There are times, while I'm walking on the crowded streets, when suddenly someone starts honking at a taxi cab dropping off a passenger. Soon there after, expletives are exchanged between the offended cabbie and the impatient driver. "F*ck you," one yells. The other counters with the same, only louder. It's a comical display, which only confirms my cynicism, that this is mankind's true nature.
And then every morning, there's this one MTA worker on the platform of Grand Central's Downtown Lexington Avenue Line who greets passengers getting off the train. "Good morning, have a nice day," he says smiling. And every time I see him, my cynical mind tells me either MTA must have a program where they hire retarded people to lighten up the moods of the New York City's worker-drones or he must have found the secret of saying "F*ck you" with a smile and getting the listeners to smile back at him with genuine appreciation.
But if I soften my heart a bit, I can appreciate the MTA worker's daily ritual greeting for what it is. One human being making an effort to connect with another in a kind and sincere way. To bring to someone something positive, even if it's a small gesture of saying a greeting to a stranger. And I hope that this is mankind's true nature.
Or at the very least, my nature...
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