Ride the bus
The agents of fear rely on our complicity in their scheme to divide and terrorize us. That's why they developed Thursday night television line ups. (stay indoors, stay close. sweet nectar.)
There is a simple and effective remedy to this program of isolation: Ride The Bus.
It sounds like an experience that would be, rather than fear ameliorating, terror inducing. My friends, that would be erroneous. And you can trust me, I am what can only be described as a minor authority on public transit.
The bus is a place where we have the opportunity to come together and experience one another without the barriers of glass and brick and geography separating us by class or race or religion. It's the one public activity that equalizes the user base. It requires basic courtesy, patience and humility. For the time you are riding a bus, you're no more important than anyone else — the bus doesn't drive any faster for you than it does for the professor reading his paper or the old drunk mumbling to his hand.
We need to feel less important sometimes. It's the idea of exception that breeds fear and makes us vulnerable to terror. That we think we are exceptional makes any threat perceived or damage done also exceptional. In truth, it is not; you are not special. But then, neither am I. I'm simply one of the many. I learned that again standing in the rain yesterday, alive in the elements, waiting to crawl onto a bus packed with Hmong Catholics, hustlers, students, office workers, night clerks, researchers, people.
