March 11, 2011

Late Night Thoughts on Public Transport

I'm sobering up on the 801 late night/early morning bus back to Union City.

I had too many drinks at the SFIAAFF opening gala and I was in an inebriated slumber when the last BART train of the night arrived in Fremont. I had missed my stop.

The nap had left me refreshed though and I could feel my brain working again.

There are only three other people on the bus, one of them being the driver, another a kindly homeless man (he told me when the next bus was coming), and a lady that just got off of work. It's almost 2am.

We all sit very far from each other making the empty space of the bus ever more present.

I don't have earphones or a book or anything I can distract myself with so I just sit and stare out the window as the bus crosses over from Fremont to UC.

I think to myself of the loneliness we all must feel sometimes. I thought of how crazy existence is, how everything I perceive and the thoughts going through my head can not be experienced by anyone else. I thought of what life would be like if we all shared the same conscience, that we were never alone and that although we may be separated physically into different bodies, our minds were of one mind.

It's a scary idea because we would lose the SELF and be part of a huge, ever flowing ocean of thought.

Why did human life on Earth turn out the way it did? It seems arbitrary and haphazard for us to be the way we are.

Someone buys a ticket and gets on the bus. I wonder what she's thinking? I wonder how different the way I perceive life is from her perception.

The bus finally arrives at the Union City BART. I thank the driver and I get off and hurry through the cold to my car, thinking now of the warm bed at home and of a deep sleep.


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