Going Off and On The Rails

  Sometimes, riding the rails of the subway can teach us many things about the human condition, and I believe that it is highly symbolic in many respects. I am not so much talking about the shared humanity of the subway (something that many have written about) but the metaphorical aspects of the subway 'stops' and 'starts'. This past weekend, there was a major subway closure on the north end (also known as Line 1, or Yonge Street Line) and it resulted in a lot of complicated arrangements, such as switching to a different line and making multiple transfers--all to avoid the overcrowding of the city buses. Somehow, the whole experience created an atmosphere for me: a felt sense that life is often consisting of the roundabout motions toward truth, a kind of stumbling toward reality that never quite solidifies because it is forever in a dream.
   It also makes me feel that there is a certain validity and meaning to the sense that one is wasting time or going 'round about' to avoid certain unavoidable obstacles. These experiences sometimes can ground a person in the fact that no one is truly alone, and that nobody is fully in control either. There is something about the delays and construction 'off-times' of the subways which reminds me of the whale in Moby Dick: there is a certain complexity about things that eludes and defies human planning, as when the functions of a subway car are subject to the laws of nature and are bound to wear down over time.
    Thinking about subways may be not entirely different from thinking about one's human relationships, because everything operates as a kind of metaphor pointing to the functions of mind. To study my connection to a subway is to study myself and where I get stuck or confused about my place in the world.