Perspective: On the Distances We Travel Each Day
NY is in the midst of a transit strike.
The day when you have three back-to-back and important-to-you meetings.
In three distinct areas of the city.
All disctinct from the area you reside.
Somewhere Murphy is chuckling.
And after a brief moment of frustration I decided to join him.
Transit strikes are striking things.
In a city like Sydney, where I grew up, they barely touched me. Able to drive it was always possible to get use of a car/grab a ride in with friends. But NY is no car city. Precisely one of the reasons I love it so: you walk everywhere; the subways connect you through most of Manhattan; taxi’s (at least for me) are for late nights and airports…
Until comes the day when you really need to be utilising the transport network. And it doesn’t want to play.
I will admit I did try to break the system. I stood on the Street corner at 7:30am in a vain attempt to hail the elusive empty taxi.
A man actually giggled at me: "are you seriously trying to get uptown?".
I debated whether to hitchhike.
Briefly.
I heard my frustration rise…
And then I stopped:
- nothing was that important! At least, not meetings and subways.
So there, on that street corner I stood stopped. And smiled.
Each day we cross vast distances, distances that if individually journeyed by foot or messenger would be year(s)-long.
In real time we communicate and connect across continents, across time zones, across cultures and languages and…
In one day I speak to ‘tomorrow’ in Australia. Tonight in Amsterdam. Earlier in San Fran. Later to Wales. I fire flurries of emails uptown, downtown, crosstown, crossworld. I drive kilometers. Fly miles. I search for a particular line in a particular story in a particular book in a particular library.
All without the slightest thought for the distances I couldn’t cross in one individual day some 50years ago.
And at the same time, I saw that even though I have my laptop and my phone and my web cam and wiki and blog and…I still wanted to be face-face with the people I was scheduled to be meeting.
So there, on that street corner, I watched my annoyance float by.
In its place stood the magical world we live in.
A world where time and space mean something new. Yet a world where we still want to be in the presence of one another to feel connected. A world where we still wanted, nay, needed, to ‘meet’.
And with that, I made three phone calls, grabbed a coffee and walked joyfully back home.
PS I would like thank the strikers for giving my the gift of perspective. And probably for keeping me a little fitter. But can you please turn the trains back on?

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December 21st, 2005 at 5:20 am
I read a statistic somewhere that half the people in the world have never used a telephone.
How lucky we are.
December 21st, 2005 at 5:49 am
I love the PS. Just gorgeous.
December 21st, 2005 at 6:19 am
i really enjoyed reading that. sorry you had a crappy morning !!
kinda sucks doesn’t it
December 21st, 2005 at 6:43 am
beautiful musing on the day… really enjoyed it.
thank you for sharing your unique point of view.
December 21st, 2005 at 9:30 pm
shop online! beats tsunami :)
December 24th, 2005 at 5:18 am
LOL! We need more “New Yorkers” like you! What a beautiful morning you had:)
December 26th, 2005 at 6:42 am
Inconvenience is a diminishing aspect of our world, but it takes a special person to relish this rare commodity. Good on you for rising above the frustration and bringing us this beautiful perspective.
December 26th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
thanks to you all for your generous feedback! I want to add that NY’rs took the whole thing remarkedly well - lot’s of smiles and walkers - though I do still think that the event did cut the city’s veins and that hurt many of the surrounding inhabitants who can’t afford to take a cab, and crippled many small businesses
… perhaps next time we’ll send their mother’s in to say “enough”
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