And I'm Gone

Do you ever hear the silence anymore?  Ever just stop and listen?  Maybe that's not how I should have phrased it.  Or rather, I think I should have separated my original two questions.  So let me try this again.  Do you ever listen to the world around you anymore?  Is it ever anything beyond the blur of voices and clicks and rumbles and ticks of electronics and the roar of engines going past?  Do you remember what the world sounds like in any way other than a backdrop?

Every voice is a person.  Behind each piece of technology are more people.  In the rumbling contraption that is a vehicle are still more people.  All of them with lives and families and thoughts and feelings.  And it's so easy to forget that everyone is like this.  It's so much easier to think of them as machines that should do as they're told and make rational decisions.  It's hard to admit that other people are just like us...or perhaps that we are just like other people.  We don't want to face the reality that all of us have lives and concerns.

Admitting to ourselves that we are surrounded by other individuals no less deep or sincere or thoughtful than us forces us to reconsider how we treat those around us, how we think of them, what we say.  It's harder to ruthlessly victimize and mock someone once you know their situation and understand their troubles.  It's human nature to sympathize.  And as soon as we know enough about someone to do so, we immediately begin to.

We watch the news and read the stories about loved ones dying and family members disappearing and all of us constantly think and hope that it will never happen to us.  And then sometimes it does.  Sometimes people are stolen from us, sometimes permanently and sometimes not.  It's a life-altering situation and one that also changes our perspective.  We find ourselves able to sympathize with a group of people we never understood before.

And sometimes I can't help but wonder, what happens when it's our turn?  When we vanish from someone's life, how will they react?  Maybe it will be monumental and maybe it will mean next to nothing.  Maybe it will change certain people's lives  and leave intact the lives of others.  But there is no sense in wondering.  All we can know is that it's true.

One day, we will be gone.