It wasn’t a bad day, just a weird one. I went to bed too late and good days start from the morning, and a good morning starts from the night before. I overstayed the night out and I went to bed with a vague sense of aimlessness and disconnection. The morning was rot-filled and unproductive, the exact scenario I’d hoped to avoid as I snowballed the lack of desire to be productive into a morning of dopamine-hooked sedentary nonbeing.
Changing contexts always helps, even something as simple as getting food. The Gobbler and a fizz-free peach mango Celsius fueled a session of half-productivity and half doom-scrolling where I attempted to digest automatic Makefile variables and unbuffered file I/O. Eventually though, this too became stale and I reverted to chasing easy dopamine on my phone. I called my friends back home and at least for 45 minutes I was unproductive productively, but an early dinner for them meant I had nothing to keep me from Family Guy cutscene compilations. It was 8:30 before the gnawing sensation in my stomach reminded me that I needed food, but I had another Gobbler sitting in the fridge. The desire for hot food eventually won me over, and I trudged over to Banana Joe’s, expecting a line out the door and a 20 minute wait in the cold.
Instead, I saw no lines and an open register on the left, and E checking out a guy on the right. In hindsight it was a crossroads, in the moment it was a subconscious choice of familiarity. He greeted me by name and I exchanged the traditional male greeting of a ‘sup (I thought about making a joke about his previous two arsons of Banana Joe’s (don’t worry about it) but couldn’t quite figure out how to word it) before placing my usual order of a tender sandwich and a slice of cheese pizza. If there was any question of whether I’d fully assimilated into American culture, my choice of dinner put a quick end to that. He asked me if I wanted anything else, and gestured to a half-dozen root beers and Mountain Dews sitting on the counter. I said nah, and I expected to go on to the next line, get my food, walk back to my dorm, and eat my dinner while watching a Shortcat Mario Kart video if I was feeling inspired, more Family Guy compilations if I wasn’t, and reels on Chrome if I particularly lacked restraint.
Instead, he shook his head and handed me my receipt with a white chocolate chip cookie underneath. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. I’d been told earlier that he gives free cookies. But what he likely gave no second thought to consumed my every thought. We’d spoken before and were friendly, but he was the guy seeing one of my friends, and I was likely the friend of the girl he was seeing. He had no reason to do that, and I wouldn’t have given it a second thought if he hadn’t. Offering me a free drink unprompted was well beyond any courtesy he had to offer me, and I wasn’t even particularly funny or friendly in my interaction. But he slid me the cookie, and suddenly my whole day had shifted colors. I found I couldn’t stop the grin stretching across my face as I walked into the food line, the smile that couldn’t be forced back into nonchalance and indifference. The song faintly playing over the Banana Joe’s speakers - Breakeven by The Script - permeated my being, the line, “I’m falling to pieces” echoing through my ears as I walked back to my dorm.
I don’t even like white chocolate. Had I been offered the cookie, I likely would’ve declined: partially out of my own lack of desire and partially due to the inclination for declination drilled into me from an Asian upbringing. If there was a table covered in cookies with a sign encouraging passersby to take one, I probably would’ve walked right on by. But he didn’t even offer, he just gave: no hesitation, no expectation. He had the means to be kind and so he did, and that was that. He likely didn’t give the interaction another thought, moving onto the next customer, chatting with his coworkers, working his shift like it was just another night. Yet he’ll never know how much an action he spent five seconds doing rippled into a mindset change that could very well alter hundreds of micro-decisions I make in the immediate aftermath and beyond.
I thought of my own time working in food service, the summer of my junior year at McDonald’s. I remember my friends going through the drive-thru, giving them extra sauces. “Accidentally” making extra drinks, bending the rules harmlessly for the benefit of anyone, not just the people in my inner circle. Sauces cost 10 cents per but if you asked at my window you’d get a handful free of charge.
I walked back to my dorm, music still replaying in my head, a spring in my step and a brighter evening ahead. I decided to call Isabelle and give her the sublet guy: I have the means, and so I did. It won’t change her being the same way my day was shifted, but in my mind it felt like I was paying some fraction of it forward.
I felt protected by a gratitude bubble, and I was once again reminded that the smallest action can have the largest consequence. I’ve thrown surprise birthday parties and always have had an understanding that it was appreciated, but I think back to the small moments long-forgotten by the other party, but moments I’ll remember forever. K immediately clocking that I wasn’t doing well, but letting it go because she knew I didn’t want to talk about it, E getting me a lemon tea when I was throwing up everything, A buying me ice cream from Met Market the day I got caught cheating on the Bio test, the trio parked outside P’s house talking about our darkest memories.
There will always be moments when we’re falling to pieces. Our whole world falls apart on another person’s mundane Tuesday. I failed the test the same day my friend pulled a perfect score. The beauty of our interconnected society is that on any given day, humanity as a whole is experiencing the entire range of emotions. Our collective is going through everything at any moment, and the unity of empathy necessitates that someone will always be there. The 21st century is the era of instant communication, and while this can lead to echo chambers and social isolation through parasocialism, Generation Z possesses an unparalleled degree of awareness and empathy that manifests in a world just a bit more vibrant.
“What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? And what am I supposed to say when I’m all choked up and you’re okay? I’m falling to pieces, yeah”
- The Script
This song is about a terrible breakup, where the girl has moved on but the guy is still dealing with the loss. My interpretation is an abstraction towards one’s relationship with society. The best of man is in society, because each individual makes up the collective that is capable of earth-shattering goodness. Even when we’re falling to pieces, the world has us. We can walk on this green Earth and remember the tremendous good that others have done for us, just because they can, and suddenly the world’s painted in a lighter palette.