I.60 — Strangers

The stranger ahead of you in line has an inner weather exactly as vivid as yours: a night that went badly, a worry not yet spoken to anyone, a small private joy carried without a place to put it down. None of this is visible from where you stand. From where you stand, the stranger is mostly furniture, an obstacle between you and the counter, a shape to be gotten past.

Looking changes what the hand does next. See the stranger for a few seconds as a whole life rather than an obstacle, and the door held a beat longer, the sharp word not sent, the space made without being asked for, all follow without effort. None of it needed a decision. It only needed the looking to happen first, before the moving.

This is easy to skip, because a stranger asks for nothing and offers no consequence either way. That is exactly the point. Tending that only shows up where it is rewarded is not tending, it is trade. Try this once today. Pick one stranger, and for a few seconds actually look, the way you would look at someone whose name you knew. Notice what changes in you before you notice anything about them.