Holding a Door

   I decided to perform a kind of simple experiment today:  I decided to hold the door for many subway patrons, even though it was not necessary for me to do so for so many people. I wanted to demonstrate for myself what it is like to be 'last' and to yield to others. I found that in the process of doing this experiment, not that many people stopped to thank me for my gesture. In fact, there was one person who decided to open the other door herself, rather than allowing me to hold the door for her. I recognize that holding the door for someone else can be way too eccentric, particularly if the other person is a stranger. And there is also an element of intrusiveness to it. For instance, I notice that some well-intentioned homeless people will hold a door for Tim Horton's patrons on Yonge and Bloor, perhaps in expectation of a tip. I find myself feeling awkward in this situation, and sometimes the "kind" gesture seems imposing. I reason that perhaps the kindest gestures are the ones that are really done for their own sake, rather than with the intention of reciprocation. Not only this, however, but the whole manner in which a person holds a door can determine its significance. If I am holding the door only to deface or deprecate myself, I need to be careful that the 'defaced' self doesn't also become a kind of fixed identity that I carry with me, either for pity or some other reaction. In other words, the selfless awareness of opening the door needs to be sincerely known and felt.
   The point of holding a door (among other gestures for strangers) is not necessarily to win the stranger over to you or y9our view. Nobody really wants to be treated as a potential convert, even to the church of Kindness! I think the value of holding a door is that it shifts away from the door-holder's self-reference toward a formless space where two or more people are meeting and doing things in a state of mutual concern. I think Heidegger referred to this state as 'sorge' (not to be confused with "storge" which is Greek for familial love). If a person is really in that moment, then there isn't 'me' holding a door for 'you'. It is just a natural occurrence which is the result of people harmonizing their energies in light of the physical world. To hold a door is to conserve the energy needed to lift the door again. This kind of energy conservation is being done all the time, and it flows with the way people co-exist.
   But as soon as I 'expect' gratitude or a smile for holding the door, I lose that perspective of seeing me, you and the door as equal. Instead, I hold another thought before the experience and desire the thought over and above the experience. So I can experiment using the door experiment with how my mind reacts to not being reciprocated. Do I become resentful? Do I burn inside? Do I start imagining what a 'more grateful' person would do, and idealize that example over what just happened? All of these are just thought projections that only add more confusion and suffering to the simple experience. But  if I have faith that there is something bigger than the combination of all these parts (me, you , the door), then something miraculous happens: a space opens up in mind where I am not attaching to any of the elements. I start to expand when I realize that there is something much more than these fixed phenomena which I label as 'me', 'you' and the 'door'. Just what that 'bigger' thing is, nobody can really say, but it is the promise of a bigger unity which can prevent people from attaching to life's disappointments and unreciprocated actions.