Get to stepping
One lovely fall day I was walking down a street in New York City on my way to a friend’s place. It was mid afternoon on a weekday, so all the kids were just getting out of school. Anyone who has walked down residential blocks in New York knows the sidewalks are framed by parked cars on both sides. I mention that because I was walking along one side of the street, half listening to some random podcast when I noticed a group of school kids on the other side.
They were running down the sidewalk, being loud, and then they jumped over something and kept going. Kids being kids. I thought nothing of it.
A moment later I crossed to their side of the street, because risking my life at a New York crosswalk feels like an unnecessary hobby. There I saw what they had casually jumped over.
A homeless man lay completely zonked out on the sidewalk.
I also thought nothing of it. I walked around him and continued on my way as if he were a bench or a pile of bags.
A block later it hit me.
How is that normal. How is that a situation that elicits no reaction from me or from the kids who jumped over him. These kids stepped over a man who, in hindsight, could have been dead. The odds were low, but it’s New York so it’s not zero. He may as well have been a rock.
What struck me more was that I did the same thing. And I think if I had not seen the kids jump first, if I had not been primed by their indifference, I might never have noticed how insane the moment was.
There was a man lying motionless on a sidewalk in the middle of the day and eight year olds were so used to it they did not break stride.
I remember thinking this is what happens when you compress millions of people into a small space long enough. The extraordinary becomes background. People have died on subway trains and ridden for hours before anyone noticed. Screams get ignored and suffering blends into the noise.
My next question to myself was why density does this? Why the more “humans” you pack together the less “humane” they become. That question has no clean answer and depends on who you ask so I defer to your therapist or sociologist friend.
The harder question came next.
What else do people step over that’s not so clear cut?
Not in the city but in life.
The answer is yourself. One of the easiest people to step over is a version of yourself you once promised not to abandon. At first it feels temporary. You tell yourself you will come back for them. You ask them to wait while you keep moving. Then time passes. The person you left behind becomes part of the street. Something you no longer look down at. If you did, you would have to answer why they are still there. After enough times, you stop noticing them at all.
And once something becomes normal, it stops registering. Homelessness. Indifference. Small betrayals of self and others. No one can fight every battle, but surrendering entirely makes you part of the mechanism that keeps the insane feeling ordinary or from going unnoticed.
Nothing teaches faster than repetition. Just ask anyone who has played a sport, learnt a new language or an instrument. Not explanation not rules. What we step over becomes the lesson. And eventually, it becomes the norm. We like to think we are choosing but most of the time we are just practicing. And whatever you practice long enough becomes second nature. True rebellion to this is not overthrowing the world or turning into an ultra marathoner to overthrow yourself, but refusing to lie about it. The only revolt left is awareness of the right things, since hyper awareness of everything usually ends in the psych ward. To step carefully, knowing what lies underfoot and where it leads.