Travelling via public transport gives you unparalleled opportunities to engage in that most city-like of activities: people watching. I know this because, for the last few days, as I’ve headed into Sydney to complete some basic training for my new job as an Organiser, I’ve done exactly that. It takes about an hour – sometimes more, sometimes less – to get from Penrith to Central, and that’s more than enough time to be swept along in flights of fancy about my fellow passengers.
Like the father and son (I presume) that were travelling together on the train. They didn’t say a word the whole trip (we were in the quiet carriage, after all) but instead communicated by showing each other things that they were reading on their iPads or ‘phones. At one point, I think they might have been texting each other.
Or the hardened travellers that know exactly how to make the journey as tolerable as it possibly can be – the ones who know exactly where each carriage of the train stops, and which seats are the best ones, and come prepared with books and travel mugs and umbrellas. Mess with them at your peril.
But far and away the best part about the trip is watching the little social interactions between people. I like the dance that people do – all without saying anything or even making eye contact. Like the way somebody will sit on the aisle seat, and if somebody wishes to sit in the vacant window seat, then that necessitates the aisle-sitter moving into the aisle, letting the window-sitter in, and then returning to their seat. It would be so much easier to move over. But that’s not how it works.
And for all those people who argue that we don’t engage with each other anymore – I challenge you to look at some old photos from last century. Sure, people didn’t have mobile phones, but they had newspapers, and they were just as effective for hiding people from each other.