I'm not a big theme park goer but on the one or two occasions I have visited them I recall feeling a kind of kinship with the people with whom I've shared the experience of scaring my self shitless. The 15 or so other strangers who sat with me on the same rollercoaster, as we plunged to near certain death, all shared the same small-scale life-changing experience. At the end of the event you might feel so freaked out by it all that you can't help but talk briefly with each other about how crazy it all was as you make your way to the exit, patting down your hair and regaining your composure. For those few seconds you have common ground, you know these strangers better than the thousands of others in the theme park that day.
This kind of event based bonding can often happen more acutely on a larger scale, for instance the Vietnam War, high school, a rock concert, witnessing 9/11 live or on TV. If you happen build strong bonds with these people then sometimes there are reunions where you all get to relive or at least recount stories and memories. But to all other intents and purposes we are complete strangers. The chances are you don't live in the same street, town or even country and you probably don't even know each others names. But you share something.
Zoom out a couple of miles into the stratosphere and look at the whole event that is otherwise known as your life during the 20th and 21st centuries. You may remember Kennedy or Lennon, Challenger in '86, the fall of the Berlin Wall or Kuwait in '91, Diana and most recently 9/11. Pick out another complete stranger who is alive today and there's a strong chance that they'll share those same memories and experiences, more so, for instance, than another stranger who died a hundred years ago whose memory will contains things like the Boer War or the death of Queen Victoria.
We, the current inhabitants of planet earth, share in the experience that is our lives right now. Put everyone who has ever lived in a big room, (OK a very big room), and we'd eventually clump together with people who we had something in common with, people with the same shared experiences of now. There's a chance we might become good friends in that big room, and we would share stories about where we were when Kennedy was shot, what we felt on 9/11 etc. and we'd feel pretty close to each other compared with the billions of others in the same big room.
You could say we might be soul mates, but not today. But why not today?
Why wait until we're all standing in that big room, anxiously seeking each other out among the 400 year old plague ridden, the Knights Templar and the ancient Egyptians?
We should feel close today.
That was a ramble and not particularly eloquent but its late and I'm tired. Anyway, what I tried to say was, we're in this together, keep your hands in the car, keep your seatbelt fastened and enjoy the ride. One day we might get to chat about it over a coffee.
This kind of event based bonding can often happen more acutely on a larger scale, for instance the Vietnam War, high school, a rock concert, witnessing 9/11 live or on TV. If you happen build strong bonds with these people then sometimes there are reunions where you all get to relive or at least recount stories and memories. But to all other intents and purposes we are complete strangers. The chances are you don't live in the same street, town or even country and you probably don't even know each others names. But you share something.
Zoom out a couple of miles into the stratosphere and look at the whole event that is otherwise known as your life during the 20th and 21st centuries. You may remember Kennedy or Lennon, Challenger in '86, the fall of the Berlin Wall or Kuwait in '91, Diana and most recently 9/11. Pick out another complete stranger who is alive today and there's a strong chance that they'll share those same memories and experiences, more so, for instance, than another stranger who died a hundred years ago whose memory will contains things like the Boer War or the death of Queen Victoria.
We, the current inhabitants of planet earth, share in the experience that is our lives right now. Put everyone who has ever lived in a big room, (OK a very big room), and we'd eventually clump together with people who we had something in common with, people with the same shared experiences of now. There's a chance we might become good friends in that big room, and we would share stories about where we were when Kennedy was shot, what we felt on 9/11 etc. and we'd feel pretty close to each other compared with the billions of others in the same big room.
You could say we might be soul mates, but not today. But why not today?
Why wait until we're all standing in that big room, anxiously seeking each other out among the 400 year old plague ridden, the Knights Templar and the ancient Egyptians?
We should feel close today.
That was a ramble and not particularly eloquent but its late and I'm tired. Anyway, what I tried to say was, we're in this together, keep your hands in the car, keep your seatbelt fastened and enjoy the ride. One day we might get to chat about it over a coffee.