorcism (he probably needed the latter), stuck his arm straight out towards Old Man, and waving his hand at him with the tight flicking of his wrist, said in the most queenie, sarcastic, condescending manner 'It's okay, Jesus loves you, don't worry, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you'. 

'I'm on this train making people happy! I'm making people happy! What are you doing?!' yelled Old Man. young fool couldn't contain his overwhelming disgust and anger towards Old Man. his appetite for demeaning Old Man was insatiable, and sarcasm and passive aggression the most delicious tools for doing this. With all faculties employed to demean, scoff, and scorn young fool responded, 'yes, you're making people on this train soooooooo happy'. (Exorcism eye roll on the "so"). 

Now my hands are trembling violently and my heart is booming. I want to punish young fool. I want to hurt him for hurting Old Man.

Then I made a choice. Instead of channeling this energy negatively to punish the oppressor, I channeled it as positive energy to show kindness towards the victim.

Just as I was getting off at my stop I turned to Old Man to tell him 'Hey sir, you have a good night OK?' But before I could finish, he looked up at me and said 'Aren't I doing good? Aren't I right?' I gave him a nod and a thumbs up, told him he was doing good and to enjoy his night. 'Thank you!' I was happy with myself for directing my focus on uplifting Old Man rather than punishing young fool, but that doesn't mean I didn't want young fool to fall in a ditch somewhere. My heart was still racing and my hands were still trembling.

What is wrong with people? How is it that someone like Old Man could invite such nastiness from anyone? I guess I have to expect the lowliest from people in this world.

Einstein said that 'the most important decision [we can] ever make is whether [we] live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe'. 

As we get older, the more perceptive we get about the world, what's in it, and who's in it. And it can start to seem like we've figured it out; the world is a dark place, an unfair, unpredictable place, where our expectations of the average person should be low, lower, lowest. 

This is supposed to be the Uplifting part. Then I realized something. That occurrence was no grounds for such expectations from the average person. Sure, there's awful people, but most people are okay. There were about 30 people on that train car, only one was cruel to Old Man, 2 people gave him change, one person left him with some nice words, and everyone else let him be.

Only one person was demeaning, only one person was aggressive, only one person was nasty. The majority left Old Man alone, and more than one gave a nice gesture.

It is common for people to develop the misconception that the pessimistic view is the realistic view and optimism is foolishness and niavete. So to answer Einstein's question, I guess the universe is pretty okay, or perhaps more accurately, one tiny part of the universe, humanity, is pretty okay. The whole universe, we'll leave that for another day :-)


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