We had some dear friends over for dinner last night and honestly, one of my favourite things about small, intimate dinners is the quirky conversation that is bound to come up about none-sense things. It’s amusing to listen to it all flow from architecture in Canary Wharf, to suicide in one of the large towers, to suicide in the tubes, to Jamie Oliver, to cleaning bathrooms, to lime water that could be pinot grigio, to sex shops, to movies, to salary negotiations. It’s like communal A.D.D. between four grown adults.
We were talking about a documentary on YouTube about suicide in the London Underground and quickly the conversation diverged to lunatic thoughts. You know the ones. Imagined scenarios in your head so real and so possible, they scare you. Like when you’re standing there waiting for the train to arrive, it’s barreling down the tunnel at 30-40 miles per hour, it’s loud, it’s windy, the platform is packed with people. How easy would it be to step a few feet over and into that rushing train?! Danger is so close. There are no barriers, no gates, no guards to stop you. I used to imagine jumping in front of the train in the mornings, with a rush of fear so strong, I’d shiver all the way through the ride to work. It’s nice to imagine vividly an alternate universe where recklessness knows no bounds. The imagination is a powerful thing.
Our friend Andy’s lunatic thought was a little less sinister. You’re in the office talking to a colleague face to face and you’re distracted by the lone, curly hair sticking out of the tip of his nose. It must have been there for months, maybe years and how he hasn’t seen it every morning in the mirror and tried to remove it is beyond you but wow, how you’d love to just reach out and pluck that thing off his face. You’re talking, smiling, nodding, completely distracted by the desire to save this man from any more embarrassment. Maybe if you just pretended it was a fly and you quickly reached over to just get a piece of it. He’d be startled but you’d laugh it off, ha ha ha, oh there was a fly on your nose! It’s teasing you, that one grey grangly strand of hair, asking you to save it from the spotlight of this man’s nose. Are you going to listen?! What would happen if you did? Would you get fired? Would he yell? Would you care? Would it be funny? Of course it would be funny!
Or what about kissing that total stranger for no reason at all but to selfishly bemuse yourself over his reaction. You’re walking down the street, he’s distracted, you’re bored. Let’s spice things up a little, create an interesting human experiment. He’d probably push you away before you even got the chance to get close enough. Maybe he’d fall over from shock. Would it be funny? Definitely. Would that classify as harassment? In the USA, likely.
Or what about jumping from the gallery section of the Royal Albert Hall onto the arena below. Would you break your bones? Would it hurt? How mad would the orchestra be over your disruption? You’d probably get arrested. What would jail be like? How long could they really keep you there? It’s not a crime, really, is it? Silly yes. Criminal, not really.
And wow, how cool would it be to go Jackie Chan on that really annoying colleague of yours? A punch here, a karate chop there. A black eye and a bleeding nose. Ooooh, blooood. Too many action movies. Fight Club. James Bond. You can punch like the best of them. Would your hand hurt? It’s been said that punching someone is just as painful as being punched. What would it sound like to hit someone on the nose? He’d probably fight back. Then what would you do? Run? Punch him again? You’d for sure go to jail then. It’s silly AND criminal. Bad. Ass.
Decades ago in Calgary, we used to attend a baptist Sunday school where they taught us that thinking is the same as doing. I was as nervous then as I am now about this teaching. If it were true, my seat in hell would have been saved for me years ago. I completely disagree with that preaching now. Of course thinking isn’t the same as doing! They’re two different words! Duh! And besides, that’s the whole point of being able to have lunatic thoughts. Sometimes, we just need some fantastical escapism. =)
