Everyday I commute about 3 hours back and forth between work and home.I would say I spend roughly about 4 hours per day on public transport. That includes multiple buses & U-bahns (or the subways in english). Sometimes I take a book to read on my way, sometimes I listen to music & sometimes I just like to sit and observe the people around me. I would say the last part is the most interesting.
More than 90% (not an official statistic ofcourse!) of the people are burried so deep in their cell phones, flicking through Instagram posts (or maybe reddit or pintrest), some are just staring off out into the open space totally zoned out or so deep in thought that it makes me wonder what they might be thinking about, I find my self in this state often as well but to be honest usually there is absolutely nothing going through my mind, I like to think that when this happens my mind resets and lets go of all the unnecessary things that it might have accumulated through the day, sorta' like mental decluttering, but who knows \_(",)_/
The thing that I find most funny is the behavior of people sitting opposite to each other. One can see(or feel?) the effort every one puts to not make eye-contact with the person sitting straight in front of them by looking over their shoulder or at an empty spot where nothingn remotely interesting is happening, and if an eye contact is made every one is quick to adjust their gaze to go back to one of the empty and uninteresting spots. What drives this behavior in adults because its always with small babies if one makes eye-contact and gives some small acknowledgement, unless something really important is going through their minds (like when would be the perfect time to poop) the response is usually a really heart warming smile.
I always wonder as to what happens while growing up that we loose this beautiful reaction to the people around us and replace it instead with awkward shuffling and it always amuses me as to how being so connected digitally is making us veritably so disconnected.
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