Crossroads where every driver stopsFri, 25th Oct '02, 8:35 am::
Every time I take the GG bus to go from Cook to the Livingston campus, the bus drivers do a very curious thing. There's this open cross road, almost in the middle of nowhere, with a 4-way stop sign. Obviously, the drivers stop for a few seconds at this point, but I noticed that for some reason, as soon as they start crossing the road, they open the bus' doors for a few seconds, let a fresh gust of wind flow into the bus, and then close them after the bus has full crossed the road. Now I've noticed this almost every single time I've come to the Livingston lab in the morning. So I kept thinking why exactly do the drivers do this? Is it some superstitious belief ? I'm quite positive there's a graveyard somewhere nearby. Is it something scientific? Does opening the bus when the flow of the air current is perpendicular to the direction of the bus' velocity, reduce the effect of the friction coefficient of the air? Or is it something respectful? Had some student in the past met with an accident at that exact place and so all the driver's pay their homage to the student? I just could not figure out the mystery.
So this morning, I mustered up some courage and asked the bus driver: "Excuse me, can you tell me why every driver who crosses this intersection, always opens and closes the doors for just a few seconds?" The driver laughed and said, "Oh, the doors block our view of the oncoming traffic from the right, and so by opening them, we can check for any cars etc. heading towards us. Just a safety thing you know." I thought to myeslf, "No, I don't know! And thanks for killing all my mystery."
Yeah, so some mysteries should rather be left in the suspense without making any attempts to find the truth behind them. I think this law pretty much applies to everything. Secrets, ambiguity, mystery, curiousity... all relieve us of the mundanity of our daily lives, and keep things interesting. Not knowing everything is exciting, because it keeps us guessing. It's the same with people. It's more captivating to wonder why that girl in my economics class always leaves EXACTLY 20 minutes before the class ends and then comes back 3 minutes later, and tries to hastily write down what she just missed. It's pretty boring to find out that the only reason she leaves the class exactly at that time always, is to go outside in the parking lot, and put more money in the parking meter, because that's precisely the time the meter runs out.
Yeah, so learn to keep things interesting - have more secrets. Haha. Look who's talking! The guy whose whole entire life is out in the open for the whole world to read and mock. Hehe. Ahhhhhh the irony.