Knowledge Is The Shield.

While standing in line at the post office today, I happened to overhear a woman, whom couldn't have been much older than me, speaking on her telephone. The fact that she was talking loudly on her mobile device in a closed public space didn't perturb me too terribly. What did bother me was the content of her call.

To paraphrase, she was speaking to someone about the status of her daughter's scholastic shortcomings. Apparently, her child was failing English class miserably, but barely getting by in her other classes. Appallingly, the mother didn't seem to be too concerned. She asserted that this was to be expected. Her daughter would fail at least one class a year, but always squeaked by in summer school. Everything was going to be alright.

No... that child's future is in the toilet, and it's all the mother's fault.

It's one thing to have a child that struggles with their studies. Not all children are born with the same mental aptitude. Yet, this isn't to say that all children don't have the ability to learn and apply themselves. For the most part, the largest portion of scholastic achievement is just showing up and trying your best. Even a mediocre student who tries hard can maintain decent, acceptable grades. Why? Because they probably have a parent, parents or figure of authority behind them, encouraging their success every step of the way.

When you have a parent that accepts failure, and in fact justifies it, their child is on the path to a lifelong deficiency. That child will earn less money, not go to college, never break free from the lower or middle class and probably have more children than they're capable of caring for. Hence, the cycle of poor scholastic achievement continues.

Even in the face of severe poverty, education is the one tool every parent and child can grasp as a way out. Knowledge is the shield against destitution and unanswered dreams.

And yet, here we are in the year 2015... and many parents still don't know any better.

The Cloaked Axiom.

Have you ever just walked among a crowd of people, silent and observant? Your senses heightened; your mind open. Every step taken, every inhalation of air, every spoken word -- just take it all in and process it. Like an invisible apparition floating through the masses of human beings, absorbing everything they do.

In this moment, you are a watcher.

Human beings are a strange species. Many exist in this seemingly impenetrable bubble, unaware of what occurs around them. They express anger or compassion via devices that broadcast their thoughts hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. Some are tuned into everything their offspring are doing and nothing else. Others walk in locked step with their life partner, unknowing of what lurks behind every corner.

As blinded ants, human beings ramble through life with such an abbreviated field of awareness.

I find myself enthralled at times by just examining how people function in their day-to-day lives. They perform great feats of compassion, as well as disturbing acts of malice. Some of us work to improve our physical bodies into peak condition, while others recklessly abandon any sense of responsibility for their physique. We drink; we smoke; we inject chemicals into our bloodstreams. One man picks up another man's litter. How fickle and diverse our species is, often times bearing great variance within a single example.

Seeing is believing, as we've all been told. This holds especially true when watching how we're living... and how we're dying. Ironically, living and dying are one in the same -- there is no division. From the moment we escape the womb to our last breath, we are living and dying simultaneously. Perhaps the greatest piece of knowledge I've gleaned from watching people is this cloaked axiom. Yet, as nearly all of us meander from the alpha to the omega, that aforementioned abbreviated field of awareness keeps this information at a safe distance. It's for the best, really. Not all of our kind is able to process the magnificent scope of reality. That's not a slight against mankind, oh no. If anything, it is a blessing.

If we were all watchers, there would be nothing to watch.

When you are a watcher, you can be in a crowd and yet never be a part of it. That is the burden the observer must bear -- the external eye can not see itself. It can be terribly lonely at times, but otherwise satisfying. Such a connection strikes a chord with the inner harmony... a link to the aether of the celestial balance.

People Watching at Starbucks.

I had an appointment with someone today whom I was buying a large lot of Nintendo games from. They asked to meet me at a Starbucks in Greensboro, to which I happily obliged. I arrived roughly twenty minutes early. With nothing else better to do but wait, I was able to people watch. Accordingly, I made some interesting observations about the various customers going in and out of Starbucks.

Starbucks on Battleground Ave., Greensboro, NC.

• Obviously prissy girls like to sit outside at the metal picnic tables and drink their coffee. Never mind the fact that it was below forty degrees and rainy, they had to be seen in their North Face jackets and UGG boots.
• I saw more Mercedes and BMW vehicles pull up than at any other normal business establishment.
• Spotting a person of color was next to impossible, except for the employees I could see through the storefront of Starbucks.
• What is it with middle-aged women and funky haircuts? They seem to go for swirled blond hairdos that are short and sit high up on their skulls. It looks like their hair-dresser phoned it in and placed their head in a blender.
• I saw quite a few girls in short skirts and leggings, but also with fluffy boots, heavy coats and scarves. If they're so damn cold, why would they wear a skimpy skirt with leggings?
• A large number of customers exiting Starbucks had the most soured-up look on their face. What made them so unhappy? Is the coffee terrible... or were they sad that their drink cost as much as a pound of tasty pastrami?
• No one holds doors for anyone these days. The guys were especially guilty of this. Be a gentleman and hold a door for a woman, would you?
• Drivers are terrible about letting other vehicles back out of parking spaces to exit the lot. The more expensive the car, the more likely they were to zip past a person trying to back up (one almost caused an accident).
• Only two families went into Starbucks with children. With both instances, the kids were screaming, crying and generally being little pricks.

What does all of this say about Starbucks customers? My conclusion is this -- a fair number of Starbucks frequenters are inconsiderate, self-absorbed meat-heads whom only patronize their establishment because it's a signifier of their supposed superior status. Give me a break!

I hope you choke on it.

Full disclosure -- I have never purchased anything from Starbucks in my thirty-two years of existence. I have more sense than that.