For some, a city bus trip means going to work or going to school—the everyday commute. For me, a city bus trip meant a class assignment. This past week, I took the city MTA bus to the Walters Art Museum. Although I did have reservations about taking Baltimore City public transportation, the trip turned out to be quite enjoyable.
I started off by boarding the MTA bus at Charles Street and Coldspring Lane. There were a ton of people on this bus—and only three seats were available when I boarded. I started, again, to observe the other people with whom I’m sharing the bus. There looked to be people of many different socioeconomic statuses—from the very poor man in the middle of the bus, with only a dirty shirt and torn jeans, to a group of white, middle-class men sitting toward the front of the bus, presumably on their way to work. It made me think about how choices in people’s lives lead them to where they are today. Did the dingy looking man make bad choices that led him to what I believed he was living, a life of despair and poverty? Or was it just simply bad luck or even an unfortunate upbringing? Did the middle class men make good decisions to get them to where they are today—going to work with nice briefcases and nice khakis? Or did they get there by deceit? These thoughts obviously made me turn to think about O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Where these people “good men?” I simply couldn’t tell from the very few observations I was able to make. They could be white-collar criminals, murderers, sexual offenders, or any other type of bad person; how was I to know? On the other hand, they could be dedicated fathers, loving husbands, preachers, teachers, and a whole slew of other things—again, I just couldn’t tell. So this brings me to the central questions: is a good man hard to find and should be trust everyone?
Some might say that we are all good people deep down. Someone else may say that there are many bad people all around us. My answer is quite simple—we should trust people, with caution and reservation, until they prove themselves otherwise. If a person has a preconceived notion that someone is not a good person or is not trustworthy, they just did a very dangerous thing. They discounted that person. And who knows, that person who one may write off immediately could actually turn out to be someone very special in his or her life. I had a similar experience in high school. There was a kid in my class who I immediately decided that I didn’t like, simply because of what one person told me. Our teacher paired us in Spanish class, making it impossible to ignore him. As the semester went on, we actually because quite good friends. If our teacher hadn’t brought us together and made us work together, he wouldn’t be my best friend today. So my advice would be this: don’t skip up the chance of getting to know something, because you never know how it will turn out. This also relates to the topic of which we were discussing in class two weeks ago—living college life to its fullest. We should take every opportunity that comes our way, because tomorrow is never guaranteed and that opportunity may never come around again.
Now back to the museum. After about thirty minutes on the bus, I arrived at the Walters Art Museum on Charles Street in downtown Baltimore. The Walter’s is an amazing place. My favorite exhibit is the Walter Wick exhibit—the guy who made the iSpy books that I loved so much as a kid. The pictures were absolutely amazing as were the sculptures. If anyone is considering going to a museum, I would highly recommend the Walter’s. You get to experience not only the museum, but the Cultural District of the city as well.
Taking the MTA bus was a great decision. It gives you an opportunity to really look at others, which helps you look at your like, and others, in ways that one would never think possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment