surviving commuting
recently i've been asked more and more frequently about commuting between brighton and london. commuting, held in much sensible dread by sane people, does have some undisclosed upsides:
travelling through some of the loveliest countryside in the south of england every weekday gives you a greater feelings of the seasons that just being in town all the time without the horror of having to live in the country
instead of viewing commuting as a chore it's rather like getting to sit in a library for an hour on the way to work and sit in a bar for an hour on the way back
trains are the unsurpassed locations for daydreaming
commuters are nice to each other, we have to do this, there is a certain blitz spirit that comes into play
finding out what other people do all day is fascinating, the amount of people who do work on the train means that next to you someone will be working on something that actually affects your day to day existance; insurance claims, building estimates, hospital policy. i've met people who organise military radio (all trots apparently), listened to numerous cabin crew bitching about thier punters, had people explain how to build helicopters - the list is endless.
strange mini-fashions appear among the commuters. the exponential growth of the ipod, among many other portable objects, is easy to predict based on use by commuters alone.
reading. lots of reading.
conversly there are of course numerous annoyances:
personal stereos: ok when personal, not usually personal. the solution is ear plugs, the kind they give out free on planes.
personal space: you own the area of that train seat, use all of it and defend it with your elbows. generally pick blocks of seats occupied by women, they are smaller and better at avoiding the general horror of having to touch a complete stranger.
the trains themselves: often late though better than they have been for years. remember you cannot make the train go faster using only the force of your rage, instead cultivate a zenlike approach. you are not in control. not even for a minute. try and enjoy it.
half term. your adults only quiet universe is dissrupted as parents run out of things to do with thier children and decided to plague the london art galleries. get an earlier train.
the sheer amount of time spent on trains. see above: make use of it for day dreaming and reading and finding out how to make helicopters. try not to think of it as dead time but rather time you get on your own with a random selection of potentially engaging people.
Posted by flambingo at May 27, 2004 04:36 PM
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