Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Shame.

It's difficult to live in New York City and not walk around the city without earphones. Plugged in. All the time... is how I go to work, to school, down the hall to visit my friend in his dorm only a few meters away.

Yes... I use meters (the entire world does). But anyway, let us not get ahead of ourselves.

Recently, I vowed to take in the world around me. I live in one of the most diverse cities, and it would be a pity not to.

I walk out of my dorm onto the busy streets of the Lower East Side and rowdy New Yorkers are honking at each other, not surprising given the profuse amount of tension people live with as they get to and from work in their stressed selves.

I, then, walk down the block toward the subway station and arrive at the staircase which will lead me downstairs to the platform. Before I even set foot on the staircase, I am taken back by the repugnant smell of fried potatoes (the hashbrowns and their intense smell are taking over the streets). The smell of the hashbrowns isn't the only thing to bother pedestrians like myself; two men I usually see on the side of the McDonald's bother women as they pass by, and today, they decided it was my turn.

"Eh-oh mami! Como estas? Can I getcha numba"

The other one chimes in, "Hey-hey-hey. Why you gotta be like that? Come-on, now!"

And as if that wasn't enough, I hurry down the stairs, disgusted.

I spot a man in a white tuxedo staring me down from head to toe. I can't say I didn't see it coming, but the insistence was unbearable.

He simply did not stop. The word, ashamed, does not suffice to describe the feeling I felt at that time and for the rest of the week. Why was I ashamed? Of what, exactly? I cannot say, and I don't even know if this feeling is even justifiable as I had nothing to be ashamed of. I was dressed in a very appropriate manner, and regardless of my attire, I was not to be addressed to in that manner.

You're probably wondering why this post turned into a complaint, and from a subject matter being "what I hear" to "I can't stand people"! But that is how I felt at that moment, and this is how I feel at this moment, right now. Shame. Shame - not for myself, but shame for our civilization.

We have come so far, and yet fail to do the same with our behavior.

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