Dominoes

Have you ever been in a situation where, in the midst of a crowd, there’s a mass reaction and you suddenly have to respond?

For me, it’s happened a couple of times. Once, at a Peter Gabriel concert, the packed-in, and ironically entitled, “general seating” crowd began to surge back and forth, forcing me to elbow my way through the crushing bodies to protect the girl I was dating at the time. It was being shoved and swept off your feet against your wishes, jammed together so tightly that you wonder how it didn’t really become noticeable, the proximity of the human sea, until it turned violent.

Another time, we were at the Central Florida Fair, casually walking down the midway when there came a sudden, shocking mass screaming of voices, followed by a panicked stampede of about twenty or thirty people. Before the thought had any time to sink in, we were backing up, turning around, following the mass exit, scared and pumped and trying not to look over our shoulders while hauling ass through the fair.

As it turns out, it was just a group of teenagers who thought it would be funny to spark a mass panic in a crowded place. We watched them do it a few more times before they were briskly escorted out of the place by none-too-amused Orange County Sheriffs.

In both of these situations, I was made keenly aware that we’re surrounded by humanity all of the time, yet we’ve gotten used to it, at least in common spaces. When we’re all concentrated together, moving and dodging around each other en masse, it becomes clearer how closely we’re all connected. And then, when we’re at a concert, or in an elevator or a bathroom that’s insanely packed at an event, there’s something else that comes to mind, that we’re sort of losing control of our own destinies.

See, walk down the road by yourself and say, “you know, I’m heading west now”, then make the turn and off you go. You’re heading west now.

Walk through a shopping mall and declare, “I’m going to make a left turn here and hit that Apple Store”, and then you have to calculate your trajectory between random formations of people, all moving at different speeds, each with their own dynamic paths to follow, and you’re analyzing it on the fly, re-adjusting a parameter here and there to compensate for the sudden last-second course-alteration from another person. We’re adaptive, we have to be, or else we’d run into each other a lot more than we do.

Shuffle down a hallway into a concert hall, shoulder to shoulder, and who hasn’t gotten the palpable sense that we’d all go down like dominoes if the people in front fell backwards? Hell, who hasn’t actually had it happen in some respect? Ever stand at the edge of a mosh pit? Okay, maybe not. Ever been standing around the edge of the roller-skating rink, waiting to get onto the floor, and some cannonball of a skater miscalculates their transition between wood and carpet, bowling over the group, you included?

Oddly specific.

It goes without saying that what we all do effects the others around us. For good and for bad. Right now, it’s best that we all try to keep away from each other as much as possible because you know why, I’m not even going to write it out because I’m already sick of reading about it every day, and you are too.

Still, it’s the good and safe thing to do. We may have our own paths and plots, but sometimes we have to alter those courses just a bit, in order to make room for other people. Hopefully, it’s not just defensive driving, just dodging and weaving and avoiding. Hopefully, everyone else is being alert and making plans in advance, so that everyone gets through the mall without smacking into one another. It’s like those traffic circles in New Delhi with three hundred cars, trucks, bikes and scooters all swirling about in a mass orgy of chaos, yet no-one runs into each other. Here in the states, two guys can be driving on opposite sides of the road and will still end up trading paint.

Some of those types are saying, “if i get corona, I get corona” and we’ve all seen a few of them out there. When the Darwin Awards are handed out next, they will be the top nominees, if not the winners.

I was reading somewhere that Americans have generally forgotten how to sacrifice, and we wear our instant-gratification entitlement proudly. I’ve always imagined that the people of the United States could all come together, regardless of race, religion or politics, for something that we could all agree upon.

And I think we mostly agree that social distancing is a thing now. Not a fad. Not a meme. Not an internet challenge. It’s a life saver. The world will make it through this, despite the staggering losses that will be suffered, but the real question is do we want to make it through sooner or later?

And how many dominoes have to fall?