Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Rat Race

On my way to my lesson today, I descended down into the bowels of the 96th street subway station hoping that a downtown train would come quickly and whisk me away to where I needed to be. I stepped to the edge of the platform and looked down the tunnel to see if a train was nearby, when, through the sound-shield of my ipod, I heard the piercing sound of rats squealing. I looked down into the dirty cesspool of the tracks and saw two rats fighting viciously over a paper cup from McDonald's. They squealed at each other, teeth snapping ferociously, jumping to surprising heights to get out the way of their opponent's biting jaws, all while trying to make off with the used, dirty piece of litter. I puzzled over why they would battle so intensely over what, from my perspective, seemed to be a meaningless scrap of trash. Then I thought, if some other, larger being looked at my life – the battles that I choose to fight, the things that I think are important to me that I choose to worry and fret about – would they be just as baffled?

1 comment:

beholdhowfree said...

Good point. Thanks for your thoughts.