This is very reminiscent of David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water" — "...you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you want to consider."

I remember when I got my first real job in the city, working in a bar until 4 in the morning, having to wait around until the first train at 5:40am, then take a 50-minute and very sleepy train ride out to the suburbs, setting an alarm to make sure I was still awake before my station, and then the 10-minute bus ride home or an hour-long walk if I got back and the busses weren't running or I didn't have money for the bus ticket, which was separate from those for the trains.

It was difficult, but I knew it could have been much worse — it had been.

And with every incremental improvement in that situation — moving closer into the city, getting a bike, getting a car — I made sure to remind myself of the inconveniences I had lost, and to remember that whatever petty inconveniences I may have found in my new day-to-day, things could always have been much worse.

Thanks for the musing essay — these are the kind of insights that can change who we are as we stand there waiting for the train, chancing upon some small hint of enlightenment as we realise our own perspective is just one of billions, and that we're all on the same crowded, sweaty, inconvenient train.