Surprise

Can a change in the wind change the people so much? Can a change in the weather make people behave differently? Can a change in the landscape change the way we look at things? I would think not so much, because people’s behavior is mostly the same towards the things that happen to them. Or at least that is what I thought. I thought that the things that people do and say will never change because it is “human nature,” but nature changes, and I think so do humans. So why do we expect the same things from different people?

Is it out of fear? Or maybe it is out of habit. I cannot tell for sure, but what I can tell is that all of us end up placing expectations on the people around us. Sometimes those expectations work in our favor, but sometimes those expectations start to work against us. If I treat everyone as someone without value because one person disrespected me, that just makes me a bad person. Yet, if I treat everyone with respect only because a single soul was kind to me, it makes me a little stupid. So, what can I do?

Sometimes I like to look at the people around me like data sets, because data can show us patterns we cannot understand from a single observation. It is like putting together a puzzle; if I know where someone is from and how they have lived, I can make a prediction on how they can behave. Calculating my reactions and interactions to such a great level that I can glide through the crowd without ever feeling anything except for calmness and satisfaction, I was almost always correct.

Yet that creates another problem: I would almost never be surprised by the people I meet, so what is the real loss? Is it better for me to not think at all or think too much? What is easier to lose? Is awareness worth having if it costs us our surprise?