The pedestrian street was packed.
My uncle confidently took a step into the sea of faces.
I followed.
Having lived in Glasgow for a few months by that point, I knew how volatile the population could be. I had also been repeatedly been told by Glaswegian friends that one was six times more likely to be stabbed in Glasgow than in any other city in the world.
I don’t know how true that was.
I mean, how did they come up with “six times more likely”?
Plus “more likely”? Does that suggest there are situations that warrant a stabbin’ and Glasgow was just quicker to get to it?
Were Glaswegians just more efficient stabbers?
I don’t know. I’m no stabbin’ scientist.
All that to say that Glasgow people can sometimes en masse can be a little hard.
Unyielding.
You know, stabby.
My uncle pushed through the crowd but in a calculated way.
At each human obstacle, he’d lightly touch their shoulder, smile and say…
“Excuse me, darlin’”
”Sorry, pal”
Or various friendly Scottish variations thereof.
A transformation happened.
In that moment of personal connection, they detached from the bustling mob and became… a person.
Eyes met. Friendliness, basic decency, mutual respect and decorum was instantly established.
We glided through the crowd like a welcomed knife that was only used for stabbin’ butter.
My uncle, having grown up in some of the toughest places in Glasgow along with my Dad, knew this.
En masse the crowd was a seemingly impenetrable wall.
Individually they were just, well… individuals.
Open to reason and being nice in the hope someone would be nice to them.
Of course, this doesn’t always work (see notes on stabbin’ above), but it is a commonly occurring phenomenon.
I’m not sure at what point it happens but when people are in groups they can suddenly lose their humanity.
They become simply cogs in the mob.
Consumed by objectives über alles.
People banding together can, of course, be good (see religion and politics).
However at some point they suddenly become untethered from their own individuality and become mindless (see religion and politics).
I’m not sure how we keep ourselves from falling into a mob mentality.
Maybe it’s as simple as making direct connections with people.
I hope we figure it out.
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I remember my Dad being horrified that I was walking in the mass demonstration against the Bob Ray policies organized by the Ontario Teachers Federation. He seriously did not want me to go . My response was,” Dad this is a group of teachers from Ontario, what could possibly go wrong?” How surprised and shocked I was to march past mounted riot police and huge barriers erected around Hamilton Place. What,did they expect us to do? start colouring outside the lines? Apparently yes. ( there were no incidents. We all behaved like Ontario school teachers. )
I love every word you publish. Just sayin'