Bus Crazy or Bus Wisdom?
I was on the bus a few nights ago. I was standing by the door and noticed a woman sitting to my left. She was likely in her early or mid 30′s. She had a ridiculous smile on her face…almost glazed in its presentation. She lifted her hand to her head. She plucked a piece of hair from the back of her head and twisted it between her finger and thumb. She then put it in her mouth. I could not be sure but she then either ate it or licked it and dropped it on the floor. She smiled and mumbled something to herself and repeated the process every few seconds.
After watching this for a while I thought of how seers, shamans, and prophets are seen as separate from the rest of society. Did she hold wisdom? Was her internal dialogue one of ecstatic joy? My final assessment was she was just nuts. I love the bus; it’s better than TV.
Perhaps she had seen the recent tv show on the young woman who would routinely pluck one or two hundred hairs out of her head — one at at time — whenever she was depressed. Which demonstrates both how many thousands of hairs we have on our heads and how common this kind of maladaptive behaviour must be.
Come to think of it, I knew a woman, many years ago, who would bite her toe nails when she was upset; but, as she was good-looking, I never complained about watching her do it when she wore shorts!
Riding the bus is a lot like watching tv these days — too crowded with human dross.