Reflective Transmission
How reflections share parts of people we rarely ever see.
One of my favorite aspects of riding the Amtrak — at night, from Boston to New York Penn Station specifically — is how the train accommodates anonymous staring.
I mean really watching people. Digging in, gaze affixed, uninterrupted, for minutes at a time. Easily done without notice in the reflection of the car’s interior windows. Public staring is frowned upon, only if the starer gets caught.
Why… are our long looks… so… inappropriate?
I reckon it frightening for the subject simply because it is so known that staring is so not OK that anyone doing it must be deranged or without eyelids or a vegetable.
I am none of the above, to my knowledge. Staring is interest and interest in others is natural — even evolutionarily beneficial. Window glass provides a fine shelter from the awkward and intrusive, all while advancing the species.
In practice, prolonged staring grants a raw glimpse at humanity. A sample size of 2–3 minutes offers parts of a person that few will ever know: real defining characteristics. Alone amongst others, they share finely tuned emotional responses reflective of true self — distinct from the self manufactured for others.
Whether reading, watching a movie, consumed by thought internally… look for reactions. A facial twitch. A scratch of the scalp. Eyes can be especially telling. Watch how they sit in the head, how they dart. How they look and process as others walk by. Note how the body fidgets in-seat. Posture says a lot. Focus on the shoulders.
A body in this state is a car at idle. Just running, waiting for input past ignition. Ready to work. Free of a foot on a pedal and shifting gears. Steady, natural.
Mechanics first listen to the car at idle. Waiting for ticks, skips, clanks: subtle notes, painting a picture of the complex machine lying below. A person is no less complicated. We sway, smile, furrow the brow. Focus and float. Each in our own way.
Properly functioning engines have their own unique cadences, too. Quirks sought by car lovers, pining for the purr of an old Jaguar or the nuanced growl of the ’70 Chevelle. Distinguishing features — far from the banal, yet reliable, hum of a new Corolla — are bought at a premium.
For humans, rhythms of the seemingly inactive self offer a gauge of our own motors. Most points — the physical notes that communicate feelings— are difficult to describe in words. How do we recognize confusion? The person looks confused. You just know their feelings. You feel them, through them.
This exchange amounts to an intricate, loaded data packet. One that computer scientists attempt to emulate via sensors and circuitry.
Maybe they will someday… provide an explanation for feeling, algorithmically isolating muscle movements in the face, drawing technical definitions of happy, sad, confused, perplexed. It’s inevitable.
For now, I lounge in the unknown. Wondering about the people I share space with. Communicating, even though we do so unknowingly.
