Reading, Walking, And A Car

I read while walking. It's a skill. The trick is to understand the meaning of different kinds of movements at your periphery. It's all about trajectories. And if something is obviously moving but not changing position relative to your ebook reader, that means it's coming right for you and you should look up, ready to take evasive action.

I cross the street while reading too. But I'm not insane - I do take a moment to glance both ways, and I make a point of keeping any possible oncoming traffic available in my periphery. But I'm so talented, that my total awareness of my surroundings isn't always obvious to the people around me, which can cause some consternation.

Yesterday on my way home, I was deeply engrossed in my calculus book. Derivatives are so amazing, it's a shame the financial mess is turning them into a dirty word. I love how you take this weird thing and stick it into an equation - and then when you reduce and solve the equation, the weird thing disappears of its own accord, leaving you with a whole new view into the thing you were just looking at. I'm telling you - derivatives are like eye of newt!

Anyway, right at that moment, as I was about to get to the other side of the street and find out how derivatives relate to limits, this car swerved out of the path of traffic, heading right at me! I jumped out of the way, but in any case he hit the breaks before hitting me. Something about the way he just happened to be aiming straight at me told me that this was yet another person trying to give me a life lesson.

So I turned around and just stared at the guy for probably a full minute, and he stared back. Clearly, this was a guy that had road rage among his top 3 emotions. Then he rolled down his window, and drove past, saying, "Look where you're going instead of reading your book!" or something like that. And I cursed him out through the same window.

The last time something similar happened, I was fully on the sidewalk, in the middle of reading Proust. Would he and Albertine see each other again? Would he become lovers with Monsieur Charlus? When all of a sudden, some guy walking in the opposite direction stuck his hand between the ebook reader and my face, and wiggled his fingers around before passing by.

I chased after him and tried to grab his hat, but he was too quick and I couldn't get it. It's a good thing, I probably would have thrown it into the street or something. But when I tried to take it, he spun around, and again I stood staring at him for solid minute or so, till finally he walked away.

For some reason I feel as though staring at the person is similar to capturing their soul. I don't dumbly stare. I devour them. I take them into myself; their cares, their fears and frustrations, and see how little they are. And then they don't bother me anymore, because I also see that in their own small way, they believe that disturbing someone who's reading a book is actually doing them a favor, teaching them to pay attention to the world around them, and not bump into other people or get hit by cars.

It's also a cultural phenomenon. In my culture, people feel like reading while walking is a negligent act, and that anyone is justified in bothering me, since it will make me a better person. The same people won't give two dimes to a guy with a cup; but for me, they'll make the extra effort. In other cultures, someone reading while walking would provoke outright rage among everyone they passed; and in yet other cultures, it would be seen as a commendable act, a sign of intelligence and sensitivity. In mine it's considered a sign of carelessness and social neglect.

Well, I'll keep reading. An hour or two of my reading is done each day on foot or on the subway. I'm going to give that up because sometimes people jump out and say boo? No thank you.