I was riding the Bart a couple days ago and was standing at the door, waiting for the Powell Street station to slide into view. As I was standing there, this dishevled guy gets up and stands next to me. “Did we just pull out of Civic Center?”, he asked. “No, we’re just now pulling into Powell. Civic Center is after this.”, I told him. We stood their for a couple of odd seconds and he asked me, “Who won the game.” Since I really didn’t even know what sport he was referring to and I didn’t want to get into a big discussion about how I should be following ________ball and don’t, I simply replied, “I don’t know.”
What was amazing to me in all of this is how much different we were in interpretting that which was around us. While I felt that I probably had a better grasp on linear time than this fellow, I’m sure the train operator would feel she had an even better grasp than me, seeing as she knew all the stations ahead and exactly when we’d be pulling into them.
Obviously relativity is not a new concept. But, it’s funny to me how a something like that, which in theory is a constant that is constantly changing can be thrown so out of whack by human perception.
I guess we’re all just a bunch of planets, with our own orbits. Occassionally we get close to other ones, but generally stay to our own path and see things our own ways. Silly animals we humans are.

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