Traffic

Today I was sitting in rush hour traffic. It had been a very long day and all of the cars were just crawling by. I’m still not sure if there was an accident somewhere, or if the road was just congested with people headed home after-work. All I could think about sitting there in the same place, in the same situation with about 100 other people, all together, but strangely all in our own little spheres, were the little cars slowly moving around me. It made me think about the thousands and millions of people and lives and the little intricacies of it all. People getting on and off of the highway, all headed to their respective places. Cars moving around like a network, like a spider web drenched in water – drops glistening in the morning sun, spreading throughout a sinuous network. Or like little ants pouring out of a hill, on the slow daily march to and from work and home, the daily drum of activity. It is times like this when I am reminded how small I am. Sometimes I find it so easy to get wrapped up in the day to day hustle and bustle. Especially now as I am about to graduate, it is incredibly easy to get so wrapped up in the tiny bubble that is Chapel Hill and my own life that I forget how many billions of other people inhabit this planet. And then thinking about their lives, and their goals, and where they have been and all of their relationships. It intrigues me to think about.

I think about the same thing driving through neighborhoods, with all of the houses laid out in front of you. Some more up-kept than others, although most looking “perfect,” but then what about the lives of those who live inside? Each house is like a little tiny ecosystem of its own.

So sometimes I’m sitting in a huge ecosystem, a bug machine with all of the little cogs moving together, not always aware of what the others are doing, like little worker ants scurrying home. But, then again, sometimes I’m sitting in traffic, listening to horns and angry that I’m not home and angry that everyone is in my way.