rush hour

Nothing exemplifies the fast pace of New York to me more than Penn Station in the morning. My new job is right outside of Penn Station, a straight shot on the 1 train from my apt. What a great commute. Every morning I marvel at my commute and how I used to wait for the bus and rot 45-60 min to get to Queens.

And then my train pulls into Penn Station, I get out, and...madness hits.

And by madness I mean throngs upon throngs of people, walking frantically in all different directions - busy people with places to go as fast as they can. It's like BAM! There it is: entropy in human form. It's seriously a miracle there aren't more collisions.

In the 2 months since this job, I feel like I've changed. But I wonder if it's for the better. I think the first week, I was late to work every day because I just couldn't make it through the crowds. There is absolutely no order to the way people are walking, because there are so many different options - LIRR, NJ transit, subway, food courts, newstands...they're going every which way. So without a set "flow of traffic" to follow, I found myself hopping to avoid speedwalking people, shoved as people brush past, and generally migrating away from my final destination. Perhaps the Californian in me still walks too slow, or being polite doesn't get you anywhere...but it was grossly inefficient.

So after awhile, I realized that I had to adapt. Perhaps this is evolution in process. Survival of the fittest. Those who get to work on time don't get fired.

The whole method is actually just another application of my driving in NY theory: whoever has the most guts and blinks last gets the right of way. (In driving, these are usually cab drivers). So these days I noticed that I've adopted this theory for wading my way thru Penn Station. I stepped out of the subway turnstyles, put my head down, and started walking fast. My theory is - if you just walk fast enough and you don't show any signs of yielding, people will eventually get out of your way. You can't make eye contact because then there's some degree of politeness or courtesy that gets jumbled in there, someone inevitably stops, and crashage occurs. It seems to only add to the randomness, but somehow, this works. In the midst of it all, somehow people make it to their destinations.

I find that the worst sides of myself come up when I'm in a rush to get from Point A to Point B. Nothing peeves me more than tourists who walk too slow or don't know where they're going. And when someone switches direction, forget it. Tempers flare. Impatience runs rampant.

Sometimes I wonder if this is how grace is lost - in madness of the pursuit of getting from Point A to Point B.