I was stopped at a traffic light when a silly old man did a silly thing in the middle of the road, and I understood human nature a little more clearly.
He was the younger kind of old man. He looked like he might be in his 50’s. He wore an adorable white mustache over a stubbly soft chin. He had kind eyes, and he was wearing the kind of hat Bill Murray wore in Caddyshack. He carried a cane and had the look of a man lost in a kitchen with too many women, but he was not in a kitchen. He was a long way from any kitchen. This funny old man had walked out to the center median, and was trying to direct traffic. The traffic lights in the city were all in working order. This one traffic light certainly gave no cause to doubt it. Were I to speculate, which I intend to do, on why the old man was directing traffic, I would say he probably thought he was helping.
The light had turned red in front of me. I stopped. The road crossing the road I was on had a green light. Traffic went by. That light turned red. The old man came out with his cane and his hat, and he started waving my lane to go on by. My lane did not move. That would be stupid. My lane still had a red light. The little green arrows for the turning lanes came on. The old man kept waving. The cars in the turning lanes went through the intersection. The old man looked at them genially, and he kept waving my lane through. My lane did not move. That would be stupid. My lane still had a red light. The cars in the turning lane all made it through the light, and then my lane was given the green light. The old man saw the light for my lane change, and as if seeing this he felt affirmed in all he had done for us, he smiled a great big friendly smile, and waved my lane through. This time my lane did move. That was smart. My lane had a green light. I never saw the old man again.
He was a pedestrian, and pedestrians see traffic lights as suggestions… or just very bright obstacles. To a pedestrian, a traffic light goes in the same category as a steep hill, or a bit of loose dirt, or a road of tricky or maybe a dark corner in a dangerous part of town. Pedestrians are sweating creatures that must leap at the first opportunity to keep moving. Motorist sit in air conditioned seats, and obey laws. At the very least a motorist is constantly calculating the benefits of risky behavior against the likelihood of their actions catching up with them by causing an accident or an expensive chat with an officer of the law. These two ways of thinking collided as the silly old man crossed to the center median waving his cane and bursting with good intentions.
I think that when he saw that the road he was traveling along had a red light, he assumed that the intersecting lane must be given the green light. He did not look to see the green light. He did not consider the existence of turning lanes. He took what he knew, made a logical conclusion, and went with it. I have no problem with that. It is easy enough to be wrong about just about anything. What had me thinking about this little episode as I lay in bed drifting to sleep was the way he reacted when he saw the light change from red to green. There was no acknowledgement that things had changed. He just kept waving cars by, like he had helped. I don’t want to run a nice old man into the ground. I don’t think there was anything insidious about what he was doing. It’s just that, I saw clearly right there what is hard to see in situations with less defined absolutes. When a person has a little information and chooses a course of action, that person is likely to continue in that course of action long after the information they used to make that decision is shown to be incomplete or outdated. They will make no acknowledgement that the information they are receiving now requires a different course of action. They will continue to do what they were doing without so much as a visible laugh at themselves to express to everyone that they noticed they were wrong.
It isn’t the worst thing people do. It is harmful. Most people do it without ever noticing the extent which they shut out new information willfully. It is a thing, and I can dispassionately say, that it is pretty neat to see. The opposite of this method of thinking is also harmful. There are those who never choose a course of action and obsess over gathering new information constantly. Every magazine article changes their life forever, until the next magazine article. They get the weebles and aren’t good for much. Seeing this, I can dispassionately say, it is pretty neat. The seeing it as a thing is neat. Balance is neat. Old men are neat. Third party observations are neat.
I wish that old man was wearing aviators. That would have made the story better. Then again, the story would be better if he was holding a bazooka and a samurai sword too.
If this post gave you a thought, please comment. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment