“Some Years Ago, I Was Stuck On A Crosstown Bus In New York City During Rush Hour. Traffic Was Barely

“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. “Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ‘em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.“

–Elizabeth Gilbert

More Posts from Bad-holmes-impression and Others

bad-holmes-impression

2 months ago

Farewell online privacy

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bad-holmes-impression

1 month ago

just for clarification:

disliking parts of the way rapunzel’s character was handled in the show =/= disliking her.

movie!rapunzel means a lot to me personally, and i absolutely adore some aspects of her character in the show. i think she’s loving, creative, funny, intelligent, and she tries her best to help the people around her.

if i have a critique with her in the show, it’s because i believe that isn’t how she’d behave as someone who went through the events of the movie. or maybe i look at how she acts for one episode of the show, compare it to the foundation they’ve established in an earlier episode, and find that they contrast one another. my criticisms are for the inconsistent or out-of-character writing, not for rapunzel herself. i understand she has flaws; i just wish they were addressed properly and that she didn’t always have to be in the right.

you’re welcome to reblog this if you feel the same way.

disliking parts of the way rapunzel’s character was handled in the show =/= disliking rapunzel.

Tags

rapunzel tts rapunzel tangled the series rapunzel's tangled adventure

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bad-holmes-impression

1 month ago

shoutout to stanford pines for a couple of things, but mainly for writing in flawless cursive while enduring -1 hours of sleep, weeping not for his failed partnership, several injuries, another betrayal, familial issues, and spite.

Tags

gravity falls the book of bill ford pines journal 3 look we have to admit his handwriting is beautiful

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bad-holmes-impression

2 months ago

ADD is quite the mental illness to have, because you could simply get into gravity falls as a show. you could merely watch the episodes and have a favorite character.

or you could be consumed by it to the extent that you map out 24 years of ford’s portal adventures, arrange those 24 years into 74 planned-out chapters of a fanfic, and get to work.

Tags

gravity falls cant wait gravity falls fanfiction let me out i’ll see people bring up a certain trope and i’ll think oh it’s just like journal 4 a guide to the multiverse except i haven’t even written that yet i will be laboring on this fic for years probably

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bad-holmes-impression

1 month ago

me a while ago, seeing fanart of POC varian: that’s a neat concept!

me, getting back into this fandom: …HOLY SHIT WAIT that would add so much to s1. the persecution he faces from the king and his village. the way he’s vilified. even the s3 stuff, like how he has a fawn response around the mains and how hard he has to work for them in order to be treated like he belongs, though he’s apparently only paid for his efforts when he becomes the royal engineer-instead-of-alchemist… people who depict POC varian, you geniuses.

fanartists, i’m curious. did you factor in everything that canonically happens when you reimagined varian in that way, or did you make the drawings first?

(warning for a small essay in the tags)

Tags

tts varian tangled the series people of color characters of color Lance was done so dirty by the show (how is he the only main without an outfit change) it would serve the overall story so well to have varian be a person of color too obviously it would still be problematic since he’d still just be used as a plot device but it would give POC viewers SOMETHING like!! it was germany in the 1800s!! you KNOW lance faced racism! you KNOW that’s a huge contributing factor to why he was never adopted!! it would be a factor for what varian goes through too! but of course chris sonnenburg would never he only wants his self-insert to bully an abused orphan child not an abused orphan child of COLOR what do you take frederic for? a bad person?? /sar fanartists i applaud you i still like canon varian’s design but i will always consider the deeper story of any race bending for him

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bad-holmes-impression

1 month ago

very good analysis and i am honored you spent so long on it!

My critique with season-3 Rapunzel is that Cass hurting Eugene in “Cassandra’s Revenge” should have been the last straw, in my opinion. Or, if not that, then when she took over Corona. Or, if not that, then when she stole the Sundrop from Rapunzel.

It would have served both characters so well to have Rapunzel give up on Cass, even temporarily, so that Cass could realize that this is having consequences she doesn’t want. And so Rapunzel can display that polarizing mentality we’ve come to expect from her. And so little kids and tweens— and even teenagers and adults— watching this don’t walk away with the lesson that the person who’s hurting you has their better self “still in there”, and you just have to try hard enough to save them. That’s a thing I’ve heard from parents who stopped letting their kids watch after the third season.

just for clarification:

disliking parts of the way rapunzel’s character was handled in the show =/= disliking her.

you’re welcome to reblog this if you feel the same way.

disliking parts of the way rapunzel’s character was handled in the show =/= disliking rapunzel.

80 notes View Post

bad-holmes-impression

2 months ago

only been on tumblr for a few days and already it’s like “yeah this is where i go. this is my enclosure.”

Tags

shitpost non fandom lee’s musings

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bad-holmes-impression

1 month ago

that’s what i’ve been screaming

Like me personally I think we should allow Nuru to be fragile every once in a while because she’s literally just a girl. Not in the barely-disguised-misogyny way but in the was that she’s LITERALLY just a girl, she’s like sixteen, she’s a child, and she already spent her entire life cosplaying Atlas and having to be strong for her people, allowing her her emotions is not a terrible awful crime and it does not make her any less capable. If Varian and Hugo can be allowed their emotional complexities and hundreds of thousands of breakdowns and still be capable and ass-kicking then guess what, so does Nuru

Tags

she’s sixteen she’s sixteen sHE’S SIXTEEN she’s not the mom friend!! and when she is it’s because she doesn’t know how to be anything else!! but her arc is about letting GO of the things she can’t control!! 2 me! she doesn’t have to carry it all! she has varian and hugo and even yong in his own way! she didn’t get to be a kid! guys! let her be a kid! draw art of the group consoling her! please!! write comfort for her!

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bad-holmes-impression

1 month ago

WAIT DOES STAN HAVE A WIFE??

tangled the series fandom please tell me im not the only one who saw stan and pete and thought "oh yeah they smooched"

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bad-holmes-impression

2 months ago

If I was desperate for kudos I would not be out here posting villain ships, minor character rarepairs, and other deeply unpopular ships.

I know how to write popular fic. I know how to farm kudos. That's not what I'm here for.

"Readers need to remember that authors don't know a reader liked their fic unless the reader tells them by leaving a kudos or a comment" does not mean "waahhh waahhh I need attention!"

It means "even if writers write purely for themselves, if you don't bother to interact with writers when you do enjoy their work, they might stop posting and just keep their work to themselves."

"If you enjoy a work you should kudos or comment" is not aimed at the people who aren't reading the fanfiction in question.

"If you enjoy a work you should kudos or comment" is not aimed at the people who did not enjoy the fanfiction in question.

"If you enjoy a work you should kudos or comment" is aimed at people who read a fanfiction, enjoyed it, and then didn't bother to even do the bare minimum to share their excitement about it with the work's creator, even though that excitement is literally the only thing they get in return for posting their work.

Fanfiction authors write because they enjoy writing. They post because they want to form a connection with the people who enjoyed their work.

This is not an attempt to scold anyone, I literally don't care if I get kudos or not. It's simply an attempt to remind people that fanfiction is a community, and fan authors can't read your mind.

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