Oh, My NHI!

I absolutely love Halloween.  It's spooky, it's kooky, it's fun.  It is one time of the year where I feel completely at ease flaunting my obsession with the nightmare before christmas.  ok, i do that all year but it FEELS better in october.  

I was thinking about trick-or-treating.  some of my favorite memories from chlidhood were from halloween-

-CUT TO-
Monica, grade four.  dressed up as a witch for halloween, looking amazing, sporting warts and all- this built-in facet of her costume being the small upside to having missed the utter candy-filled party chaos that is school that week, because SHE has the chicken pox. but on halloween, she throws caution to the wind, to hell with keeping others safely away from her highly infectious malady- there's candy to be had!  she jumps into the back of her beloved dodge ram, a small pumpkin bucket in one had, a huge pillow sack in the other (note to children: people are far more willing to give you more than one piece of candy if they think you've only just started and have a few measly snickers bars, lonely and sad at the bottom of your pumpkin bucket.  Get candy, dump candy, repeat as desired.). through the pox, through the itchiness- there is nothing but revelry in the sweet milk chocolatey goodness that is hershey.  

-BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND-

As I'm sure yours are as well if you are reading this.  I called my brother alex to see what the down low was in warrington for the trick or treaters this year.  i am sad to report that this year saw even fewer treaters than the year before, which was a sadly small lot.  i live in the city now, and currently trying to get over my lack of conversing with my neighbors.  i don't know them very well, nor they me, which is a sad contrast to the close friendships i've had with neighbors past.  there's not a whole lot of trick-or-treating going on here either.  this is but a small facet of the myriad (i love that word) of ways I think that we as a society are straying away from normal human interaction.  If nothing else, halloween used to be an excuse to get to know your neighbors,  say hello and catch up for a few minutes before rushing off to fenagle yet another kit kat.  a very small amount of interaction, really, but enough to sustain a little window of relationship to someone who shares your zip code and your nearest park.  

Even at the store (which store you ask?  ALL OF THEM), normal human interaction (NHI for short) is dealt out sparingly.  i went to buy glasses yesterday and when asked how I was doing my the optometrist, my knee jerk reaction was to say "hi!".  

You all know how it is- you have a set list of responses to the generic questions and greetings you receive throughout the day-

"how are you?"
"hello!"
"what's going on?"
"how have you been?"

The answers, which are generally "good!, hi!, not much!, and 'doin great!" respectively, we interchange and use without regard to which question is actually being asked.  I caught myself, and said "wow, i'm sorry, I didn't answer your question!  actually, I'm doing very well thanks, how are you?"

This man, who I had watched for half an hour serving customers with energy and efficiency but absolutely no small talk in sight, answered, "you know, that's ok, most people don't want to talk about their REAL feelings anyway".

How sad is that?  Not that I am asking for or condoning people to be throwing all their business out on the table for everyone to see, but what happened to really and truly caring about the next joe schmoe you meet at the corner store? A helping hand, a short but sincere conversation, even a simple acknowledgment of someone's presence more extensive than "I'd like to charge that to my card, please!"

One day we're going to wake up, and there will be people too lazy to get up, walk out the door and say hello to the people who have slept in the next house over.  instead, they will go to their computer, switch on their iSight, and talk at the person, sending millions of tiny particles up into the sky and back again, in lieu of walking 5 feet into the next room.  OR, they will ignore every person within a 10 mile radius but IM someone in Arizona for three hours a day.

Oh wait, that day is already here.

What's going to happen when we start spending more of our time emailing and less of our time using our vocal chords? More time deciding on a MySpace picture than deciding whether or not to help an elderly lady carry some groceries?  

I myself have decided to make a conscious effort to really see all the people around me.  It's not easy, and I have to force myself to do it sometimes, but I care that much about making sure we stay a society of people, not one of robots who sit in front of a computer all day.  I realize this message is coming to you in a digital format, and that my job requires me to be in front of a computer all day, which pretty much completely contradicts what i've been saying.  that's why it's hard.  that's also why it's so necessary to go out and really know PEOPLE.

Let's see MySpace and the like for what they are- an opportunity to reach out to those you might not see every day, but want to.  People from your past, who you missed dearly and have found again.  These are important too, but so are the real people you see every day, even if it's the first time you've ever met them.

I'm not writing this as a scolder, or a condemner, I'm writing it as someone who seriously misses NHI, and wants us to get back to it before we end up only talking to computer screens.

We need to value each other, the conversations we've had, the memories we have and will make, before we lose the infinitely important sense of physical community.  Talk to someone you don't know today, say hi to the teller at your bank and ask her about her life, let someone know they really matter!