100

I guess this is my 100th post. It’s taken me a little over a year to get to this point.

I was hoping to make some monumental commemoration for this joyous occasion but instead I’m going to talk about how I am a stereotypical American.

I’ve been reading Life of Pi for the past week or so. I decided after owning it since 9/29/06 I should read it. (I know this because I’m using the receipt as a bookmark)

Pi is a boy from India who is stuck on a Life boat in the ocean with a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. Don’t worry, I’m not giving anything away, this is all on the cover of the book.

I was riding my normal commute on the A train this morning and reading about Pi. He started talking about fear.

“The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself further to fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.” – Pi

So here I am defeating my fear. I thought I was going to die on the subway this morning.

She was small. If not a petite woman then perhaps a teenage girl. She stood near the door adjusting her hand on the pole so no skin would show. But I saw her thumb before she could hide it. Then I looked at the place where her head was. I was trying to find her eyes. As I searched my fear built up from the pit of my stomach. The back of my neck tingled as all my hairs stood on end. She could blow up this train. She might have a bomb secured around her waist and no one would know.

I got angry at myself. Why should I assume anything about this woman merely because I couldn’t see her eyes? It’s frustrating to think that I, when I try not to be prejudice, am prejudice.

I don’t really know what else to say here. I stayed on the train and pretended to read my book, all the while clinging to my pole and wondering if it would be obvious if I switched trains at the next stop.

I’m not sure how to resolve it. Living in New York has a different set of fears than most places. A city that still panics whenever a fire breaks out in a building or something explodes doesn’t leave much comfort when that city still does not know how to respond in an emergency situation.

I live on an island. I’m surrounded by a sea of 8 million people.

I wonder if i will still be here in a year and what I will be writing about on my 200th post.