What It Means to Live Among Others
Individualism is just fine if you live on an island in the middle of nowhere
The other day, I came to a stop at an intersection a few miles from my house. The intersection is a whopper, with four wide, divided streets crossing, creating a huge starburst of concrete. As far as I know, there has never been a stoplight at this intersection. It’s controlled only by stop signs. Drivers proceed through it in an orderly, civilized way. You might have to sit a while, since there are often as many as eight cars waiting to work their way across, but I’ve never seen anyone jump their place in the commonly understood first-in-first-out process. By the way, this intersection is in a rich part of Los Angeles, where the rate of ego and assholery is certainly high, and many of the cars coasting to a stop and waiting their turn are either flashy sports cars or posh sedans. Not to make a sweeping assumption, but they are cars that probably don’t like to idle at stop signs. But they do.
I always get a lump in my throat at the intersection. I’m overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude and awe that people can manage to self-police and make what could be a very dangerous intersection quite benign. A jerk could roar through without even stopping, or impatiently shoulder in front of a car that had arrived earlier, but I’ve never seen…
