It's All About Me

I was out running errands this morning and on my way from the bank to the grocery store, I was walking on a sidewalk between the park and the MCA. I met three people walking toward me. Two, a man and a woman, were pushing baby strollers, and a third wasl walking between them.They occupied the entirety of the sidewalk. Did any one of the three step to one side so as to share the sidewalk with another human being, walking in the other direction? The thought never entered their minds. They kept walking and, I suppose, expected me to step aside so they could pass. Obviously they were more important than the stranger walking the other way. I stepped off the sidewalk as they passed. I had no other choice. It was either that or create a scene on an otherwise lovely Saturday morning.
A few years ago I was in a parking lot at a strip mall containing an Ace Hardware, a video store, a software and computer supply store, and a bagel shop. One end of the parking lot was marked Enter. One end of the parking lot was clearly marked Exit, No Entry. Being a good citizen, I entered at the correct end and seeing no parking spots waited patiently in line behind a couple of other cars for parking spots to open up. After 5 minutes or so a spot opened up and as I pulled up to park in the spot, I noticed a guy in a Jeep coming in the Exit making tracks as fast as he could for the parking spot. Well, being the person I am I gunned the Mazda and pulled into the spot before the aforementioned Jeep driver could get there. And, oh yeah, I mouthed the words to myself, "No way a*****e." Apparently the Jeep driver was very adept at reading lips and as my wife and I were getting out of the car to tend to our business, this guy in the Jeep pulled up right behind our car and jumped out, ran up, getting right in my face. He was about 5 feet 5 or 6 inches tall, beet red in the face, and screaming at the top of his lungs, "A*****e! A*****e! You're the a*****e! You're the m****r f*****g a*****e!" The tirade went on and on and I grabbed Babs by the hand and we walked around him toward the store. He followed right behind us all the way to the door of the store continuing to scream, "That was my parking spot! You're the m****r f****g a*****e!" Babs chalked it up to a teeny weeny, an oversized ego, and an MBA. At any rate, this I got for playing by the rules and expecting others to do the same.
One might be tempted to think this is just a phenomenon peculiar to self-centered sorts in neighborhoods where lots of people have a lot of money and are absolutely certain that the rest of the world is less important than they are and, therefore, owe them obeisance. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I drive to a poor neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago 5 days per week to work at a public high school. When driving down 47th Street or 51st Street in a recognizably poor neighborhood, the attitude on the street is one of, "Get out of my way. I'm coming through," and the street belongs to the boldest and the fastest. When one pulls up to a traffic light or a stop sign, inevitably the car behind you pulls up on the right hand side to try to get around you. In most cases this involves swerving in front of you seconds before they slam into the back of a parked car, thus causing you to slam on your brakes to avoid slamming into the car that cut you off. This behavior is not just teenagers and 20 somethings smoking marijuana in cars they drive way too fast down city streets. I'm talking about 75 year old women in Ford Fiestas, city garbage truck drivers, school bus drivers, and even the occasional Chicago Policeman. They one and all pull up on the right and challenge you to keep them from cutting in front of you. Then there are the pedestrians who walk across the street in front of you, forcing you to brake to avoid hitting them and continue to stroll as slowly as possible across the street. I made the mistake of yelling and gesturing to get one of them to get out of the street on Stony Island Ave. one time and he stopped in the middle of the street and cursed me out for a good two minutes, stopping all traffic, before moving on.
Where has the civility gone? When did people get so self-centered that it became an every man for himself world? When did people cease to recognize that they share the world with over 6 billion other people and we have to share it to get along? I am reminded of the extreme hubris of Oedipus on the road to Thebes when he met his own father, and not knowing the man to be his own father demanded that he pull over to the side of the road to let him pass. The father, a king in his own right, refused and the resulting fight resulted in the death of the father and the chain of events that led to Oedipus marrying his own mother and bringing about the ruin of Thebes. At some point, "I'm more important than you," becomes "My country is more important than yours," or "My religion is the one true religion,"or "my way of life is right and yours is wrong," and the possibility of bringing the entire planet to ruin through extreme acts of self-centered hubris becomes a real possibility.
Mothers, teach your children to share. Encourage them. Let them know that they are important, but so are 6.2 billion other people. And thank you Rodney King for that one bit of wisdom, "Why can't we just all get along?" We can, when we all begin to recognize that we share the planet with a lot of other people, and they all think they are right and important too.
R.D. Ray