So I’ve taken a bit of time off just to kind of have my 30th existential crisis. (I think I’ve hit a new world record tbh)
Usually I just go to a little coffee shop down the road from me and I have a very boring and plain breakfast, just eggs on toast and a coffee.
I then just sit there for a little bit and read or just do some thinking. Today was just another one of those regular days.
Lately there’s been a lovely old lady in there. She’s probably considered crazy by a lot of people, similar to the pigeon lady in Home Alone 2. I’m just sitting there having breakfast and you can hear she’s talking. You can also tell there’s something strange going on upstairs because she’s of that age where she’s possibly struggling in one way or the other, which is sad to see in all respects because inevitably we’re all going to get like that.
I was chatting to the owner and she’s like, yeah, she’s been coming in there for a little while now and when she comes in she also makes a little effort to talk or interact with everyone who comes through the doors.
What I’ve noticed nowadays is families (Younger gen) don’t really care much about the old people so they kind of just get left to their own devices as they get older.
My thought was, well yeah she’s probably just coming in and sitting down and having a coffee, just to chat because at the end of the day, we humans like to chat and we always have to have that bit of connection in one way or the other.
It just gets me to think about why can we not just pay it forward by having conversations with people in general, especially the elderly?
(Yeah it’s a novel idea now to get to know people because of how social media has ruined everything and how we bury our face into these little sadness rectangles a lot of the time)
But you see them sitting alone at bus stops or on park benches and they may have lost their husbands or wives 10, 20, 30 years ago…
And yet they’re a fountain of knowledge and experiences, many who have lived a life worth talking about, who will go on to die without ever telling their story.
It’s why I do a lot of the things the way I do. It’s why I enjoy talking to people and getting to know people. I love to create stories and just interact with the world on a different basis cause we truly are only here for a very short time and then poof. We’re gone.
So do we just ignore everybody and just live on our own and just not be curious at all?
I’m not a fan of the way society is minimalising emotion and feeling things because we’re outsourcing everything now to AI and it’s scary to see.
Self delusion is a helluva drug.
Well, this has been a tangent and rant of note.
Hope you’ve all been well and keeping out of trouble.
Stephen Walker.
P.S. This is what I’m currently re-reading by my boy George…