Obliviousness

In the course of my life I have noticed that most people walk around in a daze. They don't notice things that are directly under their noses. When I am "hiking" around (what others see as wandering aimlessly) I don't like to encounter other people. I have discovered it is a simple thing to avoid. Usually I don't use trails. Other times, if I am on a trail, I just get off the trail a couple of feet and sit there. People walk by, staring at the ground, and never see me.

Even their dogs are usually just as oblivious. I once startled a dog by simply saying "hi, boy" as it trotted past; nose to the ground. The dog almost wet itself before running back to the safety of its people.

Another time I was sitting beside a well-used trail in a park; "Cooper Ranch" just outside Gunnison, Colorado. There was a stump inhabited by a mother chipmunk and her babies, so I sat down beside it to watch. The babies were ignoring their mother's protests and crawling on me.

Suddenly they all darted back into the stump as a person approached. As she walked past I said "Hi". The woman yelped and jumped in the air. She said "I thought you were a statue!" (Why there would be a full-color statue of a guy in buckskin clothes reclining against a tree alongside the trail, I don't know). I knew the truth. She was staring at the ground just beyond her toes and missing the world.

I suspect that most people are doing the same thing politically. They are oblivious to what is going on around them. Unless they personally become caught up in some government abuse of power, they don't know, or care, that it is happening. They don't wish to be made aware of it either. It disturbs their quiet, simple little world. Besides, if they noticed, they might feel guilty for not "doing something" about it, or for being a cog in the gears of tyranny. In moments of extreme frustration I have, in the past, referred to such people as "oblividiots". I am usually nicer now.