Reality Bites for October 12

The irony of the weather and where has our humility/humanity gone?

By James Norton

Here I sit, in my office, typing this and watching people scurry about the square because the power went out.  It doesn’t happen every day, but one would have to assume after all the rain over the past few days and those heavy winds this morning, something was bound to happen.
It’s a mixed blessing for me.
I walked outside my front door this morning, maybe fooling myself that it’s the same old neighborhood it used to be.  I expected others to walk out onto their front porches and verify that yes, the entire street is out of power and does anyone need anything?  That’s the kind of neighborhood I remember growing up.

None of that today.  Nobody else standing on their porches – how sad.
I wasn’t going to get any work done at home with the power out, so why I figured I would head to the office, where the power is on, and work can go on.  I get here, after the usual routine of hitting the store for vitamin water and a granola bar (oh my god I have changed, haven’t I?), and start to work.
Yeah I know it’s Sunday, but when one is self-employed that means little.  Thankfully not many people are around and/or looking for me on Sundays, so typically I do manage to get some work done sans interruptions.
Not even 30 minutes after I get here, the power goes out here too.
Over the years, I have noticed that city squares tend to be the basic thread of community/neighborhood fabric that seems to hang on longer when it comes to old habits/traditions.  With no internet and no server available, I decided to take my notebook into the conference room and look out onto the square and sit pondering what to write about this week and also watch to see if it would be any different here in the work environment than it was back home earlier.
Thankfully, it was.  I heard the dentist downstairs outside talking to someone in his family saying the power was out, my father was outside talking to someone and the nice people at El Guapo came out and they all kind of gave the same “what’s up with the power” look which was reassuring.
Today it seems that people are just too busy.  They think when you take the far right lane, you want to get in front of them, instead of taking the right turn, which is what you intended all along.  They cut in line at Star Market and Dunkin Donuts.  They chase after you on the highway.
Where is the humanity and humility of people today?
Oh don’t get me wrong, we all have some sense of humility – some more than others of course – but as a “people” we time and time again have been proven that we actually need something to shock us back into acting right.  Not to bring up a sore subject, but honestly, the last time I saw people in general be genuinely nice to each other and treat each other with some semblance of assumptive respect was right after 9/11.  That’s it. 
How sad is that?  What happened to us?
Hey, you’re probably saying to yourself “what the hell is this jerk talking about, he rants and raves about everyone and everything under then sun”.  Yeah, I can see why you might say that, but here’s the rub.  I never said I was perfect, and although my memory isn’t the same as it used to be, I don’t recall ever ragging on someone who didn’t deserve it and I also don’t ever recall not qualifying myself as a general asshole with problems of my own (which I might add, I have shared with people in this very column).
So if I take a shot at you, you probably deserve it, and if by chance I decide I want to offer an opinion or some advice about something, I most likely went through it myself.
The weather, the seasons and the aftermath of them make us do odd things.  Something we don’t do at home, we might do at the office, and vice-versa.  We as people can do better.  We can act a little more civilized and a lot less crazed.  We can put aside petty, silly jealousies and make short and long term decisions personally, politically and financially without having an agenda which in its purest form means nothing more than “you can’t have something that I am not part of”.
So in the end, what am I getting at?  Nothing, really.  Or am I?