A Study on Behaviour: Noticing the Subtleties

Everyone it seems, has a story to tell. You see it in their eyes while they ride the subway, or pass by you on the sidewalk. At first glance, we treat them like characters in some virtual reality, but not even that glamorous, more like extras on a movie or AI in a computer game; mere filler. Yet I think when we take the time to think about it, each of those characters add a deeper complexity to an already intense canvas. Each of them have a life, individual and separate from our own, and in that life contains a story more tragic or exciting then any Hollywood Blockbuster.

As I writer, it's my job, in a sense, to exploit those stories and translate them into beautiful prose or cinematic appeal. However, lately, I've suffered a severe bout of writer's block. It's not that I'm uncertain as to what to write, but it's finding something worth writing about.

Love and death are natural antidotes in clearing a blockage. Yet, I grow wearisome of these subjects. Certainly there are things around me to write about, but how am I to access and translate them in a worth-while way.

Recently, I've been very intrigued by behaviour. In the past two months I've experienced what very few observers of humanity get to experience, an almost identical action occurring twice, yet in each situation, the response was different. Let me elaborate for the reactions have become highly complex.

A friend of mine, Lindsay, was dealing with this question they wanted to ask a friend of theirs about a personal opinion they had on a highly controversial subject. Well, she asked the first friend and he responded politely enough and answered honestly. Notice the use of 'first', because it came about that the subject matter came up with another friend, so she asked another friend the exact same question. That second friend responded politely and answered honestly. Seems reasonable enough to get similar responses from two relatively similar people, but here's where it gets interesting. Overtime, the first friend, from that point on began to open up more to Lindsay while the second friend began to get colder. As someone who over-analyzes, I found this interesting.

We often think that our behaviours go unnoticed. Heck, sometimes we don't even noticed that we've begun to change. But every little action has an equal if not stronger reaction. We are not all so blind to accept changes in behaviour without explanation. It is by design that we are curious, for in our fallen nature we long for the answers that remain hidden from us. Curiosity is not wrong, but it should be expected. Maybe it's post-enlightenment jargon or rhetoric to demand the "why", but I feel that if their is an answer we are under obligation to answer.