Oh come on now! Just when I was thinking how wonderful people really are when you stop thinking of them as a whole society and start interacting with individuals. I was so convinced that people were inherently good that I wanted to go and write a book with illustrative examples to prove my point. Kind of a rebuttal to modern authors like George Saunders (ex: In Persuasion Nation) who subtly illustrate the flaws with present society through sardonic and dark short stories. Great book, don't get me wrong, just kind of depressing.
I wanted to talk about asking directions from strangers, striking up conversations in public places, the rennies, the couchsurfers, really everybody nice I've encountered over the last two years. It'd be a pretty big book.
And then tonight I had an engagement with that guy everybody loves to hate. The gelded, balding, forty-something man wearing a striped polo shirt and driving a minivan. I had just left Wal-Mart with some groceries (maybe going to Wal-Mart was my first mistake) and was preparing to exit my parking space. It was in one of those wonky parking lots with the angled spots to encourage direction specific lanes. However, when I parked, the spot in front of me was open too, and so I did the same thing any reasonably lazy person will do: I pulled forward so that when I left I could pull out instead of going through all that extra effort of backing out. But in this wonky parking lot to pull forward would set me driving the "wrong way" down the parking isle. Which really wasn't much of an issue seeing as in the Land of Plenty the isle was still wide enough for two cars.
So, having pulled out I proceeded up the isle, the wrong way remember, intent on the stop sign at the end of the row so that I could bid this fine shopping center a fond farewell. However, my exit plans were temporarily thwarted by said Man-in-a-Minivan coming the proper direction down the isle. He had been proceeding at a reasonable speed until I pulled out, at which time he sped up, angled towards me and almost rammed the corner of my Jeep before slamming on his brakes, turning away and giving me the evil eye as he passed. Now, I am sure this was his response to my audacity, my brash and callous disregard for parking lot etiquette.
One could flip him the bird, and continue on one's way home without giving the event a second thought. I, however, did not. Why? I asked myself, did this man find my actions so offensive that he had to let me know how he felt. Was he secretly hoping we Would have gotten into an "accident", though one could hardly call it that given his behavior, so that he could pin the blame on me- the one breaking the parking lot laws?
If so, this illustrates a much larger problem. We as people (here I go talking about the whole instead of its parts again) believe laws are set in place to protect us. But like any coupon-clipper we want to make sure we get our money's worth out of those laws. Often to extremes, like this Minivan Man, who took offense to my violation of one petty law which he could manipulate- though really had no effect on him or his wellbeing; and completely disregarding the higher law of lets say physics which says one should not ram one's vehicle into another if unnecessary. The laws put in place to protect us so that we can go on with our lives doing more important things are really just keeping us stuck as if on on Maslow's second rung, bickering over perceived infractions rather than striving to better our own selves and proceed (as a whole this time) to higher rungs.
So here's to raising the bar. This one's for you Mr. Minivan, may we meet again when we're higher.
Salute`!
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