The Gentleman and the Jerk

 In the year’s waning moments, frenzied throngs count down in unison as the final seconds pass into the fog of fading thoughts. A glittering, overdone ball of light descends to the Earth; confetti, music, cheers, nonsense and kisses from strangers – the jubilation flows freely. It's the final minute and suddenly everyone's aware of the tempo. The exuberance builds to a crescendo as the countdown becomes a deafening chant. People from every city, town borough or lone house in the boondocks; people who share the same midnight if nothing else arise as one to propose a toast. For a fleeting moment they stand together with singleness of purpose - to celebrate yet another lap around the Sun and to declare that the next round-trip will see their new and improved selves emerging as if they’d been living in a cocoon the past year. They are swept up as the entire world becomes a celestial stadium doing the wave. It’s their time to rise. They stand and revel; it’s their moment in a 24-hour long cheer that began with the faint and distant shouts of a few souls in the isles of the Asian Pacific and eventually peters-out a day later in those very same waters - somewhere west of Pago Pago. For a short span of time, the whole of humanity straddles what has passed and what will come. And no matter where your feet may be planted, as the second hand sweeps past the 12, you stand there just a bit cross-eyed; looking back while trying to peer ahead. Sunrise and Sunset merge into one.

Somewhere among a dozen car payments, house payments, moon phases and calendar page-flips we search for our best moments. We select a few clips from the previous twelve months to include in our personal highlight reels. And lost in the haze of our selective memories are a thousand faces; ten thousand faces; perhaps more. Who can say? Who can calculate the number of souls we’ve encountered in passing while we hurry through January and the next eleven new moons on our way to another December 31^st? The people in the checkout lines and all the other public places we frequent, the fellow travelers sharing the roads we motor along each day from home to wherever and then back home again; they’re nameless silhouettes in the crowd. They never come into focus long enough to matter to us. They are the extras; the background noise on that highlight reel. We often pass close enough to exchange the common cold but seldom do we exchange anything else.

Yet there are a few. There are those who emerge from the fog and for a brief moment, they come into focus. Good or bad, in the blink of an eye, we make our assessment. With only a first and likely last impression, we write their bios: Nice, pleasant, good-looking, considerate, dirty, loser, ugly, jerk…And the nameless silhouettes find their fifteen minutes of fame on a stranger’s highlight reel. Whether friend or foe; whether deserving or not they’ve been cast in their role. We know nothing of these anonymous ones as we story-board them into our narrative: The gentleman who held the door – nice; the guy weaving through traffic; cutting people off – jerk. Yet for all we know, they are both the same man. One may hide his pain behind a pleasant demeanor while the other has seen his best plans squashed one too many times and he can no longer contain his frustration. Inside, they are both in agony.  And unbeknownst to us, they may even reverse roles from time to time. We know so very little while we blithely declare so much. Without knowing who they are, we write their epitaphs.

I know a man who in the same month saw his dream of building his business rise from the years of toil and financial uncertainty only to see it fall hard and lay shattered at his feet. I have seen that same man ignore his own pain and show kindness and deference to others. And then on the very same day I saw him reach his boiling point and lash out at anyone crossing his path. Many times before I have seen him gather his strength, stand up, brush himself off and start again. I know him well. I see him in the mirror every morning. And depending on whose highlight reel you’re watching, he’s “Nice”, “Jerk” or any point in between.

Every day you pass by silhouettes; anonymous shapes which hide so much more than your eyes perceive. Dreams that withered on the vine, hopes that faded, frustrations, disappointments, losses and grief – they are mixed into the crowd along with the joys, triumphs and dreams realized. Success and failure, joy and grief, ease and agony – you likely brush past it every day. And all too often it stays hidden in the fog. You walk amongst inspiration as well as opportunity to inspire. You can’t possibly know them all. If nothing else, time forbids it. And today is a celebration of time. Or perhaps better said, it is a lighthearted admission of how precious little of it we each have. We are all measured out a portion of days; some more and some less. Over and over, the hand sweeps past the twelve and God only knows how many setting Suns you’ll see. Man knows not his time but he can choose wisely how he will invest it. To know and be known – it is an effort worthy of your time.

Somewhere in that anonymous fog is the silhouette of one you need to know. That person may be in need of you or you may be in need of him. Choose your moment and step out of the fog. Remember that to most everyone, you too are merely an anonymous silhouette. And it is likely that you’ll need to peel away the generic labels to find the true identity of the gentleman and the jerk.