So I’m hiking along a bike trail next to a canal in the woods. It’s a walk I take frequently – a couple of flat miles each way that gets me off my ass, out of my office chair and upright for a couple hours or so each day.
I usually go in the late afternoon, but for some reason this day I’m out early and it’s hot. I reach the halfway mark, a yellow barred metal gate guarding the entry to an old railway line crossing the path and stop. And I hear something.
A panting, grumbling, metallic thump thump thump heading towards me up the rail line.
At first, because of the light and shadows, I can’t see what the heck it is. And then this girl appears, head down, pushing a beach cruiser, backpack slung over the seat, wheels whumping the ties, banging front and back, jarring her hands, arms and shoulders.
thump thump thump
And over it all is this stream of consciousness muttering… “… goddamned stupid…whatever did I…. why…. damn son… me…”
I stand there, debating. Say something? Not say something? Let her just pass?
thump thump thump
“Are you okay?”
Her head jerks up. Spying me, within moments she morphs from tired determination into a wilted leaf. She drops the bike with a CRASH! and melts to the ground, sitting precariously on one of the hot metal ties. “Can you help me?” she asks.
Hmmmm. Can I? Should I? I examine her, curiously. She looks about 17, in good health and not overweight. She’s worked up a good sweat. But then so have I. She’s also within 300 yards of the local highway at the end of the path I’m walking, and from there about a one-mile easy pedal into town.
I, on the other hand, have my left arm in a cast, am two miles from my car and pushing 62. Not that I feel my age or anything—and not that I’m incapable of helping. But for some reason the girl irritates me and I don’t move. She absorbs my reluctance and starts to cry. “Please help me,” she whimpers.
I have no desire whatsoever to help.
It’s shocking, but as I examine my pitless reaction, I realize it’s because there’s no sense of genuine lostness about her. No sense of incapacity. No sense of trauma. No sense of genuine injury. She was, I realized, playing out the ego game of “oh poor me” —at approximately the level of a seven-year no less. And don’t we all know what that looks like? Pouty pentulence bent on having its way no matter what.
Relieved, I nod towards the highway. “Why don’t you just ride your bike to the road and head into town? It’s only a mile.”
She struggles to her feet, makes a big deal out of picking up the bike and starts pushing. The front wheel jams against a railroad tie. “Fuck!” She slams the bike to the ground again.
I am unmoved. My lack of reaction puzzles her. With nothing else to do, she picks up the bike and arduously labors past me, ignoring the trail and the nearby highway, opting for the more difficult job of continuing to push a bike down the railroad ties.
thump thump thump…
Shaking my head I turn around and head back. Such determination to be miserable! And how often have I done that? How often had I unnecessarily chosen the difficult path in life just to ensure continued struggle so I could live out my ego’s need to feel badly used and righteous in my unhappiness? Yet even as I identify with her, I wonder.
Have I seen correctly?
Or did I just project my own garbage onto her? Was there something else going on that I missed? Did she really need help? I’m not an unhelpful person…
Two miles later I was still thinking about it. Two days later I was still thinking about it. I’m still thinking about it. And all I can come up with is that it felt right not to help. And—if we’re not going to play ego games with one another (my ego need to seem helpful playing to her victim)— isn’t that all we can ever do? Trust our inner intuitive felt sense of things?
Our bodies don’t lie. They pick up information seen and unseen. And how many times have I trusted my head and regretted it? Gotten stuck in situations doing exactly what I didn’t want to be doing or shouldn’t have been doing, angry at myself, thinking I should have “known better.”
So why was I bothering second-guessing? Shouldn’t I be congratulating myself? Shouldn’t I be happy I’d followed something other than the social norm—the ego voice in my head that says to be “nice” I should do this and this and such and such?
Yes, it felt right. And yes, I’m learning to trust this other voice. But still… I wonder.