6.12.2020

best bit of advice...

the single best bit of advice i have ever received in my life came from an old man who sat next to me on a subway train headed from Brooklyn to the Bronx in the city that will always be "home" to me.

i had opted to leave my car that day and take the train instead, so that i could use the commute time to catch up on some much-needed reading for the Neuroanatomy class i was taking at the time. i even left the house earlier than usual so that i could take the local train (the one that makes all the stops) instead of taking the express, which would make for a longer ride during which to read.

i boarded the train at the first stop on the line and took a seat in an empty corner, before pulling the massive textbook from my bag. i had even taken the precaution of bringing along a pair of headphones, a key component of the universally-understood "DO NOT DISTURB" signage i was trying so desperately to project to everyone around me.

that is when he entered.

he took a quick glance around the train car that was less than half full at this point... and made a beeline for the seat right next to me. i was just a bit, shall we say, vexed by his choice, but i assumed he would recognize and respect the sign.

that was not to be the case, naturally.

i could see him in my peripheral vision, sitting there... studying me... and it was not long before he tapped me on the arm to ask what i was reading. i answered politely, and returned to my reading... or, more accurately, attempting to read. after the third (or fourth) tap on the arm followed by the third (or fourth) question, i finally accepted my fate and closed the book completely.

by the time we reached midtown-Manhattan, he had given me the Reader's-Digest-version of his life story. i made my best effort to smile politely and nod occasionally at the old stranger, but my mind was mostly on all the reading i could have been doing in that time... or the extra half-hour of sleep i could have gotten that morning had i opted to take the car.

then, with no advance warning, he rose suddenly, prepared to disembark as the train slowed down to enter the next station (it was 42nd Street, i think).

that was the point when he leaned down toward me, and uttered the phrase that he stated was the single most important thing he had learned in all his years. his words were simultaneously so profound, yet seemingly out of place, that i spent the rest of that train ride turning the phrase over in my head, with a closed book on my lap, in an empty corner of a (mostly) empty train.

he said:

do not sully your soul to defend other people's lies.

those words i share with you to do with as you like.