For those of you who aren't familiar with Toronto, Eglinton Ave. is a busy street. In five minutes of walking along Eg in the tail end of the morning rush hour, I cross paths with at least 100 people. At any time of day or night, weekday or weekend, if I crossed paths with fewer than 20 people on the same walk, I'd be surprised at how empty it is.
Today as I was walking along Eg, I saw a little boy, maybe five years old, maybe younger, kicking a paper cup like he was playing soccer. His mother followed behind him, close enough to provide appropriate supervision, but far enough to give him a bit of space for his little game. I watched him as I walked along, and I noticed that whenever his paper cup crossed the path of an adult walking in the opposite direction, they'd kick it back at him, temporarily becoming his teammates in his little game of soccer, helping him execute an intricate passing sequence to keep the ball away from the imaginary opponents.
Now THAT'S community!
4 comments:
I thought this was interesting, particularly in light of your recent entry about interacting with strangers.
I agree this a nice, charming example of 'community.' But it was those adults' willingness to interact with a child who is essentially a stranger to them that made it possible.
I understand that a 5-year-old may be a special case. He is not likely to be led on, or be creepy, or think someone is presumptuous for interrupting his game.
But are children the only ones who can benefit from community? How old does the kid have to be before it's no longer an example of community and just another a case of interacting with a stranger?
Has nothing to do with age and everything to do with productivity/helpfulness. Kicking the cup back to the kidlet is clearly helpful (if people hadn't kicked it back, the kid would have had to walk in front of tall fast-walking adults and pick it up, delaying the adults or getting stepped on, or lose his "soccer ball") and adds some fun to the walking-down-the-street experience, with the only inconvenience being that the adults had to briefly break stride.
Talking to random strangers about nothing for no reason distracts and/or delays them from whatever they might be doing without providing any benefit to anyone. (Except allowing the guy who wrote that article to pretend that he lives in some fictional sitcom universe where everyone knows everyone for plot purposes.)
I don't think the columnist was advocating much talking to strangers; he meant acknowledging them with a nod or returning their 'hello' or 'good morning,' rather than avoiding them. And he specifically excluded the busier streets like the one in this example. He referred to the people close to home, in your primary neighborhood, whom you encounter frequently but don't know very well.
Certainly how much you interact is up to you. But I think the difference between the columnist (whom I identify with) and you is that you consider this sort of informal interaction as generally distracting or delaying to the other person. Whereas I'm more concerned that if I don't respond at least once in awhile in these situations, the other person is going to consider me rude or self-absorbed, at best, or worse--smug/stuck-up/unfriendly, etc.
In my corner of the world, saying hello to strangers IS talking to strangers. :) And really, if people are going to think I'm rude/self-absorbed/whatever for not psychically knowing that they want me to talk to them, I don't particularly care to know those people.
I think Mr. Columnist Man is one of those people who judges things by...the best way I can describe it is a superficial checklist. People saying hello to everyone? CHECK! That means this is a friendly place. But he isn't actually looking into whether people hold doors for people whose hands are full, or offer seats on the subway to those who need them more (in my experience, a critical mass of Torontonians do these things) - or whether people back off when they see that their social overtures are unwelcome, which is another important component of being friendly.
This is parallel with, for example, people who take offence if the actual words "Please," "Thank you," or "You're welcome" aren't uttered, without even considering whether those messages were delivered by using other words or by the overall tone of the communication. Or people who consider a child to be polite because his parents have successfully drilled him to call grownups Sir or Ma'am, but don't look at whether the kid is actually trying to not be inconsiderate, or whether the kid is a bully among his peers.
The problem with the checklist method is that it's rather arbitrary, and not even all the checklist people are working with the same checklists.
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