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by sonnym 4405 days ago
The beginning of your story reminded me of the wonderful commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005 [1]. It is very easy to well up with rage, but it is significantly more difficult to understand the context of another's actions. Sometimes I have to stop and tell myself "This is water" and try to put myself in the shoes of the stranger who has enraged me. I do applaud your stopping to help, and I find it unfortunate the experience was not more rewarding.

1. http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf

1 comments

Actually, it was very rewarding, which surprised me immensely. I'm not too surprised she didn't thank me - as k-mcgrady says, she was busy with the police by that time. But equally, we shouldn't be that surprised that people are preoccupied with their own problems and so don't stop to help us.