Sitting here in a crowded Murray Hill diner, I can’t help but wonder why people in this city lack consideration for others. Along with being rude, inhabitants of this tiny island appear downright mean, like modern day misanthropes. Eating my eggs benedict and sipping my coffee aside, I was quite uncomfortable. One couple spoke too loudly, another degraded the waiter, and a group of young women clucked away. Oddly enough, I found the self absorption and lack of perception standard for our species, but there was one behavior they all had in common that felt out of the ordinary – when you make eye contact, they look smug, disinterested, or terrified. Why are people are mean mugging each other in a random diner in Murray Hill? I thought about this for about twenty minutes as I watched three couples and the group of girls. As a new couple joined the mix, sat in the booth in front of me, and scanned the area with an anxious look, it became very clear. We have no space; people are obsessed with preserving their physical integrity to survive. As people entered and left, they looked 360 degrees around their bodies to be sure they were safe in their new environments. We are surviving ever changing environments that are out of your control, and we have very few retreats. Humans are animals, and when confronted with what feels like threatening circumstances, they react with hostility. City dwellers beware, apply this dynamic from the diner to your homes, your offices, your hang outs, the streets, and we’ve got what feels like a war to protect ourselves. Common decency? Compassion for one another? Being attentive to the needs of people around you? Day-to-day niceties? None of these more advanced cognitive processes can occur until we’ve increased our perception of our likelihood of survival. If we want to make our city better, we need to find some space, feel more confidence in our physical integrity, and do it quickly.
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