Muse: Chapter 3: On Transition

Is it beat, maybe, for the customer who thinks the barista doesn’t want to be wished a good or even nice day in the path of their week, at this place? With Room for Cream I never known about courtesy, everything gets flipped on its head. They don’t work too hard, it is hard but easy to tip these people, the jar is right there, but the grand total was two dollars, you put the money in the cash register, took out the muffin, poured some coffee. I added the cream, which you did ask me if I wanted, so that is customer service, but I feel better when Room for Cream seems surprised to be thanked.

All around, either the greatest subculture lie or a lie to what I thought was my own reality of normalcy and academia and life in general. A subculture of actual reality? I am here? In colors, not black, without patches. I eat the same food. Breathe the same air. Where else does it exist besides here? Subcultures, loosely used, because the aesthetic of the place, without knowing the history of the geography of the West Bank has members here who signal themselves through a distinctive and symbolic use of style; black boots, angry patches, fixed-gears. They also are extremely leery of people in colors, which includes my own sense of fashion, and mannerisms, but maybe they just don’t like me watching them, knowing they are being researched and thought of while they work.

The study of these people, normal people really, are visibly affected by the Look, on purpose by some, others live it, I don’t know. This is the main phenomenological problem I have with them, I realize it does not matter if I find out if some ARE, some TRY, some DON’T KNOW. But it bugs me, because I am here at “their” place, a distinction made without saying, perhaps falsely, and I am myself, a member of a disillusioned yet dominant system, seeking to understand and interpret these symbols of authenticity through the "primacy of perception." I am done with stage one, that was perceiving the world through a sole perspective-- I’m on to round two, philosophically perceiving things. Perception, for the first time, aware as my body begins to perceive the world. So I am torn between the images I see, the people I see and what they may or may not represent, and what my body, the third episodic character, is deciding about the way this place is. The body stands between this fundamental distinction between subject (i.e., perceiving a whole spectrum of this aesthetic present around me) and object, ambiguously existing as both. Perhaps. As I study-via-waiting the phenomena of the people, social construction is in action, a manic mind mixing day-old muffins with philosophy, I think not as they appear to "my" consciousness, but to any consciousness, so if I was not me, but watching this beat old place unfold, what would people think of me thinking about this thinking?