Complete with cinema-scope dual flat screen computer monitors, bean bag, and renovation tools and materials strewn about, Ben’s haphazard London flat awaited my arrival this evening while I took the train ride home from Liverpool Street Station after a visit to the Royal Academy with Christopher Scott. While sitting in the dirty sed seats of the grungy train, I had the opportunity to investigate one of the over abundant social vessels of modern society: the able bodied London young adult. Of the male variety, this specimen had a brown dinner jacket of reasonable quality and a simple but elegant black pull over tight to the neck. Obviously returning home after an evening with friends, on his right hand was a humble brass coloured bracelet and on his left was flashy silver watch of unimportant make. His expensive brown leather shoes made his ripped and faded jeans all the more stylish, which I think was the point. He had rather ghastly dagger side burns.
What completely annoyed me and I suppose inspired me to take careful aim at observation was the way he ate his Big Tasty McDonald’s hamburger, balancing the flimsy paper box awkwardly on his right thigh. Luckily, his carbonated sugar beverage was handy on the seat next to him in case he became irresponsibly thirsty.
McDonald’s ubiquity has made it a lightning rod for criticism from numerous fronts. Vegetarian groups, farmers, university students, labour groups, and groups from practically every foreign country have attacked McDonald’s for damaging people’s health with bad food, using produce from huge factory farms, invading college student centres, using toys made in sweatshops, being the front-man for economic globalization, and every kind of global cultural hegemony. People like fast food because it can taste pretty good. But what they may not know about is the cocktail of chemicals that gives the French Fry its taste – nor the grisly events in the slaughterhouses that can put something nasty in the burger along with the beef. The human craving for flavour has been a largely unacknowledged and unexamined force in history. Hundreds of millions of people buy fast food every day without giving it much thought, unaware of the subtle and not so subtle ramifications of their purchases. They rarely consider where this food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them.
Despite all that, this trendy young gentleman seemed to enjoy his meal, falling fast asleep afterward with his head knocking gently against the window. My irritation continued to grow and rise to the surface like the carbon in his drink, eventually popping at the surface of contempt. I even contemplated changing seats so I wouldn’t have to stare at him extend one bite into three and three into four.
Why should I feel so aggravated at this man who was probably a couple years older than me? I had unknowingly passed judgment and the verdict was final: this man is an ignorant juvenile who probably has less to offer society than the violent obliviousness that he condones with his wallet. Doesn’t that sound like a harsh and arrogant judgment? But it was there, silent in the back of my thoughts as I surreptitiously looked at this guy and the beginnings of his beer gut.
And as everyone asks while on the Underground (I’m certain), I inquired of the pastel yellow paint of the train’s interior, to what world am I oblivious?
I bet there is someone sitting on this very train thinking to themselves as they look at me stealthily in the window’s reflection, …poor bugger, he has no idea.
And so I sat in angst, disgusted at the example of London’s finest contemporary rebel and disliking myself for being so judgmental, feeling nonetheless justified in my opinion.
It’s so easy to see differences and distinction in the world – it happens so naturally. It is inherent in the process of observation and I can feel it happen when I write these updates. On the other had, it is a Herculean feat to feel connected to someone who represents so much of what I want to avoid in the world.
A Hindu temple awaits its documentation…
Tags: travel