My reality - department, and summation

by Elshadai Tegegn (Ethiopia)

Making a local connection Ethiopia

At right about 7 p.m. of a winter evening, I found myself riding the bus back home. A blanket of fog has descended on the city and with it few drops of moisture. Piano melodies gently stream through my earphones and into my ears. The LED clock in front of the bus occasionally announces 12 degrees Celsius. Were it not for the weather forecast I saw in passing earlier I would’ve crumbled on to myself to keep from freezing. But there I was gliding through the city, snug in my winter coat while piano riffs frolic in my ears. I was soaked in delight. My reality was in concert with itself and me with it. My whole body was one sense. All the parts fitted seamlessly with each other. Which made it all the more easy to forget that even an experience as common as riding a bus is a result of the works of dozens if not hundreds of people. I just open my eyes and there before me is my reality: a reality others assembled piece by piece so I can enjoy their symphony. Engineers built the bus. Metrologists saw into the future. A factory worker stitched the seams inside my jacket. Bill Evans dedicated an entire life to master the piano. All expended worry, effort, and time to make their respective parts as perfect as they could be. As the street lamps flew past me in quick succession I didn’t worry how the motor under my feet turned. I didn’t worry about Evans’ revolutionary Jazz Piano techniques or about how the LED thermometer kept track of the temperature. I was oblivious to them while they worked silently behind the scenes. I took the details for granted to enjoy the whole. Most of our perceptions of reality are time-lapses. We squint our eyes to blur the lines and let everything melt and combine. It’s like those traffic videos that show streaks of light going here and there showing the general traffic flow but hiding the individual cars that make it up. This is the entire societal experience – the mutual exchange of worries and efforts. Some worry about the details so that others don’t have to. Our reality is in a perpetual movement into unity and back. We take the world apart only so that others may experience it as a whole.