sailing along

I write this on the train on my way home from work.  A few rows ahead of me is a woman, laughing and speaking loudly to presumably a friend, or relative, someone familiar, on her cell phone.  Oblivious to the tired commuters around her, she is happy as a clam catching up while using her train seat as her living room, finding a moment to discuss family and friends' activities and plan her next week. Now she seems to be  stating times and dates and details about the gatherings she is looking forward to. This is a confident woman, and this is a woman who sees herself at the center of the train universe, not attending to the fact that she is taking up much more space and time on this commute than the rest of us. And so I use this as a metaphor for how to deal with the world around us right now. That is, like this woman, times a million, many leaders in our world today are seeing themselves at the center of the universe as well, with the rest of us along for the ride, feeling as if we are barely an after thought. And so how do we deal with that? How do we (I in this example on the train) come to terms with the churning discontent and negative emotions within us, when we realize that some people, like this woman, will probably be talking screaming threatening or even laughing at our expense, taking us along for a ride we never signed up for? And what do we do in response?  In the case of this woman here on thet train, making noise and draining the psychic energy of the people around her, should I go up to her and shush her? Should I walk up there and give her a dirty look, lean over and gently ask her to lower her voice, shame her, humiliate her, or what? How do I get my way without making even more of an uncomfortable mess of things?  I in no way mean to minimize how serious the world situation is right now, it's serious. Wars here, genocide there, millions losing their jobs, or their homeland, their security, their health or their purpose in life. There have always been oblivious people and concerned responsible people and everything in between and at times like these we have a choice. So many of us are disoriented now, and I am thinking that about all I have to really do about all this is to focus on myself. .  I want to respond to a situation that is annoying me, enraging me, feeling unjust and intrusive. THAT is all the control I have. CONTROL over MY reaction. And so whether it's annoying noise intruding where I long for peace,  on a train ride home at the end of a long day in the middle of the week, or callous disregard for others rather than compassion and democratic values for the world at large,  my responsibility is the same. To temper my negative emotions with reason, with restraint, with empathy, with insight, in other words my responsibility is to be creative with myself and my inner world, while also taking responsibility for my outer world to the best of my ability. So locally, I stood up and watched the lively talkative woman for awhile as she gabbed on. We never made eye contact, but I think my doing that shifted something within me and possibly within her, as her tone seemed less strident after that, and my annoyance gave way a little bit. And that is such a minuscule example of what I believe I have to do on a larger scale. I have to do what I can, to shift my energy my reactions and my responsibility to myself and my fellow human beings step by step, day by stressful day, and to not do nothing, not shut it all out, but find some reasonable action I can take that allows me to feel I have some impact, however small, to prevent despair for me, and a feeling of resignation and cynicism about the world I find myself in at this moment, a world I love, a world on fire.

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