Stairs Make Life Fascinating
Grumpy friend
I have a grumpy friend. Her name’s Monica. I call her Monica the Grumbler. The curious thing about her is that, objectively, she has little, next to nothing, to moan about. Monica has a decent job, not a great passion, but one that brings her solid money, short of mundane and doesn’t have to be carried home to work on after hours or at weekends. Her family is fine too! One teenage daughter, miraculously devoid of all the anger characteristic of her age — unfailingly serene, kind and diligent at school. The husband? Very supportive, even at the time of changing nappies. As a family, they’ve always had enough money for greater and little pleasures like travelling. And yet, Monica is grumpy, constantly focussed on finding fault with everything and anything. She has either too much of something or too little, never reaching the sufficient zone.
I like her. I really do! Her personality, attitude towards life, general frame of mind invariably get me into a philosophical mood. Recently, for example, she has announced tragically that her life isn’t fascinating! I pondered upon this awhile and came to the conclusion (not to be shared with her though) that yes, she’s right, absolutely! Why? Let’s consider this:
What makes life fascinating?
Interesting people, e.g. children, around you? Partially. Chic clothes, posh cars, swish furniture? Partially. Exciting hobby like bungee jumping, hang-gliding or breeding spiders? Traveling to exotic places? Partially.
Why ‘partially’? Because all of the things mentioned come from the external world, and the quality of fascinating comes from the inside. If you’ve killed the inner child, even meeting Mick Jagger in a local grocery store or a trip to Mars won’t help. And, the other way round, if you’ve managed to keep up this natural curiosity, you don’t have to have much, really, only ears and eyes wide open to be ready to absorb fascinating things going on around you on a daily basis. All right, the question is: do you have it ?
Let’s take a test
Some time ago I went to a shopping mall. So I’m going down on the escalator. I let it take me slowly as I’m in no hurry at all, but cheerful and relaxed. I look down before me and I notice an elegant thirtyish woman with a little girl. They are trying to climb the escalator up! I think, “Wow! What a superb fun they’ve come up with! I’m impressed! A great idea! By the way, I wonder if it’s feasible at all to go up the escalator going down. That’s the question! Ha ha! I’ll have to try it myself another time!” However, the closer I get to the ladies, I notice with bewilderment that they’re not actually laughing or even smiling…They are both dead serious and focussed on the goal of climbing up! In the blink of an eye it dawns on me why. At the bottom of the stairs, near them, uncertain, afraid to make an utter fool out of myself I explain, “This escalator here takes you down. The one on the other side takes you up.” They both give me a grave look, their faces blank, their eyes absent. The elder one responds, “Aha. Thank you.” And off they go.
My friend’s result from the test
I shared the story with Monica the Grumbler, asking her how on earth they didn’t know? How is it possible? My friend’s reaction was, “Oh, come on, Marta! You’re always overdoing things, seeing things that don’t exist! Why are you making such a fuss about it? Give me a break!” She added that the chic chick was simply in a hurry, didn’t know the layout of the mall, couldn’t find the stairs up so she thought that this escalator was the only means to get her upstairs and that’s the end of the story!
General comment on the test
Well, I’m convinced there’s more to the story than this. Who on earth, for other reasons than sheer fun, attempts to climb up the escalator going in the opposite direction? Who would normally assume that in a huge mall there’s a single flight of stairs going down only? If the lady with the child did happen not to spot the escalator going in the desired direction, why didn’t she go and search for one instead of climbing the wrong stairs? We can suppose she was being absent-minded at that time as I am much too often, putting a remote into the fridge for example. But if that was the case, when confronted, she would naturally have become red in the face right away or giggled nervously, implying, “Oh, God! I’ve drifted away. How stupid of me! It’s so embarrassing!” She seemed absolutely serious, didn’t feel embarrassed, didn’t feel anything, emotionless like a machine. She got the data, processed it and moved on to the place indicated. She behaved as if she hadn’t known how escalators worked in general. How come she didn’t know? She was neat and tidy, smartly dressed. She did look like a modern person who’d visited shopping malls thousands of times before and should be well aware of what such malls are equipped with. Or at least she did surely look like a person who had access to the Internet or TV or the press, so she must have seen escalators somewhere or read about them! No?
Jeeeez! Who were they? What planet did they come from? It’s so fascinating! Incredible! Unbelievable!
Monica the Grumbler didn’t pass the test. Have you?
