I have been living in Manhattan for ten months now. In terms of population density, Manhattan wins the prize as the most densely populated region in all of the United States with 69, 427 people per square mile. *Cough.* Excuse me? What?!
Manhattan has 69, 427 people per square mile. I don't think I can imagine 69,000 people all at once, let alone within one square mile of me, repeated every mile....
One thing I have marvelled at is how the city still manages to function, supplying drinking water, removing waste, keeping traffic moving (sort of), and managing so many pedestrians and cyclists and buses and ambulances and fire trucks and delivery trucks, all with their own agendas, trying to navigate the same small footprint of roadways. NYC gets high praise for working AT ALL, given the level of service it needs to provide in such cramped surroundings.
But an inevitable down-side of all this crowding is the impatience that arises from waiting in long line after long line WHILE having some of the most demanding workplaces. "Go fast!" "Go faster!" "Do more!" "Sell more!" "Go! Go! Go!"
It is a wonder there aren't more crabby and ill-behaved humans here than I have already encountered.
And is it any wonder that most humans try to find short-cuts and quick work-arounds for the endless delays and apparently needless barriers we encounter just trying to get through our day?
A simple example is what happens regularly when customers and non customers encounter the number code on the one bathroom we have at our Starbucks. This single locked bathroom is the norm in Manhattan, if there is a bathroom at all.
The barista on bar is usually the closest employee to the bathroom and must field the endless barrage of this question, "Excuse me. What is the code to the bathroom?" Depending on the day, the shift manager, or the store manager's mood, the answer is, "It will be on the bottom of your receipt," (it isn't unless we take the time to stamp it there, and 90% of the customers don't want their receipt,) or, "You must get it from the register," (more accurate, and puts the onus of knowing who is a customer and who is not on the employees most likely to know,) or simply telling the customer the code (if you happen to know it, as it changes on a regular basis. (I have been told in no uncertain terms that each response is THE ONE we do at our store, depending on the day and who is telling me, so my job is endlessly interesting.)
We have a BOUNDARY on our bathroom because it is abused. We have addicts pass out in there, shoot up in there and leave needles, roll joints on the baby changing table and leave it covered in pot and/or tobacco. We have folks who miss the toilet and hit the floor, leave excrement smeared around the room, and leave bloody tissues and clothing on the floor and in the trash can.
Our one store is not and cannot be the public bathroom for our area of this troubled city. We are not trained nor equipped (nor paid enough!) to deal with nor clean up after the percentile of poorly behaved humans who are looking for somewhere to do their thing.
And so we must have a way of trying to block those people so that we can provide a safe and clean restroom for our customers.
This also means we must deal with the inevitable abuse that comes our way for NOT having a public washroom.
Seriously, if no one abused or crossed boundaries, we would have no need of locks, barriers, or the intense expenditure of energy it takes to constantly hold a line against those who wish to cross it.
Every half block someone is asking me for money, and it takes emotional energy to block them out. It takes emotional energy to process the sheer number of desperate (or manipulative) people trying to get money from me every time I step out on the street. It takes energy to process the pain and anger I feel at the society that allows such conditions to exist.
Locks and barriers are there to protect, and exist because of past abuses. In such a dense population, virtually everything is locked everywhere, which slows all of us down, and requires us to invent elaborate ways to allow the trusted ones to access the services while trying to keep abusers out. Meanwhile, the abusers are relentlessly trying to hack the systems designed to keep them out, requiring us to spend even more energy on new ways to block those who would rob and cheat and steal.
Is there no way to try to create a society in which folks feel no compulsion to rob and cheat and steal? Even given that perhaps no matter how well nurtured and raised and educated, there will be those who choose to cheat, is there still not a way to create a society that nurtures and supports to such an extent that folks are rarely so desperate or distressed as to resort to the behaviours I see on the streets here every day? Surely this is NOT the best we can do!
Lest we lie to ourselves, each one of us would end up just like that addict, or just like that person suffering from mental illness were we to have been born into the same situation and genetic load and life experiences. To think otherwise is delusion. "There go I," is the truly compassionate response, and only from there can we begin to ask, "IF that was me, (or, God forbid, my child) what would I want from the society surrounding me to help me get back to my best self?"
Trying to keep my belief in the collective inner wisdom and compassion of our best selves alive in this dark city, and amazed at the density of function and dysfunction,
Namaste!
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