sadpanda

So I saw Le Temps du Loup (The Time of the Wolf) last night, and there was a long segment where the camera just looked out the window of a train as the French countryside went by. It reminded me of the trips I've taken on the train, before I learned that Amtrak is the most ridiculously untrustworty mode of transportation ever concieved by a human brain.

But I would ride the train and look out the window and see the towns and country that you can't quite appreciate while in a car. Maybe it's the comfortable seating and the quiet, gentle rocking of the train. But I look out the window, and I see these houses and neighborhoods, and I wonder about their lives, their families, their beliefs, their passions. In those moments, I wish I knew rather than wondered.

In those moments, I wish I knew all of their lives. I don't know why the impulse is so strong, or why it makes me a little sad that I'm just passing through their lives on a train, never to see their faces, their places, or their personal worlds. I comfort myself in the fact that these people probably aren't fundamentally different from myself (unless I'm going through that rather depressing and industrial stretch through Los Angeles). And I realize that, although I don't know their lives, I have a life of my own that God or circumstance has given me the privelege of experiencing.