I'm late, as usual. I'm waiting for an F train on a rainy Tuesday evening, on my way to a weekly fellowship meeting. Walking impatiently back and forth on the platform, I stop when I notice one of Anaïs Nin's quotes inscribed in red on the granite wall. It reads, “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Before I have a moment to internalize the idea, the familiar wind of an oncoming train blows my hair messily into my face, and I scan the train's wagons for empty seats.

People push and shove their way in and out of the packed train. Flowing with the current of rush hour, I stumble in and sit down. The handsome young professional to my right is reading something for work, completely immune to noise. And the elderly woman to my left drops her head every few seconds, but tries her best not to fall asleep.

I am surrounded by roiling people who fight the train's momentum, holding on to poles, a germaphobe's worse nightmare. As they occasionally elbow each other, I marvel at the nonchalance that has come to justify our confinement to crowded steel tubes with excessive and unwelcome invasions of personal space. A nonchalance so desperately needed during routinized subway rides, that we've abolished prospects of interaction. Subway etiquette demands that we ignore each other while sharing the same crowded space, a regimen coined as “civil inattention" by sociologist Erving Goffman. That brief independent coexistence is an exercise of solitude, where we have no choice but to openly spy on each other.

Looking around, I spot a few classic subway characters. My intrepid phenomenology of people goes as far as to invent stories for each of them. Fresh Bouquet of Flowers really screwed up big this time (forgive my cynicism), and is hoping to make up for it with lilies for his lady. Sneakers and Pearls is proving that we really can just change into gym clothes after work and do some cardio. Fidgeting Unstoppably is late to a big interview, praying that the train would just hurry up.

But even in this nervous rush to be somewhere, there is an enchanting interlude to time itself. When those double doors close, it seems somehow that everything melts away, and someone else takes control. You sit or stand, rocking slowly with and against the train's rhythm. You sojourn away from rush hour, and into a sort of netherworld. You retreat into the privacy of your mind's mazes, where you think of nothing and of everything. The present becomes an illusion, fellow commuters become vague silhouettes, and time stands irreversibly still.

You wonder what this peculiar phenomenon of humanity is, in which people go to and from places, have things to do, and aim to live with purpose. How odd... You ask yourself questions to clean up the chaos. Where is everyone going? Why are they rushing? Are any of them happy? And all that people-watching that you can't resist, slowly mutates into accidental introspection. When you casually inspect the universe and the people around you, you are tempted to then inspect yourself.

Everything is spinning and ticking towards something… But where am I going? I peek at my watch, it's a quarter past seven. Some of these people stare into space, they look like robots escaping eight hours in the office, only to go home and start all over again tomorrow. What misery, I thought, to sit on this train every day to go do something you don't enjoy, with people you can't tolerate, only to pay rent for an apartment that won't ever be yours, all so that you can rush out the next morning and start again. How miserable. Is that how I'll end up? I reevaluate fundamental parts of my life, promising myself that I won't end up that way. Am I lying to myself?

I can't quite put my finger on exactly what part of a train ride jars the mind into motion, and sets it rolling up the steep slope of introspection. I don't know exactly, if it's the way that the train's gentle rocking calls us to the pleasures of our flesh, or how the strangers around you eventually become sort of familiar, or how the shared underground air teems with mystery and (maybe too many) possibilities. All I know is that once the train begins to race towards your destination, you are transported to a world within a world, where you are a collective of every experience you've had and every day you've lived. There, prismatic waves of memory whirl around you as you feel your gaze go blank. There, you feel that you've already felt everything you'll ever feel. There, the future loses all its charm.

Suddenly, a young girl with blonde braids passes in front of me, studying people's faces. I name her Joan. In their expressions, she reads anticipation and anxiety, wonder and exhaustion, curiosity and boredom. I admire her for a moment or two, hoping that she doesn't graduate from her sweet innocence too soon. And now I remember Anaïs Nin's idea, “we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Each of us carries our own hopes, worries, and doubts. We see things through our own kaleidoscopes and in our own colors. I imagine that Joan's kaleidoscope is colored with innocence and youth. Mine is colored with knowledge and ambition.

I decide with an inaudible sigh that our subjectivity is beautiful. I decide that it doesn't matter where everyone else is headed, or how they're leading their lives. I decide to settle into peace with myself. I decide that I don't want to live life wondering how to live life. That's when the double doors open.