Another Shift

Today was the first day that I chose to sit in the shade. I'd gotten so used to having the sun on me that the darker side of things felt eerily cold. Though it was far from winter, I felt deeply shaken and unsettled, uprooted from comfort. The pillars around me provided stripes of cover much like trees in a forest. Above me was a canopy that these pillars held up, and tiny beams of sunlight peaked through to reach me. I chose to be patient today. I chose not to rush from building to building, from class to class, from failure to success, from expense to investment. I decided to take a moment and breathe - survey my surroundings.

When I stopped and looked, under the wings of a shadowy sanctuary, I noticed the hundreds of people who bolted from Point-A to Point-C. I could hear the marching of their shoes, heels, slippers, and flats, all working in unison toward a cause unknown. I saw human beings swallowed up by piles of brick and concrete, only to later be regurgitated with newfound scars of tiredness and misery. I watched as people lurched over to lift their bags, barely managing to heave all of the knowledge they paid for on their shoulders. They were sweating under the sun and here I sat, amenities by my side, pondering the foolishness of these passerby. 

This system of being cannot be so simple that a night of rest and dreaming somehow removes or repudiates the damage done only a day before. Humans are surely not so base, so simplified, that the comforts of their beds may magically allow them to forget the cost accompanied with having a roof over their heads, or walls to protect them. They must know that the moment the alarm rings, every aching muscle in their frail bodies will twitch and lung forward in eager masochism toward another day of sun-lit toil. Little did I know, until I found myself beneath this canopy, that in order to recognize my humanity, I needed to break from every articulated and mechanical motion that so defines what it means to be a part of the functioning societies of the world. 

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