No one can be that shallow! Can they?

On the way home sitting on the train

When I say that I hate missing the train/bus/unreliable public transport, people tend to look perplexed at me when I give them an incredulous look at their suggestion that I perhaps run so that I don’t miss it. Ever since I started working, the one thing that I never did is run for any sort of public transport as I was always on time; rather, I believe that the public transport should wait for me which is never the case.

Running, for anything, is fine when you are young and immature of your environment and social position, unless of course you run for a living, but even that is just qualifies as an excuse. I believe that patience is a virtue; one that is sorely missing in today’s hectic and zoom zoom lifestyle. To frivolously run is to show ignorance of the one surety in life: death. Running brings you closer to death, famously proved by Albert Einstein in his Theory of Relativity as running compress the time you have allocated to perform tasks, thus compressing the time until death, all in relative. Some might say that this allows you to accomplish more task and get more out of life, but they are usually the people you see running and in most instances, for no significant reason.

Running also portrays an unappreciative nature towards the finer things in life that only come with time. For example, the age old axiom of wisdom and age; or aging of cognac in century old oak barrels; or romance of luxury cruise liners and rail travel; or the fine patina on Vuittons that takes years develop; or the rich history of art and aristocracy; or the miracle of compound interest; or the sense and sensibilities of an era gone by.

The movie Sliding Doors is a testament to the horrors of running and in particular, running for public transport. The movie documents the alternatives of Gwenth Paltrow’s character when she misses the train. The what if she made it scenario involved her living dull and boring life void of the finer things in life. The what if she didn’t make it scenario involved her meeting and falling in love with a beautiful stranger, exploring new boundaries and enjoying the finer things in life. Perhaps that will happen to me when I next miss the train.

But the other night on the train home, I saw a girl running frantically towards the closing doors. She wasn’t exactly svelte and moved remarkably fast for someone of her large stature. She made it of close, managing to slide between the doors before they closed. She was also wearing a bag slung across her chest; the bulk of which was on the other side of the train doors – now locked. She was trapped between the proverbial rock and the hard place, in this case, between looks of amusement and embarrassment. Perhaps if she was nimble or possessed the extraordinary flexibility of a yoga master, she might have freed herself from her bag. So as the train started to move, her expression turned to absolute fear, her friends screaming out loud and me, sitting there, smiling inwardly knowing that I had caught the express train with the next stop not due for a long time.

So now people might understand why I don’t run for public transport. The what ifs of not making it outweigh the what ifs of making it. And more importantly, I might ruin my shoes, my expensive shoes.

posted by tykang @ 5/14/2005 12:48:00 PM