Friday, June 24, 2011

People

I spent a few hours the other day reading this blog about crusty punks who hungout in a certain area of New York City.

I love being let into other peoples lives and minds, learning how they view the world especially people who are vastly different than me. Just take a moment to glance at some of the stories on the crusty punks blog. Those peoples lives are vastly dissimilar to mine, but at the same time I’m so drawn to what they have to say. I’m drawn to people that have a completely different life experience than me. Generally I find that no matter what someone looks like, we still struggle with similar questions in life, and we are all trying to understand our purpose in this world.

I'm interested in people's lives. I always flip to the end of a book first to read about the author. Whenever I read those college literary zines, I always flip to the little bios about each writer. In magazines I love to read about the lives of the contributors. Sometimes I’m more attentive to those little tidbits than whatever I’m reading. I guess I’m on a search for whats real. I could be in the middle of a fiction story, or poem in one of those college literary publications, but I have to flip to the little bio of the author to remind myself about the person who wrote the story. Anything that we make or create is an outpouring of who we are in some way, that’s why when I find an artist, designer, musician, etc that I like, I want to know about their life. What causes them to create, to make, to write, to sing?

I love to people watch. I don’t get bored in public places ever because there are always so many interesting things that people do. Maybe I’m so good at it because I get paid to do it, lifeguards are after all professional people watchers (and life savers).

Maybe that’s why I like to read about peoples lives, because they are all a very specific piece of our world, they fit in in some unique way. I don’t want to be all cliché and say “Oh we are all shining stars! We are unique little puzzle pieces!” *sigh* I think those phrases are true, but we need to find a new way to express it. 

How often do you talk to people who are strikingly opposite of you? When was the last time you even learned about someone who have a completely different life and belief as you? 

Expand your world.  

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