Thursday, December 4, 2008

pedestrian drift

When I was a sophomore in college I began seeing the number 222 with an alarming frequency. A car would cut me off and 222 would be part of the license plate; I'd glance down at the odometer and it would be rolling over to 222; I'd look in the mirror at my clock radio and would see "22:2" when it was really 5:55 in the afternoon; I'd randomly open a book to page 222; I'd buy something and my change would be $2.22, etc. At 2:22pm on February 2, 1983 I was in the first group of people allowed on the observation deck of the University of Texas tower since August 1, 1966. I even made a phone-friend in California by dialing random 1-800 numbers that began with 222 until someone answered and agreed to have a conversation with me (a story worthy of its own blog, by the way). There are many other equally freaky examples. This 222 thing went on and on and I began to obsess about it, wondering what it meant, trying to glean meaning from each occurance, knowing deep down that it meant nothing but wishing that it did.

My friend, Karl, who at that time was an even bigger skeptic than I was, said it was simply a case of specific sensitivity. He concluded that I saw all three-digit numbers with the same randomness but I noticed 222 more because I was tuned in to it and was looking for it because, hey, let's face it, it was a cool story to tell chicks. He was probably right. Just like he was right to poke fun at our other roommate, Al's, dabbling with tarot cards. Al had a voice like Damone in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and was the only Chinese rockabilly devotee I've ever met. He enjoyed giving people tarot 'readings' and would explain each card's significance in his nasally drawling monotone. Karl, not one to sit idly by while someone else had their fate divined based on a few fancy cards, once drew a plan view diagram of a freshly delivered Domino's pizza and labeled the various bits of cheese and slices of pepperoni with their respective social and destiny significances. He claimed it was just as valid a fortune-telling method, although admittedly not quite as well known.

Karl's days of skepticism are over but mine aren't. I prefer to give scientific explanations and good old-fashioned coincidence credit over ghosts, fate, luck, and divine intervention. However, I recognize man's limitations in understanding the inner workings of the universe and I'm truly open to evidence of what one might call The Supernatural (quantum mechanics aside). So far, the closest I've come to seeing something that consistently defies the known laws of nature is Pedestrian Drift.

Pedestrian Drift, simply stated, is:

The tendency of those being overtaken to drift into the path of the overtaker.

This only applies to those unaware of their about-to-be-overtaken status - people who see you coming and get in your way are just assholes. The mode of locomotion of both the overtaker and the overtaken doesn't matter either; Pedestrian Drift will occur if one is walking, jogging, biking, skateboarding, being pushed in a stroller or wheelchair, or zipping along on a Rascal. This mysterious and very real Force of Nature affects all - the quick and the slow, the smart and the stupid, the old, the young, and the restless.

Here's a typical example: Let's say you're walking down the sidewalk. You're in a bit of a hurry because you're heading to lunch and you're friggin' starving, man! Ahead of you is a group of, say, German tourists ambling along in the same direction, marveling at the topiary dinosaurs and the homeless guy that belts out the opening bars of DAY-O constantly. As you approach them from behind you see a bigger gap on the right and make for it, only to find the rightmost German suddenly angling out and cutting you off for no apparent reason. "Goddamn Germans!" you say to yourself. Wrong! Blame the First Law of Pedestrian Drift:

1. The path of the overtaker causes the drift of the overtaken.

Another example: Just the other night I was dropping off some movies at Blockbuster because I'm too stupid to get on the Netflix bandwagon. I parked around back, dropped the movies in the slot, and was walking back to my car, my mind a completely blank and numb void which is typical these days. I neared the corner of the building and got two steps into my turn into the parking lot when I heard, "Excuse me!" from the girl on the bike I had just Pedestrian Drifted into the wall. "Goddamn doddering old people!" she thought as she rode away.

She was wrong to blame my doddering oldness; I had a perfectly legitimate reason for altering my path. She was simply a victim of the Second Law of Pedestrian Drift:

2. The path of the overtaken causes the path of the overtaker.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "Holy crap! I'm doomed to a lifetime of running into the slow-ass people ahead of me!" Not true! There is something you can do about it. It's a technique called "slinging" but it takes some practice. It's a bit like a head fake in basketball but involves much more mental control. Here's how it works: initiate your path around the person you're overtaking truly believing that's the direction you'll go, then suddenly change your mind and go the other way around. Their drift will be inexorably started in the first direction and voila! you're on your merry way. The key is committing to that first path choice - Pedestrian Drift can tell when you're faking it.

Some of you may say, "Eureka! Finally a cogent and concise explanation of a phenomena I've been subconsciously aware of my entire life!" Others may say, "Pure and utter horseshit!" Regardless, Pedestrian Drift is, no doubt, something you'll probably start to notice a lot more now - now that you're tuned in to it and are looking for it.

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5 comments:

  1. Stuart,

    Very interesting, but I still don't get it. I'll start watching for what you seem to be describing but I either have never noticed it or I don't understand what you wrote.

    I recently did a little research (if you call spending 15 minutes to read on the Internet "research") into the origins and meaning of the word "Cynic" and "Cynicism." I was rather surprised and a little dumbfounded by it. The "Cynics" were followers of a Greek philosopher who believed that nobody should own anything and everybody should simply love each other. Of course, they didn't "simply love each other" they only loved those that agreed with them. And as a result, they spoke poorly of everyone else and everything everyone else did. So far....so good, a Cynic was somebody that basically spoke poorly of everyone else that wasn't like them. Then comes the convicting part, the Cynics never produced anything or contributed in anyway to society. They were the worst sort of leech on society as they willfully chose not to contribute but only to consume. So, I began to realize that this could easily still be a true dichotomy today. Someone choosing to act in a cynical manner might still in that instance be someone that is not contributing. Made me want to rid myself of cynicism.

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  2. I don't know, I suspect you have above-normal long-range navigational abilities. As a result you are planning your course of action at the same time the person in front of you (using his/her normal long-range navigational ability) is making their own course corrections. It is painfully obvious that the natural navigational course is the direction that you are looking. So it make sense that if people look back to see you coming they would move in the direction they chose to look over their shoulder.

    But, hey, I don't live in LA

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  3. Once I was out with my running buddy doing a 10+ mile run around the monuments in DC. There were so many "TEAM IN TRAINING" people out in one area that we switched over to the grass as we blew past them all. Several of the women made remarks about our speed, an ego booster, almost as big as the time my wife laughed at me when I referred to myself as being a "slow runner."

    PS I had to stop my run yesterday at mile 5.3 to wait for my wife to catch up to me....on her bicycle. She was so exhausted from her 6.3 mile bike ride (accompanying me on my 6.3 mile run) that she sat around in a daze the rest of the day.

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  4. That's interesting about the Cynics. I never knew that. I'm now motivated to do some "research" on the Skeptics, if there was such a group.

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  5. WOW. The pedestrian drift is brilliant...and TRUE! Well done.

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