Strange Encounters

Last sunday I was returning home, on a train headed to London Liverpool. I had spent the last two or three days having a few ideas for a project of mine and I had been reading a book on the life of Jesus (the part of his life that isn't mentioned in the bible).

So I was entertaining all these historical and philosophical viewpoints on existence, saviour complex, religion and meditative experience when life decided to knock down the door.

The train doors opened and this drunken guy in his mid fifties or something came in and sat opposite to me, on the other side of the train.

I tried to keep to myself but he started talking. And, as it usually happens, even though I did not want to hear what he was saying I couldn't help but hear.

He kept complaining about his life and how it was worthless now that his mom and sister had both died, within a short time of one another. He cried a bit here and there. I felt I should comfort him in some way only I didn't know how.

These situations are awkward. You want to do something but, I at least, just don't know what. I mean, it was obvious that he wanted attention and someone to listen to him. Especially after he noticed me actually paying attention to what he was saying.

I thought, here I am, reading all this stuff about Jesus and yet I'm utterly unable to interact in a positive way. I mean, the guy was saying that he was going to commit suicide and everything. Now I know that, if this happens, it's probably because they're never going to do it. But, just how much should we chance with our silence?

I don't know how we engaged but the fact remains that we did. We started talking.

And his story started to unwind.

If I am to believe what he told me (and I have no reason to doubt - his emotions were far too real for him to be faking it) then this man was an ex-colonel from the army and he was, at some point, stationed in Afghanistan.

And he saw some of his buddies being blown to bits.
One moment they were there.
The next they were fragments and red blood all over the place.

And the question he kept asking was why?
Why to kill someone?
Why make war on someone we don't even know or see?
Why them instead of me?

Last week I read Waltz With Bashir. An amazing graphic novel that I urge everybody to read if they want to know a bit more about what war experience really is about.
Some people will block out things so much they won't even remember them anymore.
But some will always remember.
And, in one way or another, all will have to live with the weight of those memories. Either by recognising something they can never remove from them, or by feeling that a part of them has been lost.

So, to a certain extent, I was more ready to empathise with him.

I told him that it is ok to cry. That he should live to honour the memory of those that he knew that died. That life is worthwhile living. That he should give himself another chance. That he should see a doctor and do a checkup. If he had someone, a professional ideally, that he could talk about these things. That the past is the past. That the past is there, not here. That he can still make a positive contribution and help others.

We both exited at Liverpool. We was supposed to have left in Stratford but he decided to stay a bit longer so that we could talk a bit more.

Throughout all this I was well aware that people sitting around in the train might be overhearing our conversation. But I tried to pay more attention to the man in front of me than to my thoughts of shame and of feeling exposed.

After leaving the train he told me about this love he has in the US and he asked me to pray for them both. He talked about Jesus and how there is a child in my life that is going (or will be) in a lot of problems but that everything will be alright after this is over. That i just need to have hope because all will be fine.

I didn't know really what to reply to that. I had felt that the initial purpose of the conversation had gone and that now it was time to depart.
He saw this of course. He saw my doubt of some of his words and sent it back at me. At least these days I'm a bit more comfortable with my own doubts and so more or less stayed my ground.

He also told me that, whenever I needed him, he would be there. Maybe we both would not know how, but he would.

I wished him well, for him to take care of himself, and I left.

I made my way back home thinking about all of this. About this story and the others floating around in my head. How everything sometimes seems to connect in these most unexpected ways.
This made think of that well known idea of how we create the reality around us. How there are no coincidences but only a convergence of factors, what is perhaps best known as the law of attraction, that there is an active, direct, continuous relationship between what happens inside of you and what's around you. And, existential concerns aside (ie, whatever is the nature of things), I believe that this is true to a great extent.

In any case, the purpose of this is not to drive any of you into my own existential dillemmas but simply to share with you an experience that affected me in some way. And that helped me escape some of my patterns.

I don't know if there's any lesson here to be extracted. I just feel that I am happy that I had the opportunity and seized it in this way.
More often than not I feel that if we ever are going to contribute to this world in a positive way, it's in simple things like this. Not by writing the book that will make everyone gasp but by being there when someone needs you. Especially if you don't even know that person and you have to cross that big boundary of the unknown (and the all too natural fear that comes with it) to reach him or her.
But also that, despite everything, books and words are a bit like the plough tending the field. It doesn't change the quality of the soil. But it helps making it ready for the planting.

Through the word we act.

Peace.