Mencius and The Four Beginnings

It was a childhood friend of mine, who served in Desert Storm, who helped me see the world as more than the sum of its parts.

"Being in combat is hard to explain. The best I've come up with is to say it'd be like watching a child falling into a well. You see it happening and something inside of you either freezes or reacts. It puts you in that inexplicable nether world where your actions don't make sense and you don't ask them to."

The rain was falling so hard against the metal support of the 'el' tracks that you feel trapped in a bubble of bass vibrations. The rumbling of the trains, oddly, muted.

You find yourself surrounded by a tall metal fence. Cross hatched pieces of steel wrapped in a thick green plastic sheets covers your view of what is around the bend. It is a maze.

A small child, no more than 3 and heavily wrapped in winter clothes, walks by. Shifting their weight, waddling aimlessly forward. They seem alone. You pause and look around for an explanation, but none can be seen; no parents, siblings, or caretakers. You yell but it is barely audible against the pouring rain. Why don't you stop the girl and ask her if she's ok? Have we grown that individualistic, disconnected? A peek around the construction fence. A stroller, two women huddling under a miniature umbrella. Their faces meet and shift side to side, frantically observing the world around them; panic. They see you, hone in on your face. You lift a finger and point to the child, partially obstructed by the metal fence. Your finger directing them to relief, your brain seemingly on pause, but your finger reacting in a way you cannot explain.

The two women see the child, their shoulders drop, a powerful exhale, and the tension in their bodies relax.

Then clarity of the world around you returns. The drone of rain pounding on metal, the wind of trains moving above you, the destination you were walking to. All return from that brief moment of something inexplicably and unsatisfactorily labeled, other.