Observations and Reflections
Presented a paper on T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding today. Read out most of it (with eye-contact, of course), the criticism part is improvised. I stepped out of myself for a moment when I was doing the criticism, and I have come to realized that I stutter a lot when I speak. I really doubt if what I have said makes any sense at all, but apparently I do (as Dr. Sirluck and my fellow classmates told me). Maybe I should stop being paranoid, or stop stepping out of myself when I am speaking.
Of course, I do understand that one reason why I stutter is because I simply did not know enough to talk what I want to talk about with confidence.
* * *
Riding the bus home, today I've realized how easily we treat one another as mere tools. The bus driver today was a terrible driver: he lectured me when he forgot to (or intentionally forbidded) let a guy out on Kerrisdale; he attempted to turn left on a red light; he had problems braking in general. After he lectured me, I had an imaginary outlash at him: "You are paid by us and your job is to drive the bus. As a servant to us, representing the bus company, you will and will only obey according to the rules of the bus company, and afterward obey to the customer. Your attitude is unacceptable, especially when the mistake is on your part. You deserved to get fired. You may complain to your wife and kids after work, but you have absolutely no business in lecturing the customer, who is always right." Then I have come to realize: I have treated him as a mere machine! Knowingly too, he has become a tool for me, day in and out, on and off the bus, a tool for me to get to where I need to go. All bus drivers, as tools, are the same: they are part of a great machine. I have totally forgotten about bus drivers as human beings. Alas, what have our world become, when even the most sensitive poet or conscious philosopher treats his fellow man-brother as a mere machine? (This, of course, shows that I am not much of a philosopher or poet...)
Of course, I do understand that one reason why I stutter is because I simply did not know enough to talk what I want to talk about with confidence.
* * *
Riding the bus home, today I've realized how easily we treat one another as mere tools. The bus driver today was a terrible driver: he lectured me when he forgot to (or intentionally forbidded) let a guy out on Kerrisdale; he attempted to turn left on a red light; he had problems braking in general. After he lectured me, I had an imaginary outlash at him: "You are paid by us and your job is to drive the bus. As a servant to us, representing the bus company, you will and will only obey according to the rules of the bus company, and afterward obey to the customer. Your attitude is unacceptable, especially when the mistake is on your part. You deserved to get fired. You may complain to your wife and kids after work, but you have absolutely no business in lecturing the customer, who is always right." Then I have come to realize: I have treated him as a mere machine! Knowingly too, he has become a tool for me, day in and out, on and off the bus, a tool for me to get to where I need to go. All bus drivers, as tools, are the same: they are part of a great machine. I have totally forgotten about bus drivers as human beings. Alas, what have our world become, when even the most sensitive poet or conscious philosopher treats his fellow man-brother as a mere machine? (This, of course, shows that I am not much of a philosopher or poet...)
posted by Tristan at 7:21 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home