Finding Comfort in the Commonalities of Humanity

"How many people do you talk to on a regular basis? Is it time to expand your world a bit?" —Monica Wood, The Pocket Muse

Early Sunday mornings I pick up a copy of the New York Times before it sells out. After I return home and spread the newspaper across my kitchen table, the first section I flip to is the Metropolitan where I read the Metropolitan Diary column. The paper describes this column as “Reader tales from the city” and “a place for New Yorkers, past and present, to share odd fleeting memories,” although I’ve noticed the submissions aren’t only from residents but visitors as well.

Each tale offers a succinct glimpse into an interaction that made a lasting impression on the contributor. They reflect the simple things: a toll taker assisting a lost tourist; a stranger helping another cross the street; someone offering a spot in line; a driver stopping traffic while several people help a cyclist gather his spilled fruit; a cab driver going out of his way for his customer, toll free. Occasionally they expose an unkindly nature, but more often than not, they reveal the general goodwill common in humankind.

There's a lot I like about this column. The short stories have a familiar feel; they capture ordinary, everyday moments I can imagine myself in. Often they bring me a lot of joy, sometimes a touch of sadness. Now and then they make me pause when I remember having a similar experience. Almost always when I'm finished reading, I think to myself, I love that! Agnes Lee's accompanying black-and-white sketches inject even more enjoyment into the tales.

I had read that at one point the Times decided to stop including the Metropolitan Diary in its national edition, but they received so many reader complaints that they quickly brought it back. I think the nationwide interest in the column is pretty telling that we find great comfort in the commonalities of our humanity.

I have a tendency to see the people around me as very different from myself. I think of my successes, failures, and sufferings as unique and insulating. Reading the simple but powerful examples in the weekly column reminds me people aren't as different from me as I'd told myself. Fundamentally, we're very similar. We have the same needs and desires. We share similar fears, griefs, sorrows, hurts, letdowns. We hope to discover laughter and joy and kindness in our days. We gain satisfaction in supporting each other through our similar experiences.

Noticing more of the qualities we share in common with the people we meet and connect with is reassuring. It helps us recognize we're all going through some stuff, first impressions don't reveal the whole story, and we're not as isolated and insignificant (or maybe as superior!) in the world as we sometimes think. No matter where we live or where we're passing through, whether a metropolis or a hamlet, we're sharing in it with people who are, in fact, much like ourselves.

Each week before I recycle the newspaper, I cut out the Metropolitan Diary and file it away in a manilla folder with clippings from previous weeks. In a recent issue, a contributor to the column wrote, "This is New York." I think these stories reflect us all, wherever we are. If people can unite through their commonalities in a place as diverse as New York City, surely we can find comforting connections anywhere.