A Commuter's Thoughts
Every morning I take the train. Every morning at the same time. And
every morning I meet the same people. It’s not as if we know each
other. We never talk, don’t say, ‘Hello’, don’t even nod at each other
in passing.
Yet I feel like we know each other. I know what you look like, notice
when you don’t carry the usual morning takeaway cup of black coffee.
That is how often I stood right behind or just in front of you in the
queue to get my own.
I wonder if you are on holidays if you’re not on the train or if you’re
simply running late this morning. Or maybe you changed jobs. Maybe you
won the lotto and don’t need to get up every morning to join the rat
race like the rest of us.
On days where I don’t give in to daydreams of winning the lotto myself
while staring at the passing landscape, I read. I open my book, as I do
every morning, only after we pass the first stop. That is how long it
takes me to finally tear my eyes off you and bring my mind to other
things. I need to escape reality before work pulls me back to Earth.
All too soon, the monotone voice announces my stop and I close my book
only to join the throng of people leaving the train at this big
station. No wonder they call it a rat race.
Sometimes a thought springs to mind, but then I quench it as soon as it
tries to take up residence in my head. However, it is relentless and
keeps coming back every few weeks; especially on days when I forget my
book and have nothing to entertain me but my own thoughts.
It always begins the same. I look around the train and watch my fellow
commuters. I see you sip your coffee while reading the free paper they
hand out at the station. I see others work on their laptops. And even
more are trying to get another five minutes of snoozing into their day.
The train is packed as usual and no matter what everyone does on the
train, we all have the same purpose: get to work on time. Then I look
out the window and see the scenery fly past. I see the coastline. It’s
pretty, even on rainy days like today. Down below us, the waves are
crashing against the shore, relentlessly, without regard to dog
walkers, jumping to avoid the spray.
By the time I jump off the train onto the platform, the thought hits me again, full force:
We’re only pawns in the game of life.
We’ve all seen these movies; the ones where we’re all brainwashed by
villains, controlled by some higher beings, nothing more than
instruments in an orchestra of life.
On days like these, I concur. I see us all get up in the morning. I see
us go to work. I see the masses of people go about their life like ants
would at an ant hill.
While speaking of Higher Beings, it has to be said that I
don’t believe in God. There is just something wrong about the whole
idea. To me, anyway. However, philosophical questions pop up in my head
often enough.
Technically speaking, I know where I come from. I firmly believe in
evolution and am not shy to agree that I once used to live up a tree
and ate fleas off my partner’s back. I know we evolved from simple
organisms that happened to happen by pure coincidence millions of years
ago. After the Universe exploded in the big bang and the planets
formed.
But what caused that explosion? Because, if at first there was Nothing,
how could Nothing explode? This is where the theory comes back, of an
expanding and contracting Universe – our Universe is expanding at
present, up to a point where, like a rubber band, it will have reached
its limit and contract again.
This brings me to two more questions rather than an answer. For one,
how can the Universe, as it is endless, find a point where it cannot
expand any further. And then, what is it expanding in?
Which, in turn, brings me to the Multiverse idea. Maybe our Universe,
vast as it undoubtedly is, isn’t a Universe at all? Maybe the Universe
is just a small part of a larger system – much like our very own Milky
Way or any other Galaxy is only a small (millions upon millions of
miles wide kind of small) part of our Universe.
But, no matter how much I ponder that – because it can be done
endlessly with one Universe in the next – much like a Russian Baboushka
doll only to find it never ends and there’s always another doll inside,
there’s one more question:
How did the Multiverses come to be? What or who made those? And are the
creators of it all aware that we’re here? I have my doubts that we are
important enough in the game to be of any consequence at all. Our
planet as a whole strikes me as unimportant, which makes me laugh at
all the blockbuster movies. Aliens attacking Earth – but no, they’re
not! They’re only attacking one country, sometimes only the capital
city.
Is it our own arrogance that makes us think we’re that important; makes
us produce movies showing how important we are? Or is it our need to
satisfy our understanding of how things work and our hope that
somewhere out there is a being, however alien or familiar, who has the
answers to these questions?
How many people have been rendered insane by these questions and is it
normal to feel your brain twist into insane knots that won’t come apart
again?
Is this the reason that most of our planet’s population believes in one
God or another or several at once? Because there is no obvious answer
to all these things and it simply offers a stand-in until sometime,
possibly, someone stands up and gives us a definitive on all the
questions?
I stumble as I walk up the few steps to my office building, firmly
pulled back into reality, wondering if this really is a reality or if
maybe, like in some movies, we’re only a figment of someone else’s
imagination. Could it be that somewhere, someone is making a small note
next to my name, marking me as 'to be monitored' because I query my
existence? I shake my head firmly. All this pondering won’t get me a
paycheque at the end of the month. So I put these thoughts firmly out
of my mind until the next day I forget my book.
